David Liu: Shame

The Shame
By David

Essay07/05/16
David
Richard is the main character of a short story titled ‘Shame’, written by Dick Gregory, an African American comedian and civil rights activist. Obviously, Richard is the embodiment of the writer who was born in a poor family and was ‘pregnant with poverty and hunger’. Meanwhile, he was also a pride boy who wanted to work his way out of poverty. Here are the causes and effects which molded Richard’s personality during his early school life.
Richard’s school experiences and his personal circumstances led to both negative and positive effects in his life.
His school experience influenced Richard throughout his life. The key person who really influenced his life positively was his classmate Helene Tucker, a little girl whom Richard loved so much. He loved her goodness, cleanness and her popularity, and she even became Richard’s role model, a symbol of goodness. For this reason, Richard was deeply attracted by the girl everyday at school and, this influence even didn’t decay until he got married. Richard’s school life was unfair to him. When Richard was not able to concentrate on his lesson due to his hunger, he had to sit ‘in an idiot’s seat, the troublemaker’s seat which was really humiliating. What is worse, the teacher was an insensitive person and, she did not care about Richard. She only though that he was stupid and just made noises in the classroom. One day, the teacher began to collect donation and called out all the pupils’ name to ask how much money their fathers could give to the Community Chest. However, she did not call Richard although he had already prepared for it with 15 dollars! When Richard asked why she forgot to call him, the teacher ‘turned around and looked mad’, saying ‘we are collecting this money for you and your kind’, ‘and furthermore, we know you don’t have a daddy.’ Absolutely, the teacher’s carelessness hurt Richard deeply for his life time.
Richard was also the victim of personal circumstances. Richard was born in a broken family. He had no father since he was a child and lived with his five siblings together. His early life was also extremely poor. His clothes came from donation and, he lived in a cold house. Also, he had to ask for ‘rotten peaches’, ask for ‘a spoonful of sugar’ from neighbors, and, even paste didn’t taste too bad for him. Certainly, he had some social support. However, these support such as ‘Worthy Boys Annual Christmas Dinner’ and ‘white plaid mackinaw the welfare gave to three thousand boys’ made him feel shameful.
As a result, Richard suffered from negative consequences. One of the negative consequences is his low self-esteem. At first, Richard thought ‘there was shame everywhere’ and then began to avoid people. He ‘snuck through alleys, to take the long way home so the people…wouldn’t see me.’ The other negative consequence is self-pity. He ‘spent a lot of time feeling sorry’ for himself. The third one is hard-working. After the school incident, he had to start working hard as a child to make enough money to compensate his low self-esteem. He worked all day, ‘shining shoes, selling newspapers’.
However, Richard’s experience enriched his life. Firstly, he learnt how to face challenges. The school incident did make him ‘feel shameful’ but couldn’t erase his self-respect; he started work hard and his hard-working bought enough money to him. Then he entered the college and, not only did he break track records in college but he became a popular comedian as well. Meanwhile, he also succeed in learning life lessons; when he saw a wino couldn’t pay for his meal, he offered to pay the money and eventually realized that one couldn’t wait if you wanted to help other people.
In conclusion, Richard came from a needy family and suffered a lot both from poverty and humiliation. However, he never discarded his pride but made a great effort to realize his dream and finally, he successfully became a rich person, a famous comedian.