Richard Wright

Despite a life of adversity and depravity, Richard Wright soared into the literary world at an early age. It was as though he had been born to write, and published his first story while he was still in high school. When he had reached his full potential in the South, he set off to the North where he really flourished in Chicago and New York until he moved overseas in 1947.
The Man Who Was Almost a Man is the story of a boy,Dave, who very badly wants to become a man as soon as possible. The main way he can see to do this is to purchase a gun and shoot it. Dave is blind to the fact that guns actually kill; he simply thinks that real men carry weapons. He begs his mama until she finally relinquishes the two dollars Dave needs to purchase a revolver from the local store. She gives him the condition that he must bring the gun straight back to her so she can give it to his father. So he goes and buys the weapon from Joe, the owner of the general store, but instead of giving it to his mother he waits to go home until everyone else is asleep. He then takes the revolver and hides it under his pillow. Early the next morning Dave sneaks off to Mr. Hawkins' farm where he works plowing the fields. Once out of earshot of anybody else, Dave takes the gun out and wonders at the heft of it- so much power in such a little thing. Then he decides it is time to see how the thing shoots. What happened next was far beyond his expectations. The recoil of the gun nearly took his arm off, and he had no idea in which direction the bullet went. Dave notices Jenny (the mule) has run off, so he runs after her, trying to get her to calm down. As he gets closer to the mule he notices a hole in her side. It finally dawns on him what has really happened. He has accidentally shot Jenny.
The whole story eventually comes out and it is determined that Dave must pay for the dead mule. Instead of facing his punishment, Dave ends up running away. By not facing up to what he did and by not accepting the consequences of his actions Dave still remains a boy in my eyes. I think in order to truly become a man he must first learn to be responsible and trustworthy.