Many critics have classified Richard Wright's characters as racist. They believe his writing did not help, but hurt the African-American community. African-American critics say his writings amplified whites' preconceived notions that blacks could not be trusted, were worthless, and were incapable of making decisions for themselves. His critics wanted black writers to be portrayed as trustworthy, educated, and equal. Through his writings, Richard Wright was able to share with the world the hatred, fear, and violence that African American men face, including himself, experienced on a day to day basis. Perhaps many critics have failed to look at the bigger picture. Richard Wright lived his life through his characters, many of the things he would have liked to do and/or say to his mother and father, his white friends and colleagues, become reality through his writing. Richard Wright had a traumatic childhood. Jay Mechling, in the Journal of American Folklore, describes Richard Wright's works as an exploration of an unstable life. Wright's relationship with his mother was traumatic. She raised him to be strong, but her tactics were very harsh. In Black Boy, his mother forced him to fight the boys in the gang who would bully him for money with which he would have to buy groceries. His mother called him “silly” because he wanted to sell his dog to a white girl for a dollar. She also slapped him when she took her first train ride and started questioning her about the race of her grandmother who had very light skin. She never communicated or bonded with him. The relationship he had with his mother made him rebellious and stubborn. As a child he was abused and alienated. Being rebellious... center of paper... ks Quoted Tremaine, Louis. “The Dissociated Sensibility of Bigger Thomas in Wright's Native Son.” American Fiction Studies 14.1 (Spring 1986): 63-76. Rpt. in twentieth-century literary criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. vol. 180. Detroit: Gale, 2007.Literature Resource Center. Network. April 14, 2014. “The Enduring Importance of Richard Wright.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education No. 59 (2008): 58-62. JSTOR. Network. April 16, 2014 Giles, James R. "The Failure of Richard Wright: A New Look at Uncle Tom's Children." Phylon: The Atlanta University Review Of Race And Culture 34.3(1973): 256-266. MLA international bibliography. Network. March 24, 2014.Mechling, Jay. “The Failure of Folklore in Richard Wright's Black Boy.” Journal OfAmerican Folklore 104413 (1991): 275-294. International bibliography MLA.Web. March 24. 2014