                            Analysis Essay
The implementation of realism theory in the short story written by Richard Wright "The man who is almost a man"
Have you ever done something stupid, crazy or even extremely risky only for the sake of trying to impress or please people around you?. Some of us must have been in the stage where we have kind of self-interest to be the central of people's attention, to get compliments from our friends, neighbours or relatives and then to get respect from others. It is actually a very normal thing to have such interest because we agree that as social creatures, we have the tendency to acknowledge and to be acknowledged, to give and gain respect. We want to be seen, acknowledged and respected. It is just a normally basic character of human beings to get people's validation on their existence.
What makes it wrong or even dangerous is if the self-interest already reaches the certain stage or level in which has wholly manipulated and taken control over one's life and hampers others' lives. It cannot be tolerated anymore if the self-interest has driven one into crazy obsession. The selfish interest which can turn someone into a Narcissistic. It becomes unhealthy because it will fail him in understanding and seeing his real-life value.
The tendency of having this kind of interest happens mostly at the early life stage such as when we are young and still naive and innocent in perceiving our lives and we have not gotten enough life knowledge, understanding and experiences. It more likely occurs when we are on the transition process to maturity. It becomes an integral part of our early self-discovery journey and therefore it is often regarded as a part of puberty process.
That is why we often figure out that many young teenagers who are on the process of puberty often involve in kind of dangerous and foolish actions such as trying to use drugs, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, involving in student brawls and bullying actions, joining illegal car races and so on only because they want to satisfy the self-interest of getting people's validation. They want to be seen as cool, strong, brave and powerful by their peers, they want to get their attention and respect.
The same thing goes to Dave, the main character in the short story written by Richard Wright entitles the man who is almost a man. As it is narrated, Dave, a 16 years old black African American boy did have obsession on having a gun because he believed that the gun could give him power to take control over people whom always looked down upon him. Having undergone racial and social discrimination in his community, he began having more and more self-interest of looking for people' s validation. He wanted people; his co-workers, friends and family see him as a man and not a naive boy. He felt sick of being humiliated, laughed and mocked, he was eager to gain more respect from those people. Unfortunately, he was misled by his own thought and belief that only by owning gun people would pay more respect for him and treat him better. As a matter of fact, the interest at the end put him into a big problem which potentially led him to a changing life decision.
In this essay, the writer tries to give her analysist explanations toward the interesting elements of the short story which is also correlated to the implementation of realism theory in it.
Here are some interesting points of the analysis:
 First, the short story represents the real social and cultural life of rural black African American people in the early 20th century
In this short story, the author portrays vividly how the real life of African American people in the twentieth century really looked like through the following elements:
