Wright's Mother's Paralysis

When Wright's mother suffers from a stroke, Wright's entire outlook is changed. For one thing, he begins to feel less and less like a child. He no longer wishes to play with the other children and do childlike things that he wished to do only a short time before. In many ways it makes Wright more cynical. He becomes much less likely to accept charity from others, even when he needs it. He accepts food from his neighbors only grudgingly, feeling bad imposing upon their hospitality. He describes how his mother's paralysis would color his outlook substantially later on when it came to the decisions he made, especially when it came to matters of race. How exactly this will come into play is something we have yet to discover, although I am fairly certain Wright's own judgement on the subject is accurate as the entire book is a retrospective.