Native Son Essay Research Paper A Critical

Native Son Essay, Research Paper

A Critical Position: Richard Wright & # 8217 ; s Native Son

Richard Wright marked the beginning of a new epoch in black fiction. He was one of

the first American authors of his clip to face his readers with the effects of racism.

Wright had a manner of stating his reader about his ain life through his authorship. He is best

known for his novel, Native Son, which is profoundly rooted in his personal life and the times

in which he lived. This paper will discourse this outstanding American author, his extremely

acclaimed novel, Native Son, and how his life influenced his authorship.

Richard Nathaniel Wright, was born on September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi.

His male parent was a sharecrop farmer and his female parent a school teacher. In hunt for better

employment his male parent moved the household to Memphis, Tennessee. While in Memphis, his

father worked as a dark porter in a hotel and his female parent worked as a cook for a

Caucasic household. Shortly after their move to Memphis, Wright & # 8217 ; s father deserted his

household. His female parent so tried to happen any work she could happen to back up her household. Then,

at the age of seven his female parent became sick and was unable to financially back up her household.

As a consequence, the household had to travel to Jackson, Mississippi to populate with relations. Wright

remained in Jackson until 1925 ( Walker, 13 ) .

In 1925, Wright left Jackson and headed every bit far as his money could take him, and

that was Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis was the exact same metropolis in which his male parent had

taken his household to happen a better life and where he abandoned them. Wright & # 8217 ; s first trip to

Memphis ended in letdown, abandonment, and want. While there Wright found

work as a courier for an optical company. He lived in Memphis for about

two old ages. During that clip, he witnessed the deep and violent South which finally

would for good mark him for life. Margaret Walker wrote:

I am convinced that the best of Richard Wright & # 8217 ; s fiction grew out of the

foremost 19 old ages of his life. All he of all time wrote of great strength and

terrorizing beauty must be understood in this visible radiation. His topics and subjects,

his common people mentions and history, his characters and topographic points come from the

South of his childhood and adolescence. His morbid involvement in

violence-lynching, colza, and murder-goes back to the cloudy dusk of a

southern yesteryear. Out of this racial incubus marked with racial agony,

poorness, spiritual fanatism and sexual confusion emerge the five long

narratives in Uncle Tom & # 8217 ; s Children. ( Walker 43 )

The violent feeling of Southern racism marked Wright & # 8217 ; s personality and literature. As

a consequence, he would pass his full life fighting to show the importance for work forces to

reject the stereotyped impressions of race, category, credo, or any other bias and to accept

human value that honor the human spirit and release intelligence. It was Wright & # 8217 ; s foremost

19 old ages in the South that opened up his most powerful and passionate authorship

( Walker 43 ) .

In 1927, at the age of 19 Wright migrated to Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago,

Wright found a occupation a as Post Office Clerk and at the same clip he continued to

self-educate himself by reading books, magazines, and newspapers. While in Chicago he

became interested in Communism Issues. The involvement came as a consequence of his concern with

the societal roots of racial subjugation. In 1932, Wright joined the Communist party. He

was a party militant in Chicago and New York. Wright & # 8217 ; s engagement with the Communist

party became the topic of most of his fiction Hagiographas. After he broke off from the

party his Hagiographas were centered around it. Wright & # 8217 ; s old ages in Chicago are frequently considered

his ripening old ages, which were old ages of turning adulthood and fixing for an

celebrated hereafter ( Metzger 608 ) .

Wright & # 8217 ; s calling as a author fundamentally began in the 1930 & # 8217 ; s. In 1930, he wrote his

foremost novel, Lawd Today. His novel, Lawd Today, nevertheless was non published until after

his decease. His first published work was, Uncle Tom & # 8217 ; s Children: Five Long Stories, which

consists of narratives that attack the racial favoritism and dogmatism that Wright encountered

as a young person. Throughout Wright & # 8217 ; s calling he published many outstanding plants. Among

his plants included: five novels, two autobiographies, two books of short narratives, four

nonfiction books and one aggregation of essays. Wright & # 8217 ; s major influence began when he

published, Native Son, in 1940.

Richard Wright & # 8217 ; s most noteworthy and extremely acclaimed novel is Native Son.

Richard Wright contemplated for a piece before he decided to compose a novel in which a

Negro, Bigger Thomas, would go a symbolic figure of American life. The novel is

divided into subdivisions entitled: fright, flight, and destiny. Each subdivision is used as a manner to chart

the alterations in the chief character & # 8217 ; s, Bigger Thomas, head. Native Son, is the narrative of,

Bigger Thomas, a hapless immature black adult male who had misinterpreted myths and stereotypes

about the racialist society in which he lived and by chance slayings a affluent white

adult females. At the novel & # 8217 ; s terminal, Bigger must confront the effects of his actions, and is

imprisoned and sentenced to decease. Native Son is & # 8220 ; considered both a psychological

melodrama and protest novel, that honestly exposes the pent-up hatred and resentment of

the laden black American. & # 8221 ; ( Stine 415 ) .

The first subdivision of Native Son, is entitled Fear. In this part of the book, we are

introduced to the chief character, Bigger Thomas, who is a matured juvenile delinquent.

