Read the excerpt from Black Boy. Finally I heard my mother’s name called; she rose and began weeping so copiously that she could not talk for a few moments; at last she managed to say that her husband had deserted her and her two children, that her children were hungry, that they stayed hungry, that she worked, that she was trying to raise them alone. Then my father was called; he came forward jauntily, smiling. He tried to kiss my mother, but she turned away from him. I only heard one sentence of what he said.

“I’m doing all I can, Your Honor,” he mumbled, grinning.

It had been painful to sit and watch my mother crying and my father laughing and I was glad when we were outside in the sunny streets.

Wright uses this personal experience to establish
his mother’s desperation.
his mother’s weaknesses.
his father’s good intentions.
his father’s sense of humor.