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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Wright's style in Black Boy is typically clipped and aphoristic, using short, declarative sentences. Wright writes like a journalist, depicting physical interactions and dialogue exactly and practically. Wright relies on simple, straightforward metaphors and similes. These often use light, color, and physical weight to depict emotional reactions, relying on abstraction occasionally to depict Richard's deepest emotions. But in general, the memoir lacks much figurative language, and instead allows the violence and suffering in his life to speak for itself.
The style also changes and adapts with Richard's own development over the course of the book. This is a meta-textual depiction of an important theme in the memoir: Richard is desperate throughout Part I for literature of any kind, and as he slowly starts to be able to read more, the style of the memoir becomes more elegant and erudite as a result. In Part I, when Wright's understanding of the world is still underdeveloped, the prose is simpler and without ornament, reflecting young Richard's particularly naive worldview. When he was young, Richard often took things literally, and this literal imagination of the world is reflected in simple prose. As Richard reads more and understands more of the world, the text uses more figurative language to reflect this change. In Part II, Richard uses puns and quick turns of phrase: as a grown man he has developed a sense of humor, a sense for the language, and a more cynical worldview, all of which causes the style to turn from fairly bland statements to more tricky and thoughtful language.
Related Themes:
