I. The Author, Richard Wright
Born on Rucker’s Plantation outside the affluent city of Natchez, Mississippi, Richard Wright began his life in poverty. His father, Nathaniel Wright, was an illiterate sharecropper and his mother, Ella Wilson, was a school teacher. Richard’s grandfathers, Nathan Wright, and Richard Wilson fought for the Union forces in the United States Civil War in order to gain their freedom. Even though Richard’s family was technically free, life on a plantation was not much better than growing up as a slave. Richard’s father left the family when Richard was five years old. Ella attempted to make ends meet by working as a laundry woman. She married another man, Silas Hoskins and moved to Elaine, Arkansas with Richard’s younger brother and sister. However, Silas disappeared although it was suspected that he was killed by a white man who wanted to take over Silas’s successful saloon business. Ella and her children were forced to flee Arkansas and shortly thereafter Ella suffered a stroke and became paralyzed. Richard was sent away to live with an uncle. At this point in his life, he had not completed a single complete year of schooling–he was twelve years old. Richard moved back with his mother at the house of his maternal grandmother in Jackson, Mississippi. This was the first time that Richard was able to regularly attend school. At his grandmother’s house, Richard was forced to live in a strict religious environment where no book was allowed in the house aside from the Bible. Richard got into many conflicts with his grandmother and aunt, and many attribute this early experience to his later hostility towards organized religion (Rayson).
Despite the fact that he had very little formal education, Richard excelled in school and became class valedictorian of his junior high. He was asked to deliver a speech that he had written but his principle replaced the speech with one written to not offend any of the white school district officials. Richard refused to change his speech and delivered it exactly as he planned. (Black Boy). Even in his earliest years, Richard’s desire to speak the truth regardless of how offensive it might be was a defining quality of the young writer. Richard went on to attend a high school that was segregated for black students but after a few weeks he dropped out in order to work and make money for his family. At age 17, Richard moved to Memphis, Tennessee and shortly after decided to leave the South entirely and head to Chicago where he found a job as a United States postal clerk. During the Great Depression, Richard was fired and began attending meetings of the Communist Party. (“Richard Wright”). Late in 1933, he became an official member of the Party. During his time in Chicago, he became a writer for Communist news pamphlets and was an avid reader. Richard had a hard time fitting in wherever he went. In New York City, white communist party members refused to find housing for him when they learned of his race, on the other hand, black communist members said he was too “bourgeois and intellectual.” While in New York, he wrote perhaps his most well-known and best selling novel, Native Son. Richard became an instant celebrity and received numerous awards and eventually fled the United States because he could not endure the racism that he faced and moved to Quebec, Canada and later to Paris, France. (“Richard Wright Biography”) He was not allowed to buy an apartment, shopkeepers referred to him as “boy,” and he and his family were often glared at because his wife was white and his children were of mixed race (Rayson).
During the mid-1950s Richard traveled to Africa and Asia frequently. During his journeys, he engaged in social and political discussions and wrote works on several topics. He wrote the book Black Power, which was a term that was coined by Wright. In it, he discussed how it was important for Africans to throw off their tribal customs and adopt new technologically advanced ways. But he was not alone on his travels. Wright was paranoid about being followed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Eventually, a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that his paranoia was not unfounded, as the CIA really had been following him on his journeys. During the last year and a half of his life, Wright had become ill with amoebic dysentery that he most likely contracted sometime during his travels in Africa and Asia. Richard died of a heart attack in Paris, France on November 28, 1960, at the age of 52 (Rayson).
II. The Book Itself
A. Form, Structure, and Plot
The plot structure of Native Son is a hybrid of the traditional tragedy plot structure and a rebirth plot structure type. In both the tragedy plot structure and the rebirth plot structure, the hero is introduced in a state of misery. While the tragedy plot structure introduces the hero as being unfulfilled with life and wanting for more. the rebirth plot structure begins with the hero found in the grips of a dark and all-powerful force. Native Son, which is broken up into three distinct books titled “Fear”, “Flight”, and “Fate” respectively begins with the protagonist, a 19-year-old named Bigger Thomas, waking up in darkness as an alarm rings. The audience is presented with Bigger and his family, which consists of his brother Buddy, his sister Vera, and his mother, all living in a one bedroom apartment in a Chicago. Quickly, more about Bigger’s life is revealed as a large black rat scurries through the apartment and attacks Bigger before Bigger can hit it with a skillet and smash its head in with his boots. Bigger, it seems, lives in an urban ghetto, that appears to offer no hope–his apartment is cramped and invested with rats. He hates his life and his family because of the poverty they live in and the fact that they have no power to fix their lives. Bigger is unfulfilled and in the grips of a dark power–poverty and racial oppression. However, there is a glimmer of hope. Bigger’s mother asks him about a job opportunity that he has been offered by Mr. Dalton and attempts to guilt him into taking it by saying they could move into a better apartment with the added income. She then warns him, “if you don’t take that job the relief’ll cut us off” and “we won’t have any food” (16). Bigger feels trapped in his life and believes that he is forced into a “cheap surrender” (15). He is a member of a gang, which consists of his friend Gus, Jack, and G.H.. Bigger wants to rob a white man because that would allow him to get more money and prove that he is not a victim to the racist society that oppresses him. The gang discusses a plan to rob a delicatessen owned by a white man, Mr. Bloom. All of the boys are secretly afraid to rob a white man because they know the police officers really only care about protecting white people.
