Answer: Dave's desire to escape slavery greatly reflects the African-American desire to escape oppression and poverty. Dave is struggling to declare his identity with the occurrence of the rural south in his place. Throughout the story, Dave is very irritated because of the way he is being treated by whites and how he basically has no freedom. His search for adulthood is exactly how most African-Americans felt and acted during that time. Dave also gets so fed up that he wants to actually fight back which is how all the other African-Americans felt too. Desperation is a major theme in the story as Dave is desperate to experience his adulthood, and African-Americans are desperate to escape poverty.
Dave's search for adulthood in "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" and the African-American desire to escape the poverty of the south have a reflective similarity with each other. A reflective similarity in which both party's have a desire a desperate and limitless dream they all willingly want. The similarity i speak of is desperation , a desperation to get out of this negative place , where everyone hates you and hates how you look , how you talk , how you act , and how you just simply are yourself. That negative place i am referring to is different for each side on this case but David not only had a search for adulthood that search was an eternal search which the African-American's were also on to escape from poverty , and i feel David uses his search for adulthood as a beginners journey to gain experience in the journey he will join his people in one day to leave the poverty the south had to offer. I believe in reality that , that is another thing he believes his search for adulthood will result in finding, besides finding his adulthood i believe David is also ultimately trying to find his way out of the southern poverty eventually.
