Between Life and Death: Victimhood and Injustice in Wright's Poem Anonymous 11th Grade

The birds are silent and amidst this gasoline-fueled destruction, alongside “the charred stump of a sapling” (6) and the “tiny veins of burnt leaves” (6), a man has died for the simply crime of living. His townspeople have declared themselves judge, jury, and executioner so who couldn’t have seen this coming. This man, who the poet is careful to make sure you know nothing about, is a victim to the reality of the early twentieth century. Richard Wright’s poem, Between the World and Me, carries a deeper meaning in terms of the historical connections present within these stanzas and speaks of the equality that black men during the 1920s were being cruelly denied.

The first time that you read his words, they seem to be speaking about the idea of a connection between the burnt forest and this man’s abandoned body, such as the similarity between the destruction of nature and the destruction that we cause ourselves by smoking, drinking, loving, and dying. It makes you wonder what sort of person dies alone in the woods and you believe that these items belonged to the deceased. In terms of segregation, however, it becomes more apparent that this is a hate crime and not simply an accident. The black blood that Richard Wright speaks of...