"A Trip to the Library"

In Richard Wright’s, personal essay, A visit to the Library, (1945), he suggests that reading is important because it can have an immense impact on the way people view their environment and others around them. In this essay, the author supports his thesis by recalling events from his past. Wright wrote this essay in order to inform people of the impact that reading can have on a person, especially when reading hasn’t always been accessible to them. The intended audience of the piece is people who face discrimination and people who would really benefit from the new knowledge that can obtained by simply reading.  

I enjoyed reading this essay because it reveals the struggle African American faced back in the Civil Rights era. It amazed me the risk one man will take just to educate himself. Richard was really brave to ask a white man for help. It became very sad at the end. After reading many novels, it became evident to Richard that he missed out on so many opportunities in life because of the color of his skin. At first, he was like a child and candy, always wanting to read books. Then the harsh knowledge stripped his innocence away. He became more aware of the world he lived in.

One of the reasons for this story was to portray the importance of reading and the effect that reading has on an individual. Whenever he was caught reading, he was either warned or it peaked the interest of the person who found him. And one thing he constantly heard was “... when you’re through reading those books, I want you to tell me what you get out of them.”(Wright, 129) At the time, it was very taboo for a black person to actually read, but that just made him want to read even more. However, the more he read and gained knowledge, we can see the change it made in him and on his outlook of the world. He began to see differently because he was no longer ignorant to how other people thought. “Again I would read and wonder as only the naive and unlettered can read and wonder, feeling that I carried a secret, criminal burden about with me each day.” (Wright, 132)