Native Son

Native Son was written in 1940 by African American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of twenty year old Bigger Thomas, an African American male living in Chicago’s South Side poverty stricken community during the 1930’s. Native Son focuses on the racial oppression forced on blacks by whites and the effects it has on society and the theories of people, especially Bigger Thomas. The theme has caused the book to be labeled as a “protest novel” by other authors because of its aim at…

tragedy being the beginning of the understood structure of tragedies, a repeating circle of events that is not broken over time, Oedipus’ plight is often not thought to be duplicated by modern writers. That is, except for Richard Wright. In his novel Native Son, Wright utilizes plot devices from Oedipus Rex to delve into the continued oppression of blacks in urban America. Through utilizing parallelism to Homer’s classic tragedy, Wright presents Bigger, a microcosm for black masculinity and…

James Baldwin mentions two race riots in “Notes of a Native Son “one in Detroit and the other one in Harlem. Both of these race riots took place during July - and august around 1943. The Detroit race riot was one of the bloodiest riots out there. The Detroit riot began in belle Isle Park among the youth. There was conflict between the whites and African Americans and also there was tension that had a nexus with the military buildup of World War 2. It was said that armed white people started this…

In this world, the impacts of a society directly correspond with personalities. In Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, society has a blatant impact on the thoughts, and actions of Bigger Thomas. Bigger, a young black man living through modern segregation, struggles with the newly found responsibilities of adulthood. As Bigger struggles, societal impacts cause a series of disastrous events. Throughout the novel, society’s influence on Bigger’s lack of trust, hopes, and instincts of self…

Book Summary Richard Wright’s Native Son is a Harlem Renaissance era novel which utilizes a unique type of protagonist that, unlike most characters from social justice novels at the time, exhibits a very violent demeanor. From the very first scene, Bigger Thomas, a 20-year old African American man living in 1930s Chicago, is shown to be aggressive towards his family and friends. He and his gang make their living by robbing the people in their neighborhood, taking advantage of the fact that the…

With all the due respect, I would wish to take this opportune moment to bring to your attention how much impressed I become after reading your book (Notes of a Native Son, Stranger of the Village). I would highly recommend any other reader to get the book and know the exact content addressed. The approach used by you in the book to demonstrate the superiority complex that Europeans perceive of themselves is just amazing. Candidly speaking, I would like to say that the book is a masterpiece in…

affected in one way or another and had something or someone to fear. The great president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, told everyone that the only thing that they had to fear was fear itself and Richard Wright showed that to be the truth in his 1940 novel, Native Son. Until society eliminates fear and hatred America will never progress as expressed through Richard Wright’s hero figure, Bigger, that serves as a microcosm of America’s fears, hatreds, and history. Wright makes it clear that the main…

hurt, killed or trespassed someone who was white. When Bigger killed Mary in Native Son, the text stated, “she was dead; she was white; she was a women; he had killed her; he was black;…

Eventually the pastor of our community church sat down in front of me and said “What color were they?” Up until this point in my life I referenced the neighborhood kids as young, the same age, or older than I. There was no race distinction in my life. I said to him “they were black” and an explosion rang throughout utopia. It was though I had been deaf all my life and suddenly in an instance, my hearing was restored. For the first time I heard words like “nigger,” “lynch” “coon” used in the…

attempts were seen as failures because they were unable to “engage with the racism” (Thomlinson 454). White feminist would try to use a work made by a woman of color to represent all women of color. Richard Wright highlighted this issue in his novel Native Son. Wright pointed out that whites like to look at one person to represent a culture (255). One person alone cannot represent the entirety of a culture. The view of a culture must come from the culture as a whole. Therefore, white feminist…