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Granny
A Civil War veteran for the Union, Wright’s grandfather is denied his pension by a clerical mistake that misspelled his name, and which he believes was not in fact a mistake but was instead racially motivated. Having helped to achieve black freedom from slavery as a soldier, Grandpa’s experience serves as a kind of symbol of the way that black people were exploited and thwarted immediately upon the attainment of their independence. Grandpa is mostly absent, sick in bed, during Wright’s youth, but Wright pays his respects to Grandpa at his funeral, and wonders whether Grandpa’s life wasn’t ruined by the impossible quest to receive his pension from a racist and impersonal federal government.
Grandpa Quotes in Black Boy
The Black Boy quotes below are all either spoken by Grandpa or refer to Grandpa. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5 Quotes
Uncle Tom, Granny says to come at once. Grandpa’s dead.
You certainly are a prize fool. Don’t you know that that’s no way to tell a person that his father’s dead?
I ran all the way out here . . . I’m out of breath. I’m sorry.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Grandpa Character Timeline in Black Boy
The timeline below shows where the character Grandpa appears in Black Boy. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...But Granny slaps him hard on the face, and calls to his mother and to Grandpa, her husband—a veteran of Union forces in the Civil War—who threatens to shoot Richard if...
(full context)
...of Jackson, and some of the more peaceful moments he and his brother enjoy with Grandpa and Granny. But Richard’s mother soon takes Richard and his brother aboard a train to...
(full context)
Chapter 4
...to beat him, since he has done nothing to deserve punishment. Granny, Richard’s mother, and Grandpa finally persuade Richard to put down the knife, but Granny and Grandpa call Richard “wicked”...
(full context)
Chapter 5
Richard comes to the kitchen table one day that fall and learns that Grandpa is very sick—that, as Granny puts it, he is now in his “final illness,” although...
(full context)
...upstairs to say “goodbye” to his grandfather, but when he asks Granny about the words Grandpa mumbles to him one his deathbed, Granny slaps him, tells him to be quiet when...
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Granny does not allow Richard to attend Grandpa’s funeral, but Richard does not mind too much, and he notes that life continues more...
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