1 (3-14)“Red circles were eating into the white cloth; then a flare of flames shot out.”Richard always messes up one way or another Richard burns the house down His mother nearly beats him to death They move to Memphis, Tennessee Richard & his brother find a stray cat Richard’s dad tells him to “Kill it”, so Richard

does but his dad didn’t mean it literally Richard buries the cat

1 (14-22)• Quote- “ And spare my poor life, even though I did

not spare the life of the kitten. And while I sleep tonight, do not snatch the breath of life from me”

• Killed the cat and his mom scared him with the prayer

• Beats kids with a stick to get groceries• got drunk in the bar• The coal man teaches him hoe to count• He got scraps of food when his mother took him to

the kitchen (where she works)

1 (22-35)

• “The daily routine was blurred to me and I never quite grasped it.” This represents Richard’s life as he grows up and how he sees society around him.

• Richard learns how to count from the man who is delivering coal.

• Richard starts to understand how whites and blacks interact in society.

• His mother puts him and his brother in the orphanage so she can make more money.

• He struggles with hunger, and how to cope with the orphanage caretaker lady while he’s there.

• His mother takes him to see his father to ask for money.

2 (36-46)

• “Please tell me what you are reading”• Richard is very interested in what Ella is reading

even though she says granny thinks it’s the devil’s work

• Richard tells his granny to kiss his anus• Richard dodges his mom and runs around the

house naked• Richard gets whipped for what he told his

granny

2 (46-61)

• “Did Granny become colored when she married Grandpa?”

• Richard is clueless to the difference between white and black people.

• Rich learns how white and black people don’t mix.• Uncle Hoskins is shot by two whites for his liquor

business.• Richard see’s soldiers and learns what guns are.• Richard asks why black people don’t fight back.• Richard sees a Jew for the first time.

2 (62-77)

“What they selling…? Where?”This shows that Richard is very curious

• Richard is too young to understand what the woman is “selling”.

• Richard spies inside the woman’s house, then sees the prostitution, which he does not understand

• Richard’s family gets moved from one house to another in the neighborhood

• White people are looking for Richard’s new “uncle”.• Richard goes to a white neighborhood to sell a dog, but

ends up not selling it, only for it to die a short time after.

3 (78-92)• “Our attitudes were made, defined, set, or corrected; our ideas were

discovered, discarded, enlarged, torn apart, and accepted.”

• If either a black person or a white person crossed the racial boundary within the neighborhood, they would be beaten.

• Richard’s mother has a stroke and becomes paralyzed on the left side of her body.

• Richard moves to Greenwood with Uncle Clark and Aunt Jodie.• Richard gets in a fight at recess and earns respect from the other

students.• Richard overhears a conversation of a black gang and concludes that

black culture and folk tradition were handed down from one black household to another and one group to another.

3 (93-101)• “They left me alone in the house and I spent the entire day sitting on the

front steps; I did not have enough courage to go into the kitchen to eat.”• Richard in frightened and doesn’t like taking favors or things from other

people.• He finds out someone died in his bed.• Richard gets beaten by his uncle for cursing.• He is sent back home to Jackson.• He has had one full year of schooling.• Cut of all feelings for his mother and her illness.

4

• “I held out my hand, vowing that never again would this happen to me, no matter what the price.”

• Richard decides that he would not take another beating, especially for something he didn’t do.

• Granny wants Richard to join religious school.• Richard gets in trouble by Aunt Addie for

something he didn’t do.• He pulls a knife on Aunt Addie.

5 (122-133)

• “I stared trying of grasp the point of the picture and the captions, wondering why it all seemed so strange.”

• Richard is naïve for selling a newspaper about the KKK and fighting for the bullies at school.

• First day at new school gets in fight with school bullies, throwing brick

• First job as a paper boy• Finds out paper is promoting KKK. Embarrassed, he

quits the job.

5 (133-144)

• “If you touch me, I’ll cut you, so help me” • Richard takes out a knife on his aunt • Richard gets a job helping an insurance agent

during the summer who was illiterate• Figures out the reason why his grandpa didn’t

get his pension was because an officer misspelled his name

• His grandpa dies

7

• “That’s the Devil’s work.”• Richard shows the courage to disobey people and

does his own thing.• Richard gets a job in the brickyard.• He gets bitten by a dog.• Gets a job as a caddie.• Writes a story that is published.• The story upsets his grandmother so much, he

becomes dead to her.