Seeking Salvation in a Naturalistic Universe: Richard Wright’s Use of His Southern Religious Background in Black Boy (American Hunger)

Abstract

James Coleman’s recent study of African American fiction, Faithful Vision, laments the fact that even though “religious and biblical traditions that engender faith are arguably the most important cultural feature to African Americans,” the critical response to black literature, ironically, reflects very little of this because “the critics who write about black novels seldom deal with religious and biblical traditions in fiction” (1). This is particularly true of the way Richard Wright’s work has been studied over the years. Surprisingly little has been written about his religious background because most scholars have assumed that his childhood exposure to fundamentalist Protestantism was so painful and extreme that he simply recoiled from religion of any kind and developed a vision of life that was essentially secular. Even Coleman argues that Wright categorically rejected black religion, forcing him to envision “a hollow, hopeless and desolate universe” (203).¹

The religious spirit always endures. Up to now man has always been a religious animal and secular art is a sublimation of the religious feeling.

—Richard Wright (qtd. in Kinnamon and Fabre 210)