The Power of a Man and His Gun
An Inside look at Robert Wright’s Dave Saunders and America’s Love of Guns
New England College of Business and Finance “The Man Who was Almost a Man” written by Robert Wright, is a fictional story in which we focus on the main character Dave Saunders. Dave is a seventeen year old African American living in a time of racial oppression. When we meet Dave, we learn of his struggles with some fellow field workers and desires more respect as a man. Believing that possession of a firearm will earn him the respect he thinks he deserves, Dave decides to buy a gun. In this story, Wright has created Dave to be facing multiple struggles against the white man. In the story’s setting, …show more content…

Although, ironically enough, he ends up being on Schiff’s side of the fence by killing the mule accidentally and not owing up to it at all. Dave Saunders is not wrong for wanting to be respected as a man especially as he grows older. However, he goes about proving this to himself and his peers all wrong. Dave does have multiple factors working against him but in order to gain to respect, you have to earn respect. Processing a gun is not going to give you any power you can give yourself. By having a gun and using it to earn respect is really only instilling fear in others. Dave is a coward for not going about the gun in the right way. He did not bring the gun home and to his mother after he bought it. He shot Jenny the mule by mistake and tried covering it up and lying. And lastly, when it came to taking ownership for his mistakes, he decides to run away. The main issue relating both gun control and Dave is that they cause pain. And with that pain, there comes no respect for the senseless harm they cause. Works Cited
Campbell, Donna M. "Naturalism in American Literature. " Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. Retrieved from: http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm

Abcarian, R. (2013.) Los Angeles Times, “As Senate acts, trying to figure out why Americans love their guns.”