Race in Faulkner & Wright Term Paper

The fact that he is black in no way detracts from Faulkner's message about racism and social control. For example, Faulkner hints that Nancy may have been raped by a white man; her skin color renders her subhuman in the eyes of many white southerners. To Jubah, his masculinity is called into question on two accounts: he must assert himself not only as a man, but as a black man whose wife had been violated by whites. Jubah's violent and aggressive persona corresponds with Dave's. Dave, like Jubah, are powerhouses of male potency, pushed to the boiling point out of a sense of powerlessness and anger. Wright directly alludes to the potential of male aggression because the mule Dave shoots is named Jenny. When Jenny bleeds from the gunshot wound, Wright describes the "hole" and the "blood" using overtly female symbols. Dave never alludes to having sex with women, however. Possibly a virgin, his inexperience with sex is like his inexperience with guns. Dave's false sense of bravado: "If anybody could shoot a gun, he could," underscore his immaturity and his erroneous association between manhood and the power to kill. Dave views the gun as a phallus: "he held it loosely, feeling a sense of power... nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him. It was a big gun, with a long barrel and a heavy handle."

Furthermore, Dave reacts as a coward would, running away from his responsibilities and failing to address his parents after his error. When Quentin, Caddy, and Nancy discuss fear and cowardice in "That Evening Sun Go Down," they have more immediate life-threatening concerns than Dave's.Wright's vernacular is more intense, more central to the story and to the author's style than Faulkners. For example, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" begins with Dave mulling about his impetus to buy a gun: "Shucks, Ah ain scareda them even ef they are biggem me!" In "That Evening Sun," the Southern drawl is less poignant but enough to remind the reader of the importance of setting in determining social realities: "We had fun that night I stayed in yawls' room...You get a-holt of yourself."

Faulkner writes about the perils of racism as an outsider with white privilege, whereas Wright writes as someone with first-hand perspective on race relations in pre-Civil Rights-era America. Illustrating Faulkner's self-consciousness, his protagonist is a white boy who senses the imbalances in the social structures around him. Characters make comments that can only be described as racial slurs, utter stereotypes, and make prejudicial remarks like "you'd be scairder than a nigger." Wright's commentary is less pronounced, more subtle. Jim Hawkins' lack of compassion for the boy, his snarling, patronizing tone of voice, and the humiliating laughter of the other whites in town humiliate Dave and motivate him to get out of town to "somewhere where he could be a man..."

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. "That Evening Sun Go Down." Retrieved Aug 1, 2006 at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/faulkner.html

Wright, Richard. "The Man Who Was Almost A Man." Retrieved Aug 1, 2006 at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR2/wright.htm.....