![]() ![]() ![]() Instead of turning the other cheek after being humiliated and beaten by white men, he embraces the methods of his Marxist supporters, meeting oppression with mass demonstration. The final triumph of Reverend Taylor is that he puts aside the conciliatory attitude which was part of his religious training and becomes a social activist. Although he recognizes it as contributing to the quiet nobility of the hero, it also prevents Taylor from taking effective social action when his people are literally starving. Wright’s attitude toward religion, however, is ambivalent. His protagonist, Reverend Taylor, is representative of the “old Negro,” who has withstood centuries of oppression, sustained by hard work on the land and humble faith in a merciful God. ![]() ![]() This use of dialect emphasizes the relative lack of sophistication of rural blacks. Wright reproduces faithfully the southern black dialect in both conversation and internal meditations. Unlike the later works concerning black ghetto experience, “Fire and Cloud” has a pastoral quality, recognizing the strong bond of the southern black to the soil and the support he has drawn from religion. O’Neill made a radio adaptation of the story after it appeared in American Scenes. It won first prize in the 1938 Story magazine contest which had more than four hundred entries, marking Wright’s first triumph with American publishers. “Fire and Cloud” in Uncle Tom’s Children is perhaps the best representative of Richard Wright’s early short fiction. ![]()
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