Naturalism And Determinism In Richard Wright's Native Son

Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, depicts the life of the general black community during the 1930’s. Throughout the novel, Wright illustrates the ways in which white supremacy forces blacks into a much too pressured and dangerous state of mind. Blacks are beset with the hardship of economic oppression and forced to act subserviently before their oppressors. Given such conditions, it becomes inevitable that blacks such as Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of the novel, will react with violence and hatred. Wright’s development of Bigger’s view of whites as an overwhelming force that sweeps him toward his fate can be seen in the context of naturalism. Wright uses the conventions of naturalism in Native Son, in order to force his readers to enter into Bigger’s mind and to understand the devastating effects of the social conditions in which he was raised. Bigger …show more content…
The movement was tied to scientific determination and the idea of nature. Crane and Dreiser viewed humans as beings in nature that were subject to natural forces, internal drives and stresses over which they had no control of, which they were unaware. One of the features of the movement was the idea of determinism. Determinism is the belief that one’s destiny is not decided by God or by an individual’s assertion of free will but by social or natural forces. Naturalism depicted human beings as victims of social, economic, and natural forces that determined their destiny.
The characters of literary naturalism are defined by their environment which determines the outcome of their lives. The characters of this movement are portrayed as having strong animal drives and victims of sociological pressure. These characters lives are shaped by forces of society that are uncontrollable. Characters of literary naturalism conduct themselves with strength in the face of adversity and are often the pawn of multiple