Critical Analysis: “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”

Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” is the story of Dave Saunders, a young man’s struggle with life and death; and good and evil. The good is his desire to have a positive life and become a man and the evil is the challenge of having to overcome all the negative factors in life; his family and society. Dave is a seventeen-year-old young man who wants the world to recognize …

…of progressive steps. The past is sometimes difficult to overcome, and it does not always fade away. Sometimes the past has to die, or be killed before the future can be born. This was Dave’s experience. A teacher of mine once had a poster, which read, “The truth will make you free. But first it will make you miserable.” Dave had to kill a mule so that he would not forever be one himself.