The husband of Maggie, who lives with her in Arkansas where he is a prosperous bar owner. For a while Richard, his mother, and his brother live with Maggie and Hoskins, and it is there that Richard experiences true stability and first realizes that it is possible to not always be hungry. However, Hoskins is killed by whites who covet his business, and that sense of stability is destroyed.
Uncle Hoskins Quotes in Black Boy
The Black Boy quotes below are all either spoken by Uncle Hoskins or refer to Uncle Hoskins. 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:
).
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Harper Perennial edition of Black Boy published in 2015.
Chapter 2
Quotes
There was no funeral. There was no music. There was no period of mourning. There were no flowers. There were only silence, quiet weeping, whispers, and fear.
Related Characters:
Richard Wright (speaker), Uncle Hoskins
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Black Boy LitChart as a printable PDF.
Uncle Hoskins Character Timeline in Black Boy
The timeline below shows where the character Uncle Hoskins appears in Black Boy. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...brother, and his mother move in with his Aunt Maggie—his mother’s sister—and her husband, Uncle Hoskins. The house in Elaine provides Richard, for the first time, with ample food, and he...
(full context)
Hoskins owns a bar in Elaine, and though Richard wants to visit him at work, his...
(full context)
A few days later, Hoskins goes to the bar and does not return that evening, and the family fears that...
(full context)