Motifs: Violence and Education As Richard’s life progresses, he uses violence to gain social power, and advances himself in his education. As Richard endures his life, he uses violence to gain social power. Richard has to pick fights in order to gain power. When Richard goes to a new school, a boy picks a fight with him by making fun of his appearance. If Richard didn’t fight now, he would have “failed at school” (Wright 91). On his way home from school, he finds a ring on the ground, and takes out the stone, to use it as a weapon (Wright 92). The fact that Richard finds a ring to use it as a weapon demonstrates that he will fight with anyone, if they approach him the wrong way. In comparison, when Richard begins going to Jim …show more content…
Because Richard has a very abrupt education, he has to go to the fifth grade. However, Richard completes the fifth grade, and gets promoted to sixth grade, within two weeks (Wright 125). Richard genuinely enjoys learning, and shows he is willing to work hard to get a well-developed education. This also leads Richard to believe that he can achieve anything; this gives him hope. Richard is also the only literate one in his family. This not only shows how he is educated, but it separates him from his race, and empowers him. Additionally, Richard has a love for literature. He writes a story about an Indian girl, although it was not very good. He shows this story to his neighbor, she stared at him, baffled. However, instead of Richard feeling upset about it, he feels enlightened. He even states, “Her inability to grasp what I had done or what was trying to do somehow gratified me” (Wright 120-121). This separates Richard, yet again, from his race. He was able to write a story that an older woman could not comprehend what was going on. Richard’s education separates him from his race, because he is capable of doing things that the black community