ESSAY CEMETERY

Themes ·        Black prejudice against blacks ·        White prejudice against blacks ·        Violence white against black ·        Lying to whites to avoid punishment ·        Altering behavior to whites to avoid punishment ·        Masking feelings and emotions to avoid punishment ·        Pretending to have no interest in learning ·        Whites against blacks exhibiting white behaviors ·        Blacks should not show knowledge or assertion Style and Devices ·        Reported speech that mimics black people's ·        Difference between the speech of blacks and whites People and Places ·        Arkansas ·        Mississippi ·        Richard ·        Richard's mother ·        Morrie ·        Pease ·        Jackson ·        Memphis Keywords ·        Jim Crow ·        Nigger ·        Prostitute ·        Maid ·        Hotel ·        Bell boy ·        Hall boy ·        Elevator Richard Wright

1 Young Richard's and the other black families lived behind the railroad tracks in Arkansas, their yards strewn with cinders. One day his gang got into a fight with white kids, who used broken bottles instead of cinders for the fight. Richard was injured, and instead of consoling him his mother admonishes him for fighting white boys and beats him until he is sick with fever. From that time on the lawns and trees become a symbol of white people, then a symbol of fear. They move to a different house in Mississippi, far from a black neighborhood. Richard gets his first job at an optical company. He is careful to be polite to the white men around him. When he carefully asks if they would teach him some of the trade like they had said they would, they become colder to Richard. Finally they bully him into leaving, accusing him of rudeness to them. 2 His second job is a porter at a clothing store. Richard's white boss and his son beat and rape a black woman for not