WRIGHT, RICHARD "NATIVE SON".   Term Paper ID:6205 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: An analysis of the social & philosophical themes in Wright's controversial work on the black experience in a white world.... More...

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Paper Abstract: An analysis of the social & philosophical themes in Wright's controversial work on the black experience in a white world. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine the literary qualities and the social and philosophical content of Richard Wright's Native Son. Published in 1940, almost two decades before the civil rights movement, Richard Wright's Native Son was a literary and social bombshell. It was widely reviewed and discussed and catapulted its author into fame, making him a source of controversy for years to come. Wright's account of a shiftless, apparently apathetic slum boy who harbored an obsessive hatred of whites came as a shocking revelation even to the most liberal of white readers. Even more startling was the implication that the brutal murders committed by Bigger, the central character, in celebration of his hatred are the logical outcome of his degraded racial position in American society. In addition, woven throughout the story are the obsessive hatred of Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Wright's novel has been compared to Dostoevsky, in thatBigger wrestles with the basic problems of a human soul in hell because itis sock with a deadly spiritual sickness. "You knew that I was amurderer two times over, but you treated me like a man . The eloquent defenseof Bigger by Max in the courtroom is the most directly political part ofthe novel, and its mere length and depth of argument is an artisticweakness, almost as if Wright is trying to convince himself. He elects force as asign of his being, and by rebelling against established authority --despite the impossibility of success -- he acquires a measure of freedom.This point is underlined by the clear implication that oppressiveenvironmental factors do not alone account for Bigger's actions. Book I, "Fear," traces a day in the life of a 2 year old BiggerThomas, from the moment he wakes up in the morning and kills a rat in hissqualid, one-room tenement to the time he goesback to bed some 21 hours later, having just accidently murdered a whitegirl. Native Son is as much a psychological novel as it is socio-logical,with Wright delving deeply into the various emotions of shame, hate andfear that Biggers feels. Wright forecasts Biggers doom from the very start. In fact, Bigger isexposed to political arguments throughout the novel without ever graspingany of their implications. Native Son is still read and classified as part of black literature,but perhaps more than any other novel by a black author in the twentiethcentury, it deserves a wide popular reading. Thistransforms his character into a universality which makes Native Son aliterary statement, not just a racial statement. Max's sympathy may have been genuine, butwhat good is it to Bigger if it cannot save his life? Ironically the dignity takes the form of acts compounding hiscrime. At one time, hewas a devoted member of the Communist party and wished to use his skills asa writer to further the cause of socialism in America. But never could they sink their differences in hope. Yet this response remains on a personal level, even if itmanages to rise to some degree of universal, humanistic proportions.Bigger never makes the transition to a political understanding of hisexistence, and cannot even feel black solidarity against the white. In addition, woven throughout the story are the obsessive hatredof Communism in America and Wright's obvious sympathy for its critique ifnot its doctrines. In a movie he could dream without effort; all he had to do was lean back in the seat and keep his eyes open. Though his rejection of black life was only anegative choice, his acts of murder are positive -- thus in a degreehumanizing -- since he is quite prepared to accept the consequences. [1] The experience of being black in a white world is a constant theme ofNative Son. However,the book contains a singularity of dimension and purpose which tends tomake the political statement assume an over-importance to its place in thestructure of the novel. Theyare incapable of viewing black men as possessing sensitivity andintelligence. Bigger's greatestfear is self-knowledge, and this is the theme and title of Book I. Bigger is both victim and perpetrator. Bigger's day thus symbolically begins and ends in death. Mrs. Dalton's blindness is symbolic of the blindness of thewhite liberal philanthropic community. He plans to lay the blame for Mary's disappearance on Jan, andBigger comprehends that as a Communist, Jan is a pariah, somewhat likeBigger himself. [5]Ibid., p. The story works to its conclusion asrelentlessly as Bigger approaches life. The structure of Native Son is remarkably simple. Wright is writing about the black condition in Americansociety and it is difficult to imagine Bigger as a white person caught inthe same dilemma. When he reveals his crime to Bessie and attempts toimplicate her in a kidnapping-ransom plan, he decides that he must killBessie as well. Heunderstood that crime for a black person was when he attacked whites orwhite property. Bigger's nature is composed of dread and hate. By the time NativeSon was published, Wright was undergoing a transformation, a transformationwhich would turn him from Communism, if not from radicalism. [4]Ibid., p. Later he goes to a movie and sitsthrough a banal Hollywood double bill. Even more startling was the implication that the brutal murderscommitted by Bigger, the central character, in celebration of his hatredare the logical outcome of his degraded racial position in Americansociety. If Bigger is, as Wrightcontends, a prophesy of the future, it is indeed an ominous prophesy. He had brought this about. So Bigger decides, or is forced to decide, to make a crimewhere there was none. In fact,Native Son ends in a kind of confusion, a philosophical vagueness somewherebetween Bigger and Max. [2]Ibid., p. Wright skillfully juxtaposes two basic settings: the stark, bleak,rat-infested ghetto of black Chicago and the wealthy, elegant world of theDaltons, where Bigger goes to work as a chauffeur. Wright tried for a time -- Max is sometestimony to the effort -- but he could not finally assimilate thedogma."[11] Bigger's relationship with Max -- the left-wing, Jewish lawyer whodefends him -- is the most critical and sensitive relationship in thenovel. [6]Ibid., p. For Wright, aformer Communist, this is an important social statement. Yet Max had given him the faith that atbottom all men lived as he lived and felt as he felt. Bigger lives with hissister, two brothers and mother in a tiny, one-room apartment where, in theopening pages, the family comforts a "huge black rat." No mention is evermade of the father of the family. The Communists -- Mary, Jan, and Max -- are just as blind to thehumanity of blacks as are the others, even though they presumably want toenlist blacks as equals in their own cause. Native Son exists on two levels: as an artistic statement ofspiritual sickness in the tradition of Dostoevsky, or even more narrowly,as a statement of blackness in white America, and as a polemic against thestructure of a racist, capitalist society. The Party wanted him to correctit to fit into left-wing orthodoxy. Bigger's choices aremoral and metaphysical, in the end, not simply political or racial. Now that Bigger has murdered once, he finds murdering againrelatively simple. He was living, truly and deeply, no matter what others might think, looking at him with their blind eyes. [1 ]John Riely, "Afterword," in Richard Wright, Native Son (New York:Harper & Row, 194 ), p. And of all the menhe had met, surely Max knew what he was trying to say." Max was the firstperson who had treated him with real respect. This is amomentous decision and based on his accurate perception of his racialposition in American society. For example, he is afraid to steal from a white storekeeper, andhe is terrified that his friends can read his feelings. "In hiswriting," observed John Reily, "Wright intended to interpret the experienceof the Negro underclass to the Communists so that the Party could thendevise programs for their advancement. Such was his way oflife and mine; neither Bigger nor I resided fully in either camp."[5] Oneimportant theme of the novel is Bigger's rejection of the Communistcritique, although he responds with some warmth to Jan, the youngCommunist, and later, more significantly, to Max, the leftist lawyer whodefends him. In the intense final scene of the book, where Bigger and Max arealone in Bigger's cell moments before his execution, Bigger confrontsfeelings and ideas which are the climax of his bizarre life. Party functionaries were happy tohave the help of Wright's skills as a writer. ."[2] Although Bigger is ignorant ofpolitics, he is acutely aware of the political aspect of his oppression --the white world did not really care that he had murdered Bessie, whoseworld was black -- she was merely "evidence" of his general depravity. He realizes that they are responsible forhis immobility, his frustration; yet to recognize even this would beadmitting simultaneously a profound self-hatred. Biggerrealizes that his life has been narrow and shallow: "He had lived outsideof the lives of men. [11]Ibid., p. Wright's account of ashiftless, apparently apathetic slum boy who harbored an obsessive hatredof whites came as a shocking revelation even to the most liberal of whitereaders. This decision is cold and calculating; unlike his firstmurder, which was accidentally exhilarating, the second murder on evengreater symbolic importance: And, yet, out of all, over and above all that happened, impalpable but real, there remained to him a queer sense of power. Bigger was caught hopelessly inanother world, and the movies were a cheap, ghetto escape: He stood on the corner in the sunshine, watching cars and people pass. Only when threatened with death could that happen; only in fear and shame with their backs against a wall, could that happen. It waswidely reviewed and discussed and catapulted its author into fame, makinghim a source of controversy for years to come. In the morning Bigger loiters on the street with members of his gangand plots to rob a white man's store. 17. He has the choice betweenforce and submission, love and hate, life and death. No one would believe that the killing wasaccidental; inevitably, there would be sexual accusations, and Bigger'ssexual attraction to Mary in her bedroom compounds and reinforces thisunderstanding. Ijust feel that way. . Bigger's effort to cover his crime is bumbling, andultimately futile, but not without a native cleverness built into hisintelligence to survive. . The totality of Bigger's actions are rooted in this fear. "You asked me questionsnobody ever asked me before," Bigger tells Max. He was political by implication, but not bydeed. All seemto him evasions of reality. In this sense, weare all native sons.----------------------- [1]Richard Wright, Native Son (New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers,194 ), p. [12]Ibid., pp. To some extent there is auniversality in Bigger, but in the final analysis, it is the fact of hisblackness which determines his fate, both in his own mind and in the mindof society. Bigger even had a primitive sense of political solidaritywith black people, but it was never strongly enough to overcome theindividualistic impulses built into American society: Even though black like them, he felt there was too much difference between him and them to allow for a common binding and a common life. Native Son is a novel aboutAmerica, white America as well as black America, and more importantly, ittouches on universal themes of alienation and rebellion. But they did not wantany part of his personal vision of life. 396. Bigger suddenly enjoys a sense of potency and freedom that hehas never before experienced. Instead, ascompensation, he attacks Gus in order to prove his courage to himself. If the black isa beast who must be caged in order to protect the purity of the white race,that is at least an identity -- preferable to that of someone obsequious,passive, and happily acquiescent to his exploitation. . In killing Mary, he believes, he has destroyedsymbolically all the oppressive forces that have made his life a misery.Thus, perhaps, Wright hints, her death was not so accidental as it appearedat the time. Max comesfrom a completely different world, yet Bigger is able to feel through Max'ssympathy a level of humanity heretofore inaccessible to him. . It is the symbol of all the possibilities that Wright holds openfor the future, and its failure in the end represents the note of pessimismwith which the novel concludes. The metaphor that Wright uses most often to illustrate therelationship between the races -- and a central metaphor in the novel -- is"blindness." In a practical sense, it is the blindness of Mrs. Dalton thatprevented her from seeing Bigger in the bedroom with Mary after the murder,and permitted Bigger to attempt to cover his crime. There istoo great a social and psychological distance, and, after all, Max hadfailed to save Bigger's life. Wright had to discover a means of communicating thoughts andemotions that Bigger himself is unable to express. The black condition is unique, if not isolated, and ifWright's suggestion is that socialism is the answer to general humandignity, it is a suggestion that artistically, at least, is confined to thepsychological emancipation of black people. 97. The purpose of this research is to examine the literary qualities andthe social and philosophical content of Richard Wright's Native Son.Published in 194 , almost two decades before the civil rights movement,Richard Wright's Native Son was a literary and social bombshell. As Wright pointed out in commentary on Native Son, Bigger was bothattracted and repelled by the American scene: "He was an American, becausehe was a native son; but he was also a Negro nationalist in a vague sensebecause he was not allowed to live as an American. [8]Ibid. 12. xxxii. Bigger virtually lives on the street aNdhangs out with a gang of young thugs whose world is saturated with violenceand the brute struggle for psychic and physical survival. When he looks at his family, herealizes they are as blind as he had been; he finally understands what itmeans to be black. As John Reily points out, therealism of Native Son "is concerned not so much to report objectiveconditions as to show the way it feels to be imprisoned by the social factsof Negro life in America."[1 ] Ironically, Bigger has assumed exactly the role the white worldthrusts upon the black in order to justify his oppression. He kills her because he fears the help he has given herwill be misunderstood. In all his life these two murders were the most meaning- ful things that had ever happened to him. Yet, should he admit these things to himself,he may well commit an act of unconscionable violence. Whites prefer to think ofblacks in easily stereotyped images of brute beast or happy minstrel. In describing the growth and development of Native Son, RichardWright stated that he had for years considered the idea of creating acharacter who would be a symbolic figure of American life, "a figure whowould hold within him the prophecy of our future." For Wright, Bigger heldwithin him the "outlines of action and feeling which we would encounter ona vast scale in the days to come." This was indeed a shocking prophecy,especially for liberal whites, whites like the fictional Daltons who gaveto the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and werewilling to risk a sympathetic, if condescending, attitude toward blackpeople: Just as one sees when one walks into a medical research laboratory jars of alcohol containing abnormally large or distorted portions of the human body, just so did I see and feel that the conditions of life under which Negroes are forced to live in America contain the embryonic emotional preconfigurations of how a large part of the body politic would react under stress.[4] This response, it should be emphasized, was an individualisticlashing out, with no political roots whatsoever. xxxvii. But Wrightemphasizes that the totality of Bigger's existence is a kind of wakingdeath. . 2 3. It is to Wright's credit as anovelist that the second level does not interfere with the first. virtue, or Bessie's whiskey. Published in194 , it was read as a racial statement; re-read in the 197 's it takes ona more universal appeal. The viewpoint through-out is that of theilliterate and basically inarticulate Bigger and is told in the detachedthird person. He had done this. Bigger has a sense that doom is around the corner for him andthat doom is inextricably connected to his oppression as a black. [3] There is a pulse-beat in Native Son, a fate, a destiny for Biggerfrom page one, which adds greatly to the structure and intensity of thenovel. Bigger and his street corner friends play "white," a gamewhere they feign great importance, like being a general, or J.P. So he channels his hatredand aggression toward other blacks and thus, momentarily at least, assuageshis ego. . [7]Ibid., p. The novel isdivided into three parts, the first two covering approximately seventy-twohours, the final part perhaps a month. He hateswhites because he fears them. Biggers psychological reaction to his crime is profoundly political.For once in his life he will know the consequences of an action he has"voluntarily" taken. Biggers can be black or white or brown, and thesocieties that oppress them and those that attempt to deal sympatheticallywith them have existed in every period of human history. It is in Bigger's psychological reaction to his crimes that Wrightdrives home the central theme of the Native Son, a theme that can only bedescribed as frightening, especially to white readers: "He had killedtwice, but in a true sense it was not the first time he had ever killed.He had killed many times before, but only during the last two days had thisimpulse assumed the form of actual killing."[8] In an absurd, hostileworld that denies his humanity and dichotomizes his personality, he hasmade a choice that somehow integrates his personality: There was something he knew and something he felt; something the world gave him and something he himself had; something spread out in front of him and something spread out in back; and never in all his life, with this black skin of his, had the two worlds, thought and feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been togther; never had he felt a sense of wholeness. It is this very blindness that Bigger counts on as the meansof getting away with his crimes. Bigger's response to Max is really the emotional highlight of thestory -- for a brief moment Bigger believes in Max, believes that Maxrepresents a hope for the future that Bigger has never actually considered. At times Wright franklyinterprets them to his readers, but often he reveals them in objectifiedimages of Bigger's environment -- the way the streets look to him, thesounds of a rat running in the darkness of a tenement, the feel of thesleet against his skin, his reaction to the plush world of the Daltons --and in simple, objective accounts of Bigger's movements, which portray thedepth of Bigger's emotions. Never had he had the chance to live out the consequences of his actions; never had his will been so free as in this night and day of fear and murder and flight.[7]Bigger's crimes thus become political acts, even if his understanding oftheir basis is narrow and emotionally charged. Wright shows how the glitter of thegreat white world beyond titillates Bigger and, at the same time,frustrates him all the more. Caught inwhat h believes is an impossible situation, he reacts with all thebrutality whites ascribe to "primitive" blacks. He knows something, has done something, thatwhite people do not know, and proceeds to act with a newly discovereddignity. Every time I get to thinking about me being black andthey being white, me being here and they being there, I feel like somethingawful's going to happen to me . only under the stress of hate was the conflict resolved. xxxix. 2 3-2 4. Even well-meaning people like the Daltonsare blind to the real sufferings of blacks. Morgan orPresident and laugh at their mock seriousness, a coverup for their ownimpotence. 353-354.----------------------- 17 He wanted to see a movie; his senses hungered for it. The inconsistency of Wright's ideologies andphilosophical attitudes prevents Bigger and the other characters fromdeveloping properly, adulterates the structure of the novel, andoccasionally clouds an otherwise lucid prose style. . He had been so conditioned in a cramped environment that hard words or kicks alone knocked him upright and made him capable of action -- action that was futile because the world was too much for him.[9] This raises the question of how universal a character Bigger is. Believing that acts of charitycan somehow miraculously banish in blacks feelings of shame, fear, andsuspicion, the Daltons lavish millions of dollars on black colleges andwelfare organizations, while at the same time they continue to support therigid caste system that is responsible for the black's degradation in thefirst place. "I hadalso to show what oppression had done to Bigger's relationships with hisown people," Wright observed, "how it had split him off from them, how itbaffled him; how oppression seems to hinder and stifle in the victim thosevery qualities of character which are so essential for an effectivestruggle against the oppressor."[6] The second book, "Flight," describes Bigger's awakening sense of lifeat a time, paradoxically, when his life is placed in mortal danger.Although his killing of Mary Dalton was an accident, Bigger makes adecision that he must assume full responsibility for her death. Bigger was exhilarated by Max's defense of him in the courtroom -- notthat he believed that the plea saved him, but the mere fact that such aplea had been sincerely made. Hehates Mary Dalton, the young white girl he murders, because he fears shewill jeopardize his job, and he regards all her overtures as efforts tohumiliate him. [3]Ibid., p. Theother fears that constitute Bigger's life are by-products of this basicterror. Hismother, his sister, Bessie -- each made an individual adjustment of somesort to the condition of black life. Always there is the white world looming overhis existence: ominous, alluring, distant. And ultimately, Bigger's impassioned hatred comes across morevividly than Max's eloquent reasoning. 394. Moreover, Bigger's new vision also enables him to see how blindwhites are to his humanity, his existence. ThenGus, his buddy, asks him what he means, Bigger replies, "I don't know. Arehis reactions and reflections purely the consequences of his racialoppression, or are there aspects of his personality and predicament whichapply to humanity? Bigger knowsdeep in his heart that he is destined to bear endless days of drearypoverty, abject humiliation, and tormenting frustration, for this whatbeing a black person means. Their modes of communication, their symbols andimages, had been denied him. But Bigger cannot accept his mother'sreligiousness, his sister's Y.W.C.A. Throughout, there is a strong senseof both premonition and urgency. This is true in spite of thefact of its content, where the only extensive character development isBigger, an enraged, dehumanized ghetto youth. [9]Ibid., pp. For Mary and Jan, Bigger is anabstraction -- a symbol of exploitation rather than someone whose feelingsthey have ever really tried to understand. . ."[12] Yet in the end, Bigger and Max cannot really communicate. Forexample, he is unable to accept Jan's sincere, if misguided, offer offriendship because he blindly regards all whites as symbols of oppression.It is only after his metaphysical rebellion has resulted from the death ofthe two girls that Bigger acquires sight. Bigger is unable to surrender his freedom to Max'sdeterministic principles, and Max cannot accept the blind anger and rage ofan individual caught in circumstances beyond his control. Atype of blindness is one result of Bigger's racist nationalist pride.Prior to his conversion by murder, Bigger has blinded himself to therealities of black life, as well as to the humanity of whites. Hehates what he fears -- and his bravado and violence are only compensationfor his terror. Although he does not fullyunderstand it, this is really the reason Bigger hates them. On a more generallevel, a psychological blindness permeates the characters of the novel. He needed more money; if he did not get more than he had now he would not know what to do with himself for the rest of the day. Wright, althoughintellectually committed to Max's views, is perhaps more emotionally akinto Bigger's. If anyone is capable of reaching out andtouching Bigger, it is Max -- not Bigger's friends, the preