Native Son

by Richard Wright

The difference in his feelings toward Mrs. Dalton and his mother was that he felt that his mother wanted him to do the things she wanted him to do, and he felt that Mrs. Dalton wanted him to do the things she felt that he should have wanted to do. But he did not want to go to night school. Night school was all right; but he had other plans. Well, he didn’t know just what they were right now, but he was working them out.

Maybe they had to live this way precisely because none of them in all their lives had ever done anything, right or wrong, that mattered much.