Wright Leaves the South

The change Wright begins at the end of part one is ultimately good change in my opinion. For one thing, he has taken his fate into his own hands, or at least as much as an African-American could do in the Jim Crow South. Whether or not the North will prove more hospitable is something we have yet to discover, but regardless, Wright had a goal and was able to make it happen for himself through hard work. In the past, Wright could only dream about going north - no amount of hard work could get him enough money in order to move. Wright's horizons are also being broadened by all the books he is reading. This is leading him in new directions in terms of his thought processes. He began to realize near the end of part 1 that he could no longer stay in the South, his outlook was changing enough to the point where the whites would begin to take notice, and react with hostility towards him. In this vein, it is good that Wright is able to leave the poisonous environment he is privy too. As I mentioned earlier, we are not yet certain if Chicago will be better, worse, or the same as Memphis has been, but one thing we can be reasonably certain of was that Memphis was growing more and more unsafe for Wright and his family, and thus, it was certainly time to move on.