The Fight

In Richard Wright's "The Fight", a boy (the narrator) starts a new school. He is worried about what social challenges he will face. To be specific, he's worried about how good the boys were as fighters and how tough they were. In the book, the narrator says, "My anxiety was still in me; I was wondering how I would get on with the boys". This showed that he was anxiously anticipating his day. He knew of what was to come. The narrator also says, "This was my test. If I failed now, I would have failed at school, for the first trial came not in books but in how one's fellows took one, what value they placed upon one's willingness to fight." This shows that he knew that in order for him to earn his place in a school setting, among boys in particular, he would have to fight and win. To him, status was measured with how good of a fighter you were, not how smart you were or how well you did in school. During recess, the narrator was approached by a group of boys. They began to pick a fight with him by asking him where he's from and making smart comments about how ugly the people from his hometown were, including him. When the boys approached him, the narrator appeared calm and nonchalant but underneath that tough exterior beat the heart of a nervous child. I feel that it was appropriet of the narrator to act this way. When faced with a situation like this, you want to remain calm or at least seem that way. If you show signs of weakness this often allows your opponent to use that weakness against you if they know how. Also, if you remain calm it allows you to think and calculate your next move. If given the situation I honestly would have reacted the same way. I could have been scared like crazy but I wouldn't have shown that to them. That just would have given them the upper hand.

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© Amanda Rodriguez 2009