Richard Wright's view about religion (according to the book, Black Boy) - Essay Example

In an effort to ascertain Wright’s overarching perspective on religion, this essay considers the development of Wright’s views on religion throughout his autobiography. Wright’s first confrontation with religion comes as a direct consequence of his going to live with his grandmother after leaving the orphanage. Up until this point Wright has made no attempt to gain overt sympathy from the reader, and indicates a number of uncouth actions that he participated in as a youth, including frequent cursing.

Upon moving in with his grandmother the reader witnesses the confrontation of these two cultural perspectives. It is no surprise then that Wright’s early views of religion are an oppressive and overly restrictive oppressive system. Even as Wright enjoys the rural environment that surrounds his grandmother’s home, he openly rejects the restrictive internal environment. While one of the initial restrictions that Wright objects to occurs in regards to his grandmother’s belief that the only thing that should be read is the Bible, perhaps Wright’s first-outward objection to the religious restrictions is through the symbolic utterance of a curse word while he was taking a bath.

Throughout the novel there are a series of such restrictions that function to characterize religion as an oppressive belief system, further articulating Wright’s views on the subject. For instance, Richard is unable to work on Saturdays because his grandmother so strictly follows religious principles; similarly, he is forced to become baptized in chapter 6 – after which Richard tells the others that were baptized that he feels no different after the ceremony. At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had . . .

a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering. At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to