ENGL 291: The American Novel Since 1945
Lecture 02 - Richard Wright, Black Boy. Professor Amy Hungerford continues her discussion of Richard Wright's classic American autobiography, Black Boy. Through a close analysis of key passages, she demonstrates an oscillation in the narrative between the socioeconomic deprivations and racial jeopardy confronting its characters, and the compensations to be found in sensual experience, the imagination, and in particular, the power of words. Dramatizing the editorial struggle evident in letters between Wright and Book-of-the-Month-Club-President Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Professor Hungerford shows the high stakes of Wright's uncompromising portrait of America's failed ideals at a time when those ideals are being tested during the Second World War. (from oyc.yale.edu)
| Lecture 02 - Richard Wright, Black Boy |
| Time | Lecture Chapters |
| [00:00:00] | 1. Classifying the Literary Object: Fiction and Autobiography |
| [00:06:06] | 2. Choices in the Construction of an Autobiography: A Close Reading of the First Scene |
| [00:11:26] | 3. Decoding Meaning in Wright's Descriptive "Catalogs" |
| [00:16:58] | 4. Powerlessness and Exertions of Agency |
| [00:28:00] | 5. Language and Power: The Voices of the Author |
| [00:38:36] | 6. The Fisher-Wright Letters: Author vs. Audience, How Outside Forces Shape the Formation ... of a Personal Account |
| References |
| Lecture 2 - Richard Wright, Black Boy Instructor: Professor Amy Hungerford. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov]. |
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