The Man Who Lived Underground

“The Man Who Lived Underground” opens in medias res (in mid-narrative). Fred, whose name isn’t revealed for many pages, is on the run, and has “got to hide” (19). The narrative provides no time and little cues to adjust to Fred’s reality, giving the story a visceral closeness and a disorienting sense of immediacy. That is, it reveals nothing about who Fred is or what he may or may not have done but is immediately in his head, experiencing his fear and dread. Wright never lets up on this proximity and stress throughout the story, perhaps to convey the psychic terror of being a Black man in America firsthand. Fred’s reality is shocking. He wakes up with “the idea that he had been dreaming” (20) and had just been awakened while on the run. The story mimics Fred’s state of mind as between a dreamlike state and a cruel reality.

Fred repeatedly drifts between reality and dreams, but even when he’s awake, the world of the underground seems “strange and unreal” (21). The sights he takes in are often indistinguishable from dreams, as even routine images take on an eerie otherworldliness. For example,