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The Man Who Was Almost A Man Character Analysis

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When writing fiction, there are certain rules that authors need to follow in order to create good fiction. Good fiction would be one that follows these 3 rules: character’s behavior is consistent, character’s words and actions spring from motivation, and characters are plausible or lifelike. For a character to be lifelike or plausible it means that the character in the story is presented as someone who you could meet in the real world. In good fiction, the reader will be able to immerse themselves into the book so well that the reader will forget that they are even reading a story. An example of good fiction would be “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright. Wright’s main character Dave possesses the three necessities that would …show more content…

Dave in the story tries to present himself as this kid who is now a man, he wants to showcase to others that he is no longer some little kid that can be made fun of. Even though his actions don’t resemble those of a man, but instead of a kid who is trying to act like one, his thinking that a gun is what makes a man and certain actions that take place is what makes him a consistent character. From beginning to end his mindset of what makes a man doesn’t change, but instead is reinforced after he is humiliated. “Something hot seemed to turn over inside him each time he remembered how they had laughed” (Wright 188). In the story “ The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright, besides the fact that Dave is a consistent character, Dave’s actions and words are sprung from motivation. Dave decides to buy a gun because he wants to be treated as a man, not as a little kid. Everyone around him is a man who possesses some kind of power and he wants that. Dave wants to have the power that he sees other men have so that people don’t make fun of him anymore but instead take him seriously. When Dave finally gets his hands on the gun he wanted, he finally feels like a man. He thinks that now that he has the gun no one will be able to laugh at him because by having the gun he thinks he has some type of power. “He held it loosely, feeling a sense of power” ( Wright 183). The day after having bought the gun Dave goes to work and goes far from where he could be heard and decides

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