The little train that almost could but couldnt

Richard Wrights, a man who was almost a man was, to me, just displeasing. First off the title the man who was almost a man it is basically contradicting it’s self…like the little train who thought he could but could not. I suppose one of the reasons why I did not care too much for this story was because I grew up being taught ‘not to write how you speak’. I get the purpose of him writing the story this way though. His dialect. Placing the reader in the narrator and characters mind. Showing their lack of education. Another minor issue I have been having with Richard Wright since the midterm is that I forget which right is right…write/wright. It gets confusing.

I have read other stories by Richard Wright that I did enjoy more than a man who was almost a man. Though Native Son is not exactly southern gothic. It’s more of a suburban thug/ caught in the wrong place at the wrong time type of story.

Richard Wright and Ernest Gains are similar writers. Activists of a sort for African Americans. Telling their stories, their purpose, showing their liveliness in the world. Ernest Gains grew up in Louisiana, got an education, moved away to further his education, and then moved back to Louisiana to try to preserve the land he was raised on. He believed that everyone had a story and he was going to tell it.

A man who was almost a man was kind of like desiree’s baby in a short, cut off, lengthy way. Both stories set up the plot and then it ends without any explanation. I can understand needing a stopping point in the story but what exactly made him a man and what did not? He thought he was old enough to be a man. In class we pointed out that he was well old enough to be considered a man. So he killed a donkey on accident, was humiliated in front of everyone by his boss and parents, and ran away. Left to question if he really did jump on a train or not. Where will he end up and what will happen for him in the future. Or is the train a metaphor for suicide, as suggested by a classmate. I do not think it is. I feel like if he killed himself Wright would have been a little more forth putting.

Call me a softy but for a southern gothic story it kind of jerks my heart in a sad and pitied way. I feel sorry for the character and want to know what happened to him after he jumped on the train. Clearly he is a softy like I am, and all he has is a gun. Will he be able to find a home and create a new life or has the author created a future felon, forced to steal to survive.

Tisk tisk Richard Wright. At least we can assume in Desiree’s baby the mother got depressed and continued to love and raise her son even if her own true love banished her.