Jim Crow Law the Thematic

Jim Crow Law

The Thematic Use of Glass in "The Ethics of Living

Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch"

Richard Wright's essay documents his experiences as a Negro during a phase in American history in which skin color could constitute a crime. The essay depicts Wright's development as a boy against the backdrop of segregation and injustice at the hands of white people. Throughout the work glass in various forms is used as a symbol of perceived oppression and supremacy in the white population. This is an element that recurs throughout Wright's life as a young boy, and as he grows into manhood.

The first appearance of glass occurs in Part 1 of the essay, where the young Negro boys fight white boys with their usual ammunition of cinders collected from the surrounding environment. The white boys' weapons are however superior

As usual we laid down our cinder barrage, thinking that this would wipe the white boys out. But they replied with a steady bombardment of broken bottles." (1).

This is symbolic not only of the supremacy that the young boy perceives in the way things are done by white people, but also of the oppression and injustice he and his fellow Negroes suffer at their hands. The injustice occurs not only because the white boys use the bottles instead of weapons that are at the same level as the cinders, but also in the reaction of the boy's mother. She appears to have a fundamental understanding of the segregation and the practices that go with it. She and her peers share the perception that there is nothing that can be done about white supremacy and beats this knowledge brutally into her son:

Didn't I know she was working hard every day in the hot kitchens of the white folks to make money to take care of me?" (Part 1).

Glass appears again as Wright grows up and is hired by an optical company at the end of Part 1. Here the survival skill that his mother taught him - never to fight with white people, comes in handy. When his white coworkers, who seemed friendly at first, suddenly turn hostile when Wright attempts to learn from them, the Negro runs rather than fights. The optical business and the element of glass here appear once again to depict the domain of whites as superior to what a black person is expected to know and learn.

In Part 3 of the essay, glass appears again in the form of a weapon in the hands of white people. The narrator is hit with an empty whisky bottle by drunk white men who at first appear helpful. Here the element of glass once again depicts injustice and cruelty, as well as the helplessness experienced by the victims. Wright once again submits to the humiliating cruelty of white people.