Big Black Good Man: Prejudice

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The story by Richard Wright “Big Black Good Man” communicates a prejudice theme which is told through “Olaf”, the eyes of an old white protagonist. Olaf, who is frightened and insulted by the look of a sailor, is determined to refuse a room “solely on the basis of his size and color” (303). As humans, many people generally react negatively to people who are different then themselves. Negative impressions of a person can control attitudes and actions, which is reveled in this story by the white porter, which expresses different kinds of prejudice. The thought that Olaf would deny the black sailor a room, even though the hotel he works at “admits everyone and every color” (303) shows one action of the prejudice theme expressed in this the story. When the black man asked if there were rooms available, Olaf hesitated to answer because the horror he felt from the man’s “intense blackness and ungainly bigness” (303). The way Olaf felt had emotionally persuade himself to refuse a man a room. Olaf had thought of a couple of ways to tell the black man that there were no free rooms in the hotel, but Olaf couldn’t reject the black sailor only because he feared that the man would kill him in a fit of unprovoked rage. As Olaf led the “giant of living blackness” (304) down the corridor, he had felt beaten and intimated by the color and the size of the black man. Trying to find a way to decline the sailor’s request of a bottle of whiskey and a woman, Olaf once again expresses another action of the prejudice theme that is presented. Times before Olaf had been asked to arrange women and whiskey every night from other sailors and students staying in the hotel, but this time Olaf had a “strong reluctance” (304) to call a women for this man. Olaf even thought about lying and saying “none were available” (304) because he worried about a woman being alone with this black giant. Olaf
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