Ignorance is "a lack of knowledge or information." The term “ignorance is bliss” means what you do not know will not hurt you. In the memoir "Black Boy" by Richard Wright, Wright describes how his ignorance held him back in life. Wright’s experiences disprove the statement “Ignorance is bliss.” Ignorance is not bliss because the lack of knowledge causes people to eavesdrop, act improperly, and make false assumptions. Richard is naively ignorant which means he is very open to learning. An example of this is one Saturday morning when Richard was nine years old, a girl in his neighborhood said “They gonna make a lotta money in there today” (Wright 62). Richard had already stuck his nose into “every bit of conceivable business in the neighborhood” (Wright 63), and was very poignant to hear that something was going on without his knowledge. It is human nature for people to seek answers about the unknown. Richard’s ignorance causes him to surreptitiously go around and try and find answers about what was going on next door. This leads to him getting caught watching the landlord’s sex show. Ignorance is not bliss for Richard because it causes his family that was already in financial trouble, to get kicked out of their house for his eavesdropping. On top of that Richard’s aunt defends him and calls the landlord “a common prostitute” (Wright 64).this could have ended in someone getting seriously hurt if they had gotten into a fight. Ignorance causes Richard to eavesdrop and creates a new set of problems for his family. When Richard is in seventh grade, he starts working for white people to make some extra money. Before this moment, Richard had very little interaction with white people, and whenever he asked his mother questions about white people she either eluded the topic completely or responded, “You’re too young to understand” (Wright 24). The white family Richard is working for cursed at one another in a v