Set in New York 1860s, Fame and Fortune or, The Progress of Richard Hunter by Horatio Alger is about Richard Hunter, a boot-black who, in the previous book, went from rags to riches by choosing to make something of himself and becoming a well-paid errand boy; and now, is learning how to fit into high society and deal with people who try to bring him down. The story begins with Richard and his best friend Henry finding a boarding house to live in. After they find a room, Richard starts his first day at his new job. However when he first arrives, the booker keeper doesn’t seem to take a fancy to him. After telling the book keeper that he came for the job the book keeper says “I don’t think we’ll be needing your valuable services.” (P) The book-keeper …show more content…
Micky starts off as a ruffian, fighting, smoking and stealing. This is why Richard and Micky were never friends. Micky always tried to throw his weight around because he was strong but Richard wasn’t one to be disrespected and actually fought Micky once. Micky has also been to jail multiple times. However, after Micky comes back from his three months in jail for stealing the man’s wall and meets Mr. Rockwell, he reforms. Mr. Rockwell caused him to think about why he was so mean and why he couldn’t be as well off as Richard. He realized that he hated Richard for all the wrong reasons. He hated Richard for “putting on airs” but Mr. Rockwell made him realize that wasn’t a credible reason. Mr. Rockwell says “Tell me truly, wouldn’t you rather wear clothes than poor ones, and keep yourself clean and neat?” (P) Micky agrees and from that moment, he became respectable young boy. After getting the job with Richard, they become friends and Micky finally starts going on the path that Richard once …show more content…
Richard never had it easy. In Ragged Dick he was a boot-black barely making enough money to feed himself. However, after meeting Henry and having Henry teach him how to read and write. He finally was able to progress and get a well-paying job as an errand boy. Now in Fame and Fortune or, The Progress of Richard Hunter, he is still trying to better himself. However, greatness wasn’t spoon fed to him and had to work diligently to achieve it. He work hard at his job and also continued to learn by hiring a private tutor in his boarding house. This is why Richard became so wealthy by time the end of the book instead of Roswell, who had a much easier upbringing than Richard. Roswell expected good fortune to fall into his lap without putting in the hard work. Even Micky, who had the worst upbringing, eventually learned, the hard way, that putting in the effort and hard work will result in great
Richard’s childhood flat out sucked, it was horrible. The second child of 4, Kuklinski was born in 1935 in Jersey city, New Jersey. Richard’s mother was, for the most part, a loving mother who was also a devout catholic. Richard’s father, Stanley, worked on the railroads. Stanley loved him a sip of some jack daniels, well, maybe not just a sip… Stanley was an alcoholic. Stanley beat Richard, and his other sons when he wasn’t drunk, and when he was drunk it apparently wasn’t any worse than when he wasn’t. All of Stanley’s beatings were brutal. One of Stanley’s sons, Florian, died from being beaten too brutally by
Richard did not understand until later that the black community discouraged his rebellious ways because following the expectations of whites was a way to ensure survival of the community. A rebellious act of one black not only put his or her life in danger, but also his or her family and the entire black community. Richard’s need to conform to the rules of the white society for survival and his need to rebel in order to achieve his humanity and individuality was a tension that infested him daily.
Richard believes that he was made to be the person he became because of his parents as both continuously beat him his entire childhood. Many neighbourhood children abused and harmed him as well, for many reasons such as being Polish, scrawny and weak. Neither parent ever helped Richard either mentally of physically throughout the time he was bullied. “Richard often wondered why his mother and father didn’t like him, what he had done to deserve their indifference and violence” (p.22). Richard’s mother, Anna would not only verbally assault him, but would also routinely abuse him beginning at a young age, with household items such as broomsticks. She thought of this as stern discipline, which was supposedly required when brought up in a religious upbringing. Richard’s father, Stanley, abused his wife, as well as all three of his sons; one of which died from one of the
Mike Johnson is Mick’s father. He taught Mick everything that he knew from football. Mike was a phenomenal high school athlete, and just as good at college. He was expected to tear the NFL up however, Mike blew up in the NFL he was skipping practices and even getting in fights with other players. He got
In 1861 two armies went head to head, one had the best military leaders and one had a massive amount of soldiers. The Union and the Confederate armies were brawling over slavery. During the Civil War soldiers weren't involved in a lot of combat, but when battles broke out, there was much blood shed and death. Gettysburg, the biggest and bloodiest battle, persisted a total of three days, leaving approximately 7,000 Americans dead and 30,000 wounded. The Confederate leaders didn’t do a phenomenal job at Gettysburg, therefore they lost . One leader, Richard Ewell, was indecisive, and dilatory towards the Union Army because he didn't pursue them on Cemetery Hill during the battle of Gettysburg.
