What is the most important element of fiction in this story?

In "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," the African-American
author, Richard Wright, tells the story of Dave, a seventeen year-old  African-American
young man and his desire to be seen as a grown-up.

As the
story begins, Dave is incensed.  It is not clear why, but Dave states that it's
ridiculous to try to talk to the other workers, inferring that they're not too bright;
they are bigger than him, but he doesn't care.  However, he thinks if he had a gun, he
would be a man that no one could push him around because he would have
power.

In the story, Dave gets money to buy the gun...for
his father to keep.  Dave buys the gun, but never gives it up; having no experience, he
fires it, accidentally killing the mule belonging to his boss. The truth comes out, but
Dave is too immature to take responsibility for what he has
done.

The most important element of
fiction in the story is the character of Dave.
 It is his preconceived notion that a gun will make him a man this drives the plot; the
gun creates the central conflict of the story, and it is symbolic of power (to
Dave).

Dave and his family live in a small community. Dave
and his family are not slaves: they are getting paid for their work.  There is an
easiness in this community: after killing the mule, the punishment Dave is to receive
will be harsher at the hands of his father than his boss, who is quite
accommodating.

Dave believes the owning a gun will make him
a man in the eyes of others.  This premise drives the story's plot.  The conflicts here
between Dave, and his parents, the townsfolk and Dave's boss, but each arises because
Dave and the gun.  For Dave, the gun is symbolic of power and
manhood.

We see the importance of character in the way
Dave sees himself,  and this is his problem.  He believes that his
age should make him a man; he misses the point, as we do when we
are young, that being "grown up" does not occur with a specific birthday, or by
possessing a gun...or a car (today), but in assuming the responsibilities of an
adult.

And because Dave is still very young in his view of
the world, he manipulates his mother to get the money for the gun, does not bring it
home to his dad, sneaks in when all are sleeping--and out the next morning before the
family awakes--so he can try the gun.  He never thinks about his responsibility of
having a weapon that he knows is capable of ending a life.  He is only lucky that he
shoot the mule and not a man.

Like a kid, he lies about
what happened to avoid punishment; he lies about where the gun is hidden. Even after he
gets off easily, he resents the laughter of the adults who witness his foolishness, and
it angers him all over again.  He thinks nothing of his
responsibility for his actions, and once again, impulsively, without giving thought to
his actions or how they will affect his family, he packs up the gun (and nothing else)
believing still that the gun--somewhere
else--will make him a man that people will
respect.

The gun commands fear, not respect, but Dave is
too immature to understand this.  He doesn't see that he has any ownership to what makes
a man; he is sure that what he has
will make him what he wants to be. This is a timeless topic: it's
not what we have that makes us who we are: it's what we choose
to do with what we have that truly matters.