"Uncle Tom's Revolutionaries", A look at Richard Wright's "Uncle Tom's Children" and the author's Communist agenda.

Essay by toolarmyUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, November 2002

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Uncle Tom's Revolutionaries

Throughout the novel Uncle Tom's Children, Richard Wright clearly lays out his communist agenda and basically gives blacks an instruction manual on how to achieve their freedom through Communism. Wright systematically plays on southern blacks' concerns and religious values to sway them to communism. He uses clever methods to attempt to change such a large and varied group's way of thinking.

"Long Black Song" is the first story in Uncle Tom's Children where a black person really stands up for himself against white men and gets something (no matter how insignificant) accomplished in doing so. Silas, the protagonist, finds that his wife Sarah has slept with a white man, so Silas killed him well aware of the consequences of doing such a thing. Throughout the story, Silas expresses his pride in having his own farm that no man can touch. In the end, when the white men come to lynch Silas, he chooses to go down with his property.

He screams at Sarah, "Ahm gonna be hard like they is...When they come fer me Ahm gonna be here!" (Wright, 125). This is symbolic in that Silas' property represents his accomplishments and integrity, and he would rather die with it than give into white men and eventually die alone anyway. Silas stands with his cause no matter what the cost - the ideal revolutionary.

In "Fire And Cloud," Wright really starts to emphasize Communism as a way for black Americans to escape persecution and discrimination. Reverend Taylor meets with representatives of the communist party - Hadley, a white man, and Green, a black man. This is the first time in the novel that white and black men are united for a common cause (Wright would have the reader believe that in the Communist party there are no...