Throughout the first subdivision, he is ruled by images he is unable to command. Bigger is hired

by Mr. Dalton to be his live-in chauffeur. Bigger & # 8217 ; s first undertaking is to drive Mr. Dalton & # 8217 ; s

girl, Mary to a talk at the university. On their manner to the talk, Mary Tells

Bigger that they are non traveling to the talk and to travel pick up Jan. Jan Erlone is Mary & # 8217 ; s

communist lover. Throughout the dark, Bigger is frightened by Mary & # 8217 ; s and Jan & # 8217 ; s

insisting to handle him as an equal. Bigger has this reaction because he isn & # 8217 ; Ts used to being

treated every bit by person of the opposite race. At the terminal of the dark, Mary is intoxicated,

and after driving her place he must transport her up to her room. When Mary & # 8217 ; s female parent, who

is unsighted, enters Mary & # 8217 ; s room, Bigger by chance clutters Mary while seeking to maintain her

from stating her female parent that he is in the room. Bigger tries to cover up Mary & # 8217 ; s decease by

firing her organic structure in a furnace. Bigger so creates a strategy to extort money from her

parents by feigning to hold kidnapped her. Bigger does that by seeking to write the incrimination

on Jan, because he is a member of the Communist party ( Wright ) .

The 2nd subdivision of Native Son is entitled Flight. In the beginning of this book

Mary & # 8217 ; s castanetss are discovered by Britten, the constabulary investigator. At this point, Bigger is on

the tally from the governments. While on the tally, Bigger brings his girlfriend, Bessie, along.

Bigger didn & # 8217 ; t want to take any opportunities go forthing her, since she was the lone individual who

cognize about the slaying of Mary. However, Bigger ends up killing Bessie, because he

thinks she will decelerate him down. Finally, he is captured by the constabulary and has to confront the

effects of his actions ( Wright ) .

The 3rd subdivision of Native Son is titled Fate. At the beginning of this subdivision, we

see Bigger expecting his fate, which is decease. At this point he has lost all hope and is

ready to accept the effects. While in gaol, Bigger is visited by Rev. Hammond, his

female parent & # 8217 ; s curate. Rev Hammond tries to acquire Bigger to see that the lone thing he can make

now is trust God. Even though, Bigger isn & # 8217 ; T interested in what Rev. Hammond has to state,

he accepts the cross that he gives him to have on around his cervix. Bigger & # 8217 ; s female parent comes to

the gaol to see him, but embarrasses him by the manner she begs Mrs. Dalton non to allow her boy

dice. Besides, in this subdivision of the book we are introduced to Buckeley, the province & # 8217 ; s

prosecuting at

torney, and Boris Max, Bigger’s attorney. Bigger is extremely intimidated by

Buckeley, who merely sees him as a sub-human being and is merely out to acquire him. Max,

Bigger & # 8217 ; s attorney, has small contact with him during the test and fails in his defence for

Bigger. At the of the narrative, Bigger stands alone and must accept the life he has made for

himself. Besides, before his decease Bigger says, & # 8220 ; What I killed for must & # 8217 ; ve been good! & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; I

didn & # 8217 ; t want to kill. . .But what I killed for I am! & # 8221 ;

Native Son is a landmark novel that created of import new waies in literature.

Native Son was the first novel written by a black American author achieve widespread

critical and popular success. Many critics hailed the novel as a perforating indictment of

racial persecution. For illustration, James Baldwin called Native Son, & # 8220 ; the most powerful

and famed statement we have yet had of what it means to be a Negro in America.

Besides, Irving Howe commented: & # 8220 ; A blow at the white adult male, the novel forced him to

acknowledge himself as an oppressor. A blow at the black adult male, the novel forced him to

acknowledge the cost of his submission. & # 8221 ; ( Stine 415 ) However, some critics faulted the book

for a deficiency of pragmatism, claiming that its vision of American life was overdrawn and unjust.

For illustration, David Cohn described Native Son as & # 8220 ; a blinding and caustic survey in

hate. & # 8221 ; Another critic, Clifton Fadiman wrote: & # 8220 ; Wright is excessively expressed. He says many

things over and over once more. His word picture of upper-class Whites are paper-thin and

confess strangeness. I think he overdoes his melodrama from clip to clip. He is non a

finished author. But the two absolute necessities of the ace novelist passion and

intelligence-are in him. & # 8221 ; ( Butler 12 )

Richard Wright was one of the first authors of his clip to face readers with the

dehumanising effects of racism. Most of his narratives are centered around withdrawn,

impoverished, black work forces who have been denied freedom and personal individuality. Much of

his fiction came from his ain destitute childhood in the South and his early maturity

in the unintegrated communities of Chicago. In Wright & # 8217 ; s composing he frequently embraced

communism, black patriotism and existential philosophy. At the centre of all his work were the

insisting on the pureness of the single imaginativeness, but it is frequently tempered by his vision

of black people & # 8217 ; s corporate fate. Evelyn Gross Avery wrote:

The author most often credited with doing the Negro & # 8220 ; seeable & # 8221 ; is

Richard Wright. . . Offering historical and sociological, every bit good as

psychological penetrations into the American character, Wright examines the

Rebel, his behaviour and motives, his background. Merchandises of a

low-class black environment, Wright & # 8217 ; s Rebels are good acquainted with

hungriness, disease, poorness. They learn rapidly from frightened female parents and

beaten male parents non to anticipate much from America. Their dreams of power

are undercut by the world of Jim Crow and more elusive favoritism.

