Joe's injury

Joe is reportedly completely injured from head to... well torso. He has lost his face (including eyes, mouth, nose, and ears), his arms, and his legs. This not only heavily affect his physical being, but also his mental being. How can you even consider yourself to be alive if you can talk, move, or communicate with any person. This is one of the thoughts that plagues Joe's mind throughout the first part of the book as he progresses along and tries to live with his injuries.

Please put your books in the upright position

Dr. Wade Horn makes an interesting metaphor when he says compares a 'regular family' to a single parent family through using airplanes. He talks about how a more traditional family will have a higher success rate for the children of the family compared to a single parent family. But he also goes onto state that there are children in single parent families that go on to lead very successful lives, but when given the choice between the two most people would more likely than not choose two parents over one any day. It's pretty interesting how Horn chooses to use airplanes to make his point. I guess it kind of makes sense in the way that raise a child is a journey through body and spirit as the kid grows up. It's almost as if the parent(s) are kind of tossing them up to fate.

Old man

The Old Man With a Guitar is probably my favorite painting. It was painted by Pablo Picasso during his blue period and features what else besides and old man with a guitar. To me it symbolizes many things. Its about the strain of life and how sometimes the only thing that you have to clench onto is your art, whether iits painting, writing, or your music. When things get bad, the only thing you can do is turn inward to what you love and rely on. It's the only way to keep your sanity and make sense of what you can't possibly understand.

artists and politicians

I actually don't agree with the idea that wright brings up in the novel Black Boy. In this novel he holds the idea that artists and politicians stand at opposite poles. While it is true that artists use their emotions to create and politicians use logic and limit emotion when making big decisions, that still doesn't mean that they are opposites. Both politicians and artists alike use rhetoric in whatever it is they do. Whether that be trying to pursuade people to side with your decisions for the country, city, or whatever area you have power in, or if you are an artist trying to prove a points through your own special means of doing so. They both are still people, and while artist tend to strike against the government, the core that they live by and use to get through life is still the same no matter how you look at it. That's why I disagree with what Wright says in chapter 19.

Justification for stealing

Richard Wright steals for money during his job that he got a the hotel. He states many reasons for doing this such as his will to move from the South to the North for his own safety. I feel that Wright does give many good reasons that justify his actions, I understand that anyone in his position, even I, would do the things that he does in order to get the money to leave. There is still something though that keeps me from siding with full justification of his actions as a good thing. I guess I just can't condone of someone stealing no matter what the situation.

The meaning behind Griggs

"Learn to live in the south." That is part of what Griggs said to Richard in the novel Black Boy. Richard was obviously not going to be able to do that. It wasn't in his nature. Learning to live in the South in the time of Black Boy means lying down and accepting the stereotypes that are put towards black men in those days. There is no way that Richard could lie down and take that. Richard rebellious-like spirit wouldn't let him ever do that. He is the type of person that couldn't take being step on.

Richard Right

Richard Wright has all right to refuse to perform the speech that was written for him by the principal. Even if the principal has only good intentions in mind, Richard deserved to say the speech which he written especially for this day. Since he was the one picked to perform the speech at graduation. Even if it's bad, Richard has the right to perform his speech. I couldn't understand working for hours on a speech that means a lot to me, just to have somebody tell me I can't do it because they're afraid that I'll say something that could be 'wrong' or offensive. I know I wouldn't stand for this at all. There is no way I would let anybody do it to me. That's Why I feel that Richard was justified in refusing to perform the speech written by the principal in exchange to perform the speech he wrote.