The Man Who Was Almost a Man

In “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, Dave is obsessed with becoming a man. This theme is found throughout the entire story from the first paragraph to the last.

“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.”

“Ah mol enough to hava gun. Ahm seventeen. Almost a man.”

“Shucks. Mistah Joe, Ahm gittin t be a man like anybody else!”

“Ain nothing wrong, Ma. Ahm almos a man now. Ah wans a gun.”

“Lawd, ef Ah had just one mo bullet Ah’d taka shot at tha house. Ah’d like t scare ol man Hawkins jusa little…Jusa enough t let im know Dave Saunders is a man.”

“Ahead the long rails were glinting in the moonlight, stretching away, away to somewhere, somewhere where he could be a man…”

However, for how much Dave proclaims his manhood, his actions do very little to back it up. He acts like more of a child than most seventeen-year-old boys—and that’s quite an accomplishment.

First of all, he’s incredibly insecure. He has a hard time even owning up to his desire for a gun, probably because his reasoning for wanting one is flawed, childish and based around his insecurity.

“Dave looked at the floor, scratched his head, scratched his thigh, and smiled. Then he looked up shyly.”

“When his father and brother had left the kitchen, he still sat and looked again at the guns in the catalogue, longing to muster courage enough to present his case to his mother.”

Secondly, he tends to make a habit of lying & disobeying, then crying when he gets caught.

“He had not come straight home with it as his mother had asked…”

“To avoid surrendering the pistol he had not come into the house until he knew that they were all asleep. When his mother had tiptoed to his bedside late that night and demanded the gun, he had first played possum; then he had told her that the gun was hidden outdoors, that he would bring it to her in the morning.”

“Dave took a deep breath and told the story he knew nobody believed.”

“Then when the point of the plow was stickin up in the air, she swung erroun n twisted herself back on it…She stuck herself n started t bleed. N fo Ah could do anything, she wuz dead.”

“Dave cried, seeing blurred whit and black faces. ‘Ahh ddinn gggo tt sshooot hher…Ah ssswear ffo Gawd Ahh ddin…Ah wuz a-tryin t sssee ef the old gggun would sshoot.’”

Further evidence of his immaturity, he wants his possession to make him a man, instead of earning his way through hard work and good choices.

“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.”

“In the gray light of dawn he held it loosely, feeling a sense of power. Could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white. And if he were holding his gun in his hand, nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him.”

Finally, instead of owning up to his mistakes and taking accountability for his actions, Dave blames everyone else and has a pity party.

“N Pa says he’s gonna beat me…He remembered other beatings, and his back quivered. Naw, naw, Ah sho don wan im t beat me tha way no mo. Dam em all! Nobody ever gave him anything. All he did was work. They treat me like a mule, n then they beat me. He gritted his teeth. N Ma had t tell on me.”

In a final act of boyish immaturity, Dave runs away rather than work to right his wrongs.

“Two dollahs a mont. Les see now…Tha means it’ll take bout two years. Shucks! Ah’ll be dam! He started down the road, toward the tracks.”