A fashionable black passenger on the bus with whom Julian sits to make a point to Julian’s Mother. The Well Dressed Black Man represents to Julian his naïve ideal of the sort of bourgeois black person with whom he could interact. Julian bothers the Well-Dressed Black Man when he tries to make a show of their interaction to Julian’s Mother—the Well-Dressed Black Man, it turns out, would rather read than talk superficially to Julian.
The Well-Dressed Black Man Quotes in Everything That Rises Must Converge
The Everything That Rises Must Converge quotes below are all either spoken by The Well-Dressed Black Man or refer to The Well-Dressed Black Man. 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 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux edition of Everything That Rises Must Converge published in 1971.
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Quotes
It gave him a certain satisfaction to see injustice in daily operation. It confirmed his view that with a few exceptions there was no one worth knowing within a radius of three hundred miles.
Related Characters:
Julian, The Well-Dressed Black Man
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Well-Dressed Black Man Character Timeline in Everything That Rises Must Converge
The timeline below shows where the character The Well-Dressed Black Man appears in Everything That Rises Must Converge. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Everything That Rises Must Converge
...a smartly-dressed black man boards. Julian watches his arrival with excitement, hoping to see this Well-Dressed Black Man faced with an injustice of some sort, as this would justify Julian’s thoroughly negative opinion...
(full context)
...watches his mother’s face fill with rage as he takes the seat next to the Well-Dressed Black Man . The Well-Dressed Black Man, meanwhile, is unfazed by the gesture and continues to read...
(full context)
Julian fantasizes about having a highbrow conversation with the Well-Dressed Black Man to teach everyone a lesson, but when he attempts to start such a conversation, the...
(full context)