Ambition is discouraged ; powerlessness reinforced. All entrywaies and issues are

blocked. Trapped, Wright & # 8217 ; s black adult male may take to endure his destiny

passively ; he may reluctantly accept his position as a victim. But non for

long. Wright & # 8217 ; s victims are by and large minor characters or else they evolve

into dark Rebels ( 597 ) .

Richard Wright, is considered a naturalist author. By naturalist we mean his

authorship is defined through his ain experiences. Naturalistic fiction provided Wright with

a agency by which he could break see himself and his work. Wright considers his

naturalism as merely another version of American pragmatism. Wright & # 8217 ; s attractive force to naturalism

comes from his natural acknowledgment that his ain life as an American black adult male was so

closely reflected in realistic fiction. The usage of naturalism was utile to Wright in a

figure of ways. First, it gave him a literary manner that was a utile tool for candidly

examining into the universe around him. Besides, he was able to utilize his realistic manner to

objectively enter his ain experience without falsifying it to accommodate conventional morality

and standard literary gustatory sensations. Critics debate whether Wright & # 8217 ; s Native Son is to the full

realistic in manner and vision. Although, & # 8220 ; Bigger is ab initio portrayed as a realistic

victim caught in an environmental trap, but becomes a new sort of black hero when he

develops the psychological resources necessary to understand his and get the hang his

environment. & # 8221 ; ( Bloom 65 ) An illustration of Wright & # 8217 ; s naturalism authorship is showed through

Bigger & # 8217 ; s ideas after he kills Bessie.

He closed his eyes, hankering for a slumber that would non come.

During the last two yearss and darks he had live so fast and difficult that it was

an attempt to maintain it all existent in his head. So close had danger and decease

come that he could non experience that it was he who had undergone it all. And,

yet, out of all, over and above all that had happened, intangible but existent,

at that place remained to him a fagot sense of power. He had done this. He had

brought all this about. In all of his life these two slayings were the most

meaningful things that had of all time happened to him. He was populating, genuinely and

profoundly, no affair what others might believe, looking at him with their blind

eyes. Never had he had the opportunity to populate out the effects of his

actions ; ne’er had his will been so free as in this dark and twenty-four hours of fright and

slaying and flight.

He had killed twice, but in a true sense it was non the first clip he

had of all time killed. He had killed many times before, but merely during the last

two yearss had this urge assumed the signifier of existent violent death. Blind choler

had come frequently and he had either gone behind his drape or wall, or had

quarreled and fought. And yet, whether in running off or in combat, he

had felt the demand of the clean satisfaction of confronting this thing in all it

comprehensiveness, of contending it out in the air current and sunshine, in forepart of those whose

hatred for him was so unfathomably deep that, after they had shunted him off

into a corner of the metropolis to decompose and decease, they could turn to him, as Mary had

that dark in the auto, and state: & # 8220 ; I & # 8217 ; vitamin Ds like to cognize how your people live. & # 8221 ;

But what was he after? What did he desire? What did he love and

what did he detest? He did non cognize. There was something he knew and

something he felt ; something the universe gave him and something he himself

had ; something spread out in forepart of him and something spread out in

back ; and ne’er in all his life, with this black tegument of his, had two universes,

though and feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been

together ; ne’er had he felt a sense of integrity ( 277-278 ) .

Throughout the old ages Richard Wright & # 8217 ; s Hagiographas has effected and influenced many

people all across the universe. Richard Wright will go on to be known as the most extremely

acclaimed author of his clip. Through his Hagiographas, Wright allows his readers to visualise

what his life was like. Wright told the narrative of his life through his authorship. His novel,

Native Son, will stay on reading lists now and for old ages to come. I hope that this paper

has broaden your position on Richard Wright and his fresh Native Son.

Butler, Robert. Native Son: The Emergence of a New Black Hero. Boston: Twayne

Publishers, 1991.

Joyce, Anne Joyce. & # 8220 ; The Tragic Hero. & # 8221 ; Modern Critical Interpretation. erectile dysfunction. Harold

Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.

Metzger, Linda. & # 8220 ; Richard Wright. & # 8221 ; Black Writers: A Choice of Sketchs from

Contemporary Writers. New York: Gale Research, 1989.

& # 8220 ; Richard Wright. & # 8221 ; African American Writers. erectile dysfunction. Valerie Smith. New York:

Charles Scribner & # 8217 ; s Sons, 1991.

& # 8220 ; Richard Wright. & # 8221 ; Contemporary Literary Criticism. erectile dysfunction. Jean C. Stine. Michigan: Gale

Research Company, 1984.

Walker, Margaret. Richard Wright: Daemonic Genuis. New York: Amistad Press, Inc. ,

1988.

Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1993.