Reflection on Black Boy Essay

After reading the novel Black Boy, I learned about Richards experiences and development as a person. This challenged me to learn of my own personal development and experiences in life. I have found that the contrast between my personality and my parents personality ultimately result in congeniality with a short fuse.

Many of my traits can easily be compared with those of my parents. An example of one of those traits is an extroverted personality. Like my dad I would be considered outgoing. However, my dad is outgoing anywhere and everywhere he goes and I am not. For instance my dad will talk to anyone as if he knows them. For example, if we are out eating he will talk to the waiter, and if were at a bank he will talk to the banker. It does not matter to him it could be anyone from the plumber, to the policeman, to the mailman; all are his partner for that moment in time. However, the only situation that I can honestly say that I have spoken to a complete stranger as if I knew them is when I am accompanied by a friend. Otherwise, I may even appear shy to strangers. I would consider the comparison of my extroverted personality and my dads extroverted personality an example of a congenial contrast. I believe this because me and my dad having extroverted personality hasnt made anyone angry yet it has only brought more laughter to my home and in my dads case out side of my home. Therefore, this is a trait comparison resulting in a congenial environment.

For every congenial trait you have there is one that is not so congenial, therefore, my next example is about paying attention and listening before responding. Although you may think that I am going to speak of how I have difficulty listening to people resulting in me hogging the conversation, however, that is the exact opposite of what I am going to do in this paragraph. This trait surprisingly or unsurprisingly causes strife and conflict in my home specifically with my parents. Even though I believe that my parents to possess this quality when they are not around me, when they are around me they are not insightful and understanding a great percentage of the time. For example if I or one of my siblings were to simply ask if we could see a movie with a friend and they were to say no and we were to ask why the answer would simply be, because I said so. Because of this quality I do not understand why I have not gotten an honest response of why I can not go so I ask why again until they finally get so angry that there is no peace and all tranquility is replaced with udder chaos. I would have listened to the question and respond accordingly and most importantly support my response accordingly as well. The difference of traits between me and my parents, or lack there of, frequently causes chaos in the house. Whenever I ask for the reason behind their response both me and my parents get angry. I get angry because I feel they do not really have a reason, and they get angry because I continue to ask. Therefore, my intuition to listen and respond with support vs. my parents almost dictator ways of listening and responding with support certainly cause disarray in my home.

My last trait contrast is my perfectionism. I also get this trait from my dad. I fell that my perfectionism was developed over time from simply being in my dads presence. I was crowned with this quality, a quality that can make me successful and those surrounding me miserable, angry, and impatient. (6) I know it was from my dad whenever we fail to be on time it results in immediate anger, embarrassment and strife. (1) Because of the quality given to me by my dad I had trouble with group projects at school. (3) I instinctively began to tell my partners not only what to do but when to do it but never how to do it. (7) Now that I know that I am a perfectionist, which came from my dad, I believe that it is overall a good quality. Being a perfectionist only causes conflict when there is more than one perfectionist in a setting. Therefore I would consider being a perfectionist a trait that is congenial.

In conclusion, the novel Black Boy challenged me to learn of my own development and experiences. In my inner quest to find what I read about in Black Boy I found that my personality traits mixed with those of my parents results in congeniality with a short fuse in my environment.