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Racial Issues in “The Man Who Went to Chicago”

Alayna Fuentes

Ottawa University Arizona

ENG34023—Protest Literature

Dr. Lauren C. Curtright

February 11, 2023

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Racial Issues in “The Man Who Went to Chicago”

Eight Men by Richard Wright, published during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement

in America, offers readers an intense and unquestionable map of the human condition that makes

comments on a wide range of racial issues and sociological worries. The explorations of racial

division and psychological disputes all over America are mainly shown by the lived experiences

of men all through a series of short stories. Wright specifically addresses Southern enculturation,

prejudice, discrimination, and the value of community to an oppressed minority in "The Man

Who Went to Chicago." The moment in which Cooke and Brand fight violently over which

newspaper to read is particularly rich in symbolic references to the peaking of social tensions.

The course of their fight closely resembles the disputes and confrontations between Black and

White Americans around the time this story was published. Wright is able to illustrate the absur-

dity of unchecked, ignorant, and baseless prejudice and hatred for a particular group of individu-

als based on color of skin and socially reinforced stereotypes by narrating a scene that is similar

to this one but with the focus changed from "overt racism" to "the most correct newspaper."

Wright also warns of the repercussions of ignoring these tensions.

When Wright wrote this short story, racial relations in the United States were, to put it

mildly, turbulent and unavoidably evident in both the victims and the oppressors' daily lives.

Throughout the book, the narrator--most likely a mirroring of Wright, himself reflects on diverse

experiences with blatant racism, organized sexism, and even inner prejudices that he has

throughout his several occupations. The moment where his coworkers at the medical research fa-

cility, Brand and Cooke, start to argue over whether newspaper is more truthful than the other is

one of the most symbolic and figuratively illustrative of these difficulties and conflicts.
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The narrator says, "Perhaps Brand and Cooke...simply invented their hate of each other

in order to have something to feel deeply about," right before the real fight starts. In any case,

their disagreements revolved around the weather, and it appeared that their ability to dispute im-

proved with less knowledge (Wright 235). When it comes to the majority of racial disputes in

Wright's day and even now, this comment that predicted the fight is incredibly pertinent. This is

to suggest that the most ignorant people are usually the ones doing the fighting. There will never

be an understanding or a resolution if the two sides on any issue—from racism to news sources

—are irrationally upset and unaware of what they are fighting against. Wright instills the signifi-

cance of fighting internalized proneness along with social norms that reinforce discrimination

and highlights the importance of being aware. Wright goes to considerable pains to emphasize

both physically and figuratively in the conflict between Brand and Cooke that "knowledge is

power" in overcoming and battling instances of racism and bigotry.

Wright also highlights how quickly a little argument might escalate into a violent alterca-

tion in his account of the two men's fight, reflecting the tensions that existed both in the histori-

cal period and at the time he was writing the novel. The narrator says, “I wondered if the quarrel

was really serious, or if it would turn out harmlessly as so many others had done,” immediately

before the men pull out their guns and threaten to kill one another (Wright 237). This article dis-

cusses how racial tensions, whether overt or hidden, will always prompt the people they impact

to take action.

Wright argues that revolution is unavoidable because it will only take a certain amount of

time for the downtrodden to feel hurt and enraged enough to take action in response to their frus-

trations. People will respond, regardless of the method of civic revolution—violence, as in "The

Man Who Went to Chicago," nonviolent protest, or any other way.

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Wright emphasizes to readers the need of studying individuals in your immediate vicinity

and approaching social issues from a variety of angles in both "The Man Who Went to Chicago"

and the remainder of his work in Eight Men. The altercation between Brand and Cooke provides

a further example of this, as the passage can be related to both historical and contemporary in-

stances of racial tensions building to a point when an argument of some kind occurs.
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References

Wright, R. (1996). The man who went to Chicago. In Eight Men (pp. 202-242). HarperPerennial.

(Original work published 1940). Internet

Archive. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780060976811