Native+Son

__ //media type="custom" key="5213291" ** Native Son ** //   ____ ** by Richard Wright ** __

__ Plot __
Bigger Thomas is a poor black man that lives with his mother, sister, and brother. He has been oppressed his whole life because he is black, and it is starting to become more than a nuisance. He does not have a job and makes a small sum of money through petty crimes. After taking a job with a wealthy white man named Mr. Dalton, Bigger is given his first assignment, which is to drive Mr. Dalton’s daughter, Mary, to school.

Mary, however has no intentions of going to school and orders Bigger to bring her somewhere to meet up with her friend Jan. The three then go to a local café and Mary and Jan get drunk. After a long night of drinking, eating, and driving around a park, Bigger drops Jan off. Afraid of what Mr. Dalton will say if he finds Mary drunk, he sneaks her in the house around a side door and lays her on her bed. As he is doing so, Mary’s mother, who is blind, enters the room. Bigger panics and puts a pillow over Mary’s face so that she will not utter a sound that would cause Mrs. Dalton to approach the bed. Still in a state of panic, Bigger pushes the pillow down harder and accidently suffocates Mary. As soon as he realizes what he has done, he starts a long drawn out plan about how to get rid of the body and turn the suspicion of her disappearance on Jan. He brings her body into the basement and burns it in the furnace he is supposed to tend.

A few days pass before anyone notices that Mary is gone since she is supposed to be out of town. By this time, Bigger has come up with a plan that is similar to a different recent crime. He accidentally informs his girlfriend, Bessie, of his recent activity. She panics and he worries that she might tip the police. He rapes and then proceeds to kill her since he is afraid that she will snitch.The law eventually catches up to Bigger and he is arrested. Jan, feeling pity that society would do that to a black man, has a friend help Bigger out in court. Starting from the time he accidentally kills Mary, Bigger is in a downward spiral to hell. He had a record of petty theft, but killing a person, especially a white woman, was worse. His conscience has diminished and he feels very little pity for the pain that he has caused.

Criticism
The novel, //Native Son//, was one of very few that I could not set down. I really liked the description of all the events, such as “The warm room lulled his blood and a deepening sense of fatigue drugged him with sleep” (Wright 165). It made me feel as though I was there when the event was happening. I also really enjoyed the suspense. Wright writes, “He turned and a hysterical terror seized him, as though he were falling from a great height in a dream. A white blur was standing by the door, silent, ghostlike. It filled his eyes and gripped his body. It was Mrs. Dalton” (84). At this part, I could feel my heart racing and I found myself reading quickly to see what would happen. The writing style was interesting, and the racial perspective made it hard to understand at some parts, but made me feel the pain for Bigger and his family at others. This book really connected with me emotionally. However, one part of the writing style I did not like was that some parts were written similar to that of a human’s thinking process. It made it hard to follow since there were constant interruptions in the ideas. An example of this is “But, if, yes, but if he told her, yes, just enough to get her to work with him” (Wright 142). Another thing that I did not like was the racial stereotypes used within the book, although I know that it was a real thing at the time this story was written. The most distasteful quote I found in the book is “[Black boys] don’t need a chance, if you ask me. They get in enough trouble without it” (Wright 163). While reading this part of the story, I felt a deep hatred for the man who uttered those words: Mr. Britten. Overall, //Native Son// was one of the best books I have read. It incorporated history, a great plot, and suspense. I loved how Wright used events from his own life to help move the story along. I will recommend this book to everyone I know!

Richard Wright was born on a slave plantation in Roxie, Mississippi on September 4, 1908. After a member of their family was murdered by a group of white men in 1916, the Wright family, full of anxiety and fear, lived in hiding in rented rooms for several months. This event was probably the first time Richard had ever experienced that level of racism, an experience that would shape his future ideas of stereotypes, prejudices, and racism in America.

In 1932, Wright joined a Communism based journalism club that helped him gain interest in the Communist Party. Within a year of joining this club, influence from other members swayed him to join the Communist party. At first, he felt comfortable amongst these people and many of them praised him for his intellect and writing abilities, but after racial issues started to arise between him and comrades of the party, he moved to New York for a fresh start. In New York, he completed several short stories that would get him financially set to move to Harlem, where he began to write //Native Son//.

Until his death in 1960, Wright continued to write short stories, articles, novels, and poetry about the injustices he had witnessed throughout his life. He died on November 28, 1960, due to a heart attack, although it is alleged that his wife of almost 20 years, Ellen Poplar, may have murdered him.

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