To suppress his feelings of fear, Bigger decides to go to a movie where he happens to see a newsreel of the daughter of a wealthy family, Mary Dalton, as well as images of black men and women dancing. Now Bigger sees the job with the Daltons as an opportunity. Maybe, he thinks the job might be his opportunity to become wealthy like the white people he sees in the movies. At this moment, the plot shifts into its next phase. Like the tragedy plot structure, the hero, Bigger, sees a new goal and begins to move toward it. Similarly, like the rebirth plot structure, the hero’s life looks to be improving and the threat that had formerly surrounded him is now fading. No longer does Bigger think about robbing white people for money; instead, he sees an opportunity to work for white people as his hope to escape from poverty and oppression. He goes to a job interview with Mr. Dalton and feels extremely uncomfortable because of the lavish house of the Daltons and realizes that Mr. Dalton is the owner of the rat-infested housing complex that Bigger lives in. During the interview, Bigger answers questions in a timid “yessuh” and “nawsuh.” Mr. Dalton described how he wants to hire Bigger because Mr. Dalton is a strong supporter of the “blacks” and donates money to the NAACP. Bigger is given his first assignment as a chauffeur, which is to drive Mary, the Daltons daughter and woman from the newsreel, to a university lecture that evening. When Bigger takes Mary out in the car, Mary tells him that she actually does not want to go to the lecture, instead has secret plans that she wishes to keep from her parents. Mary has Bigger take her to pick up her lover, Jan Erlone, who shakes Biggers’ hand and insists that he call him by his first name. The way that Mary and Jan talk to Bigger makes him uncomfortable. He feels like they are mocking him. They ask to go to a black restaurant and ask that Bigger sit down and eat with them. Eventually, the group leaves the restaurant and Bigger drives the two around the park as they make out. When Bigger drops Jan off, Mary sits next to him and puts her head on his shoulder. Bigger feels angry and as though she is teasing him. Finally, Bigger drops Mary off at the Daltons house and has to carry Mary up to her bedroom. Bigger then kisses Mary and at that moment Mrs. Dalton walks in and Bigger becomes hysterical, fearing that he will be discovered in a white woman’s bedroom. He puts a pillow over Mary’s head so that she does not say something that might reveal his presence. In his hysteria, Bigger smothers Mary to death and then burns her body after cutting off the head. Bigger devises a plan to put the blame on Jan after fleeing the Daltons house. At this juncture, the plot begins to mirror the final stages of the tragedy plot structure and the rebirth plot structure because things begin to go extremely wrong for the hero who is forced to resort to desperate actions in order to confront the force that oppresses him. This also marks the end of Book One in Native Son.
