The Man Who Was Almost a Man is a story about Dave Saunders.

Dave Saunders is the protagonist of The Man Who Was Almost a Man. He works in Mr. Hawkins's sector, but his pay is given to his mother. Dave hits a point where he calls himself a man and assumes that possessing a gun will fulfill him. He meets someone who can sell him a pistol and convinces his mother to give him some of his pay to go buy a gun. He purchases the rifle, but his first attempt to fire it results in the death of his master's mule Jenny. This puts him in debt with Mr. Hawkins, his parents scold him and threaten to whip him (Washington 38). As a result, he becomes an embarrassment and a laughing stock among his peers. Every person has an item that they view as a symbol for a certain status, especially one that they desire. This symbol may either help them achieve this status, get them disappointed or change them, setting them upon a path that they may have not planned for.

Dave felt old enough to be considered and treated like a man. “One of these days he was going to get a gun and practice shooting, then they couldn’t talk to him as though he were a little boy”(Wright 501). According to Dave, being a man meant being talked to like an adult by the people around him. He felt that being a man was determined by how other people addressed him. He did not like how the other people at the fields talked to him as though he was a little boy. As a result he felt that if he got a gun and practiced how to shoot, they would stop treating him in that manner. Dave Saunders saw being a man as being paid his dues for all the work that he had been doing at Mr. Hawkins’s fields. Dave also thought being a man as being respected and having a sense of power. He felt that all this would be possible if only he owned a gun.

The gun is a representation of manhood to Dave. He wanted so bad to become a man and be treated like one. He did not want to wait to get to the age where he could actually be considered as a man. As a result, he had to find a way to get people to treat him like the man he was. More so, he wanted something that would make him feel like a man. The best way he thought to do this was to own a gun. From his thoughts and how he spoke, he associated owning a gun to being a man because of how it would make people treat him if they knew he had one. In his view, they would treat him with respect and even fear him. “In the gray light of dawn he held it loosely, feeling a sense of power” (Wright 502). To him, this was being a man.

In the 1930’s, the era in which this story is set, is a time when the shackles of slavery had loosened a great deal. Workers were now getting wages for their work and living their own lives independently. However, the masters still had some power over their workers especially the young ones since they paid the wages to their parents, who at the time were harsh on their children. With such conditions, a boy in this era could not automatically become a man, with his parents and/or his employer, dictating his every cause of action. A boy had to take charge and make this happen for himself (Wright 501).

In the story, Dave wanted the power to “kill anyone irrespective of whether they were white or black. The reason for this is that Dave was more concerned about his power and respect than who he was getting it from. Neither black nor white individuals were treating like a man and he wanted that power over all of them. He did not care about the color of the people he is associating with. He was more concerned about how they treated him and if they respected him.

In Washington’s book, ‘Up from Slavery’, he views the white masters as being superior to the blacks. As a result, he puts more efforts in things like education and hard work that he thinks will make him as superior as the white man. He says, “I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise” (Washington 7). He feels that there is a ladder that he needs to work up to get to the superiority of a white man. On the contrary, Dave Saunders does not view the white men as his superiors. He cares more about being superior to them and getting respect from them, as a man.

At the end of the story, Dave Saunders chooses to run away after he tries firing the gun again and finds out he can do it well. He jumps on a passing train to get away. Dave cannot be considered as a heroic fugitive because he is not a hero in the story and his reasons for being a fugitive are more personal rather than for a noble cause. When Dave decides to be a fugitive, he has no destination. The author writes, “Ahead the long rails were glinting in the moonlight, stretching away, away to somewhere, somewhere where he could be a man.” (Wright 499). It is clear that Dave had no specific direction to head to and just wanted to get away.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Dave’s story and quest to being a man clearly portrays that, all that glitters is not gold. He thought owning a gun would earn him respect, but instead, the first time he tried firing it and caused damage, it made him a laughing stock. He did not gain the power that he felt when he would possess once he got a gun for himself. His story brings out the truth in the proverb that, grass is not always greener on the other side.

Works Cited

Washington, Booker T. Up from slavery. Penguin, 1986.

Wright, Richard. "The man who was almost a man." The short story: 50 masterpieces (1983): 499-511.