Eventually Richard Rodriguez develops bitterness towards his parents. For being uneducated and ignorant, His thirst for knowledge has transformed him into someone who holds a distain for those without knowledge or esteem. Then he transforms into someone who feels guilt over his success. His family life has turned into an atypical situation where there is very little closeness between him and the other members of his family. This is caused by his increasing want to distance himself from what he believes to be uneducated.
starts school, which he begins at a later age than other boys because his mother
In the story, Richard had mentioned about the loss of his identity, his speaks of language and his family. We can see that when he said, “I did not know that I had a family, a history, a culture, a source of spirituality, a cosmology, or a traditional way of living. I had no awareness that I belonged somewhere. I grew up ashamed of my Native identity and the fact that I knew nothing about it”. This shows he was angry that there was no one tell him about where he belonged and his culture.
A constant need for love and care develops in Richard when he is young. One of the first major events that occur to Richard during his autobiography is the abandonment by his father. As soon as his father leaves him and his mother, Richard begins to be deprived of the love he needs most
The next form of hunger that Richard encountered was one for literature which seemed to give him a release from the suffocating reality of his surroundings. His appetite for literature became a defining characteristic as the novel progressed. Though her effort was short-lived, a boarder at his Grandma’s house, Ella, gave him his first taste of reading. “As her words fell upon my new ears, I endowed them with a reality that welled up from somewhere within me…. My sense of life deepened…. The sensations the story aroused in me were never to leave me” (Wright 39). In light of Richard’s continued pursuit for knowledge critic Dykema-VanderArk reflects that, “Richard's reading opens his eyes… ‘made the look of the world different’ and let him imagine his life under different circumstances. Richard eventually recognizes that the social system of the South strives to keep black Americans from just such ways of thinking.” His craving for literature sets him apart from most of the black community surrounding him.
Through many of these traumatizing struggles she faced, she was persistent, and did not let anything that was done to her get in the way of herself, she kept pursuing and used the negative actions of others as a motive to keep pushing forward, developing in “the first African American billionaire.” The fact that the writer uses “poverty” and “billionaire” in the same sentence when talking about an individual, speculates how Oprah’s determination made her whom she is today. Furthermore, in Black boy, Wright speculates Richard’s determination by saying,“And no word that I had ever heard fall from the lips of southern white men had ever made me really doubt the worth of my own humanity” (283).Richard here reveals how he is a determined individual. He employs the idea of how he neglects every other’s criticism and thoughts. He reveals how he knows his worth when expressing how the words of others never made him “doubt” himself. Richard blocks negativity out of his life and is tenacious about following what is best for his future, he obviously does not let anyone influence him and knows what is best for his “own humanity”.The fact that he has several white racist men criticizing him, telling him what to do, scorning at him, really critiques how much of a persistent individual he is, and how driven he is to get to the North and get out of his
In chapters 1-14 of the autobiography Black Boy by Richard Wright, the story takes place in the Jim Crow American south. Richard grows up with a father who soon abandons him and strict, religious elders. His family is overcome by poverty, so Richard struggles with both figurative and literal hunger. As he grows up, he moves around to different places with family and realizes the harsh meaning of race. He finds himself working for white people and discovers a lot more about his personality in the process. Luckily, Richard is intelligent and is able to move to Memphis where he has more freedom. There, he makes plans to travel north to Chicago.
This whole movie is based around these four men and to discuss them we are going to start with Richard. During this film Richard had
In many ways, his own family and the black community fiercely opposed his aspiration and courage. Richard’s first discovery of literature ended in the eviction of Ella, the schoolteacher, who had introduced him to Bluebeard and His Seven Wives. Margaret Bolton Wilson, Richard’s maternal
Richard then gloats over his success in a soliloquy stating how he has won her heart even though he is regarded by her as the devil with dissembling looks and he stabbed Edward her love just 3 months earlier. This highlights how he thinks of himself as the best as he brags about his misdeeds as though he is immortal.