Book Two of Native Son describes how Bigger deals with the threats in front of him in desperate ways. Bigger is terrified that he might get caught but he is also exhilarated at the idea that he was able to kill a white woman and nobody notices. Bigger is questioned by the Daltons and strongly implies that Jan had been with Mary last and is responsible for her disappearance. Bigger leaves the scene and meets up with his girlfriend Bessie. She has been drinking heavily and Bigger realizes that she is as blind as everyone else. But she grows suspicious of Bigger when he talks about plans to get more money from the Daltons. Bigger tells Bessie that he knows Mary will not returns and Bessie does not understand how he knows that. He threatens to assault Bessie when she doubts his story that Mary has run off with Jan and he tells Bessie that she will be the one responsible for getting the ransom money from the Daltons. Bessie agrees. Bigger returns to the Dalton house and pretends to be a humble and foolish black servant so that the Daltons do not suspect him in the crime. Eventually, the Daltons hire a private investigator to look into the disappearance of Mary. The private investigator begins to question Bigger, but he plays the role of the subservient black man and tells Britten, the investigator, that Mary did not go to the university, but instead went to pick up Jan. Britten still believes that Bigger is guilt, saying “a nixxer’s a nixxer,” but Mr. Dalton defends Bigger. Eventually, Jan is brought to the house and Mr. Dalton offers him money to reveal Mary’s location and Jan walks off angrily. Bigger goes to meet Bessie where he writes a ransom note demanding money from the Daltons. Bessie believes Bigger is responsible for Mary’s disappearance and Bigger threatens Bessie to go along with the plan. Bigger returns to the Daltons to leave the note and while he is there, Peggy, the Daltons housemaid, asks Bigger to clean the ashes out of the furnace. He tries to avoid cleaning the ashes and instead just puts in more coal, which causes the basement to fill with smoke and a reporter who is at the house removes the ashes from the furnace to find bones and an earring. Bigger flees the house and goes to meet up with Bessie to stop the ransom plan. Bigger and Bessie go to an abandoned building and he rapes her and then murders her after seeing images in his head of Mrs. Dalton, Mary burning, Britten, and police officers chasing after him. He then dumps Bessie’s body down an air shaft only to realize that all of his money was in her pocket. He feels better about himself after these killings and they make him feel powerful. Eventually, the police capture Bigger and the angry white mob demand the death of the “black ape.” Bigger has descended deeper and deeper into darkness. In the traditional plot structure of the tragedy, this is where the story might end. However, Bigger’s arrest does lead to some changes, which makes this part of the story more similar to the plot structure of rebirth. Book Two ends with Bigger’s capture.
At the beginning of Book Three, Bigger is in a prison cell. Jan visits him and talks about how he wants to help Bigger and how he feels bad for Bigger. Jan introduces Bigger to a lawyer, Boris Max, who works for the labor defenders. Max offers to defend Bigger free of charge. Bigger signs a confession to the crime and is sent to court to stand trial. At trial, Max questions Mr. Dalton about why black tenants pay more for real estate than white tenants and why black tenants are not allowed to live outside the South Side of Chicago. Mr. Dalton admits that he does not rent to blacks outside of the South Side and when Max asks him if Bigger’s living conditions may have contributed to the death of Mary, Mr. Dalton acts as though the question does not make any sense.
When Max visits Bigger in his cell, Max asks him why he did it. This was the first time that Bigger feels like someone is acknowledging him and his feelings. He feels a sense of hope, like there are people out there who can understand him and that there is a reason to live and understand the world. As the sentencing portion of the trial continues, Max argues that society itself is to blame for creating the conditions that made someone like Bigger possible. Eventually, though, Bigger is sentenced to die for his crimes. Bigger and Max talk and Bigger talks about how grateful he is that Max attempted to understand him. Bigger comes to terms with who he is and what he has done and now realizes that all people are human underneath. In this way, Bigger comes to the realization that he is a human being and not the character that he is made to feel like by society. This final act represents the rebirth of Bigger as an angry and bitter young man and instead, as a thoughtful considerate human being who acknowledges the complexities of the world around him. That moment of realization firmly sets this story as a version of the rebirth plot structure, which involves the hero being saved, either physically or intellectually from the dark forces that looked as though they would destroy the hero.
B. Point of View
The novel is written from a limited omniscient point of view. Maybe the story is a connection between Richard Wright’s own experience and Bigger. In writing in the perspective of Bigger, Wright can be semi-autobiographical. Bigger is the central character in this novel because the experiences of a black man at these times were relatively unheard of and black men were largely considered as the most threatening figures in the American consciousness. By being able to present the experiences from the perspective of a black man, Wright was able to humanize a character that was often vilified in American society.
C. Tone
Wright is empathetic to Biggers experiences. The general point of view of the story is from Bigger and the willingness of the author to go into Biggers thoughts and understand what his emotional state is and how he feels about things and how he is afraid of the world creates a sympathetic framework. When Bigger kills Mary and Bessie, Wright does not go into much detail and portrays Bigger as a victim of circumstance. He looks at the other characters through their actions and uses them to describe how Bigger responds to their actions. He never vilifies Mary, Jan, or Mr. Dalton, instead, he often uses their actions in order to portray some of the things they do as inconsiderate or unconscious. Wright uses the story to describe how his life progressed and that his life was a product of and a response to racism. The major subject of the novel is how racism can result in consequences that are negative for all people. What happens in Bigger’s life and in the lives of his family and those around him reveal how racism can harm minority communities. In term of the consequences of racism and how they manifest themselves among the people who are beneficiaries of racism like the Daltons, the results are still fundamentally negative as those people have their lives ripped apart when Mary is murdered. Overall, Wright is extremely critical of racism and how it impacts people regardless of their race and leaves no individual unscathed regardless of how protected they think they might be. Towards the reader, Wright is communicating with an intent to inform. To some extent, Richard Wright treats the main character of Bigger in a sympathetic way in order to provide the audience, whom we most likely would assume to be more affluent and white, to the problems of a young black male. In this way, Wright has no hostility toward his audience but views them as mostly ignorant to the experiences of a poor black man.
D. Setting
The novel takes place in the middle of the twentieth century in an urban ghetto in Chicago and also in the affluent side of Chicago when Bigger goes to work for the Daltons. The setting of the novel plays an integral part in the story, but it does not really come to life like other settings. It is a backdrop, it is always present, but it is lurking behind the scenes. The setting makes us aware of Biggers poverty and aware of Mr. Dalton’s wealth. Its job is to establish a stage that gives reason for the story itself. Wright likely used Chicago as his backdrop because it is such a divided city. It is a part of the midwest so we tend to associate it with folksy white American values of hospitality, kindness, etc.. However, at the same time, Chicago is where many African Americans migrated to during the Great Migration where blacks fled southern states in search of promise in the north. In this way, Chicago was supposed to serve as a beacon of hope to southern blacks desperate to break free from the racism that had enslaved them in the south. Yet, even in the north, African Americans do not seem to have any more hope for opportunity than in the south. In this way, Wright plays with audience expectations that the north is more enlightened and forward-thinking than the American south. Similarly, the setting provides a vivid picture of wealthy whites and poor blacks living side by side with each relying on the other. Wealthy whites relying on African Americans to provide them with labor and African Americans relying on whites for employment. With this singular setting, Wright can address a variety of different aspects of racism in America efficiently and vividly.
E. Character
Wright predominantly uses character actions in order to develop his main characters. Perhaps the only character he does not rely solely on actions to depict is Bigger. However, even with Bigger, Wright uses description of how he interacts with his environment and the characters within it in order to inform the audience who Bigger is. Wright does not spend much time describing Bigger’s inner monologue. Two of the more interesting main characters are Bigger and Bessie. Bigger is a twenty-year-old black man with “strong black fingers” and a “metallically black” face, and “in his eyes a pensive, brooding amusement, as of a man who had been long confronted and tantalized by a riddle whose answer seemed always just on the verge of escaping him, but prodding him irresistibly on to seek its solution” (14). Bigger is angry with the world and he is also afraid. He is resentful of the white society that forces him into a small role even though he has large aspirations for himself. His recent becomes fatalistic as “’ Every time [he] get[s] to thinking about [him] being black and they being white, [him] being here and they being there, [he] feel[s] like something awful’s going to happen to me” However, as the novel progresses, the rage he feels turns to violence, which at first makes him feel liberated, but after his interactions with Jan, Boris Max, his lawyer, Bigger begins to transform and come to terms with how his circumstance in life has filled him with envy and anger. Bigger is eventually able to begin coping with these feelings and start his transformation toward realization and enlightenment. He is not a static character, but a highly dynamic character. Bessie Mears is a larger girl and other than that she does not have any described physical description. The lack of physical description of characters like Bigger and Bessie serves some larger function of Richard Wright to help paint all of the characters as “everyday people” from the African American community. These characters are supposed to be stand-ins for people within the black community who feel overly persecuted by white society. Bessie’s personality is similar to Biggers, she also feels trapped within a white society that would choose to ignore her and unlike Bigger, she decides to self-medicate with alcohol in order to soothe their suffering. The best way to understand Bessie is to understand her in relation to Bigger insofar “as he walked beside her he felt that there were two Bessies: one a body that he had just had and wanted badly again; the other was in Bessie’s face; it asked questions; it bargained and sold the other Bessie to advantage” (30); thus, demonstrating Bessi as a tragic character, like Bigger, who is trapped by her circumstances and who others would like to dehumanize and use for their own purposes.
F. Diction/Figurative Language and Imagery
Richard Wright moves back and forth between formal English when writing his prose and a broken African American dialect when writing the dialogue for his African American characters. This heavy use of dialogue mixed with clean, straightforward prose is the essence of Richard Wright’s writing style. The use of African-American dialect heightens the realism of the characters and the idea that they come from a community that has substandard conditions when compared with the greater white community that he is surrounded by. Additionally, the use of these dialects serves to isolate the African Americans in the novel from the larger white community and demonstrate the lack of access to education and opportunity that was available to whites living only a few blocks away. Figurative language, and particularly symbolism is extremely significant in Native Son. The most prominent symbols are the rat, the snow, and flying. In the earliest passage of Native Son, Richard Wright introduces the symbol of the rat in Bigger’s house. Bigger’s living conditions are horrible and rats seem like a common thing. Almost as soon as Bigger wakes up, “A huge black rat squealed and leaped at Bigger’s trouser-leg and snagged it in his teeth, hanging on. […] squeak[ing] and turn[ing] and [running] in a narrow circle, looking for a place to hid; […] [t]hen it turned and reared upon its hind legs” (2) hissing at bigger. The rat symbolizes Bigger, who is trapped in a bad circumstance and is seen by his society as worthless vermin simply trying to scratch out an existence and fighting against insurmountable odds when it is cornered. Snow is also a significant recurring symbol that begins to fall after Bigger kills Mary Dalton and continues to cover the streets until Bigger is captured by the police. When Bigger goes tries to evade police, he steps out into a world where the “snow [is] falling again; the streets were long paths leading through a dense jungle, lit here and there with torches held high in invisible hands’ (141).’ The reader has the sense of Bigger walking back out into the ”jungle” that is his own creation of lies and dangerous outcomes and the snow symbolizes the dominance of the white world that covers Bigger blankets his world. A similarly significant motif in the novel is the motif of flight, symbolized through the plane and the pigeon. As Bigger, meets with his friends planning a robbery they all are too afraid to commit, “their eyes were riveted” as “a slate-colored pigeon swooped down to the middle of the steel car tracks and began strutting to and fro with ruffled feathers, its fat neck bobbing with regal pride”, and when “[a] street car rumbled forward and the pigeon rose swiftly through the air on wings stretched so taut and sheer that Bigger could see the gold of the sun through their translucent tips” (23). He saw this pigeon and thought to himself “if I could only do that” (23). Bigger then talks about how he would like to be a pilot, but then goes on to discuss how he is not allowed to fly even though he would be good at it. Flight, here, represents Bigger’s larger desire to be able to escape this world and be free–like the pigeon that was able to evade the streetcar.
When Bigger meets with his ‘gang’ to let off some steam and discuss a possible robbery, Richard Wright describes their interaction, noting:
“Kinda warm today.”
“Yeah,” Gus said.
“You get more heat from this sun than from them old radiators at home.”
“Yeah; them old white landlords sure don’t give much heat.”
“And they always knocking at your door for money.”
“I’ll be glad when summer comes.”
“Me too,” Bigger said
He stretched his arms above his head and yawned; his eyes moistened. The sharp precision of the world of steel and stone dissolved into blurred waves. He blinked and the world grew hard again, mechanical, distinct. A weaving motion in the sky made him turn his eyes upward; he saw a slender streak of billowing white blooming against the deep blue.” (19)
This passage is recognizably Richard Wright’s writing through its heavy use of dialogue in a realistic dialect. For instance, phrases like “they always knocking”, “kinda warm”, and “don’t give much heat” allude to a broken English common in African-American neighborhoods that suffer from high levels of poverty and lack of education. Through the dialogue, the character’s experiences and circumstances are revealed. In this way, Richard Wright doesn’t have to explain his characters through prose but can use the characters’ own thoughts and feelings to describe themselves. Notice, how the dialogue is only briefly interrupted by formal prose that is simple and yet descriptive.
H. “Clearly, this is a book about how the oppressive conditions of racism can dehumanize people and force them, like the proverbial rat, to desperately seek a way out until it ultimately turns and fights to try and regain some lost dignity and power.”
Clearly, Native Son is a book about how the oppressive conditions of racism can dehumanize people and force them, like the proverbial rat, to desperately seek a way out until it ultimately turns and fights to try and regain some lost dignity and power. Throughout the novel, Bigger is used as a stand-in for the young black male while Bessie represents the young black female. Both feel hopeless and trapped by their circumstances, and both attempt to find some way to either hide those feelings or fight back against them. Yet, Bigger realizes that white society has stripped him of his humanity and that only he can get it back through acknowledgment of his pain and seeking redemption by turning his back on the ambitions to be a member of the white society he dreamed of when pretending with his friends. Richard Wright uses Native Son to remind American society of what it has created in its children–its native sons and daughters–who feel left out by a society built on capitalism, exploitation, and denial of humanity.
2019-1-14-1547490733