SOURCE: "The Failure of Folklore in Richard Wright's 'Black Boy'," in Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 104, No. 413, Summer, 1991, pp. 275-94.

In the following essay, Mechling presents Richard Wright's autobiographical Black Boy in terms both of the folk traditions that inform the narrative, and of the ways that those traditions ultimately fail the narrator in cross-cultural situations.

We are so accustomed to talking and writing about folklore as a human strength, as a personal and community resource for enduring, connecting, and celebrating, that we sometimes overlook those instances when folklore fails. Perhaps it is the streak of romanticism in folklorists that leads them to celebrate humanity and folklore. Perhaps it is the functional bias of most folklore theories that leads to the expectation that traditions persisting across generations must be working somehow. Whatever the cause, our elation at the successes of folklore can use a sobering antidote now and...