Character Analysis of Silas in Richard Wright's Long Black Song - Book Report/Review Example

Silas is depressed and feels like his world has eventually come to an end. This strong feeling of guilt is brought about by the fact that Silas had engaged a white man in a fight and eventually killed him. The culpability literally wears him down. From this, his apologetic nature is depicted. One character that Silas portrays is that he is pretentious. Silas is not realistic; these are strange times. The two races are at war and are killing one another. In these times, the whites do not see eye to eye with the black.

This is an occurrence that makes the relationship between the member's same race develop very close ties. The blacks love fellow black and come together to share a common hatred for the whites. The same is the case with the whites who detest the blacks. The whites mistreat the blacks. They trample on their rights, exploit them, and even sexually abuse the black women. These are developments that conjure up strong hatred among the blacks and also bring them together in the common hatred they share (Baker 99).

However, Silas depicts a trait that is not very rational. He hates his own race and other blacks too. He does not like black company and in the little times he interacts with the blacks, he treats them as though he were a white. This is not very realistic since it is as though Silas hates himself which can only be explained by the confusion on his identity. The whites do not like him; they consider him a black just like any other; worthless individuals who are not fit to live in American society.

This leaves Silas in a very precarious position; he can neither turn to his fellow blacks because he hates them nor turns to the whites because they hate him. This hatred leads to a conflict between him and a white man. They fight and eventually the inevitable happens, Silas kills him. He does not apologize to anybody in particular but the weight of the sin is deep within him. He stops doing all the things he had previously enjoyed and is at the brink of suffering depression. Killing a person in the right state of mind is not an easy activity that one would easily walk out of.

Silas is a spiritual man who believes in the existence of God. He conforms to the belief that He is the giver of life and thus reserves the right to take it too. The conflict between the whites and the blacks has been on for quite some time and there are reported deaths. However, Silas had never taken part in these and he steers clear of trouble with both his black colleagues and their white counterparts. Even in the fight, he is very cautious and did not wish that it became fatal. Unfortunately, it did and the guilt weighs very heavily on his conscience.

He thus apologizes to himself and God. This is a response attributable to a person of sane mind. The fact that Silas is very troubled from the death of the white man is a pointer to him being morally and ethically upright. He may have been confused by failing to love his black colleagues at a time that the whites could not have loved him. However, no matter the times, man has always been entitled to the right of choice. He made him and tried as much as possible to live by them. Later in the story, Silas is heard proclaiming that he truly never wanted to be the way the society was compelling him to be.

He does not want to hate the whites just because of their skin color but the oppression, hatred, and animosity that they show blacks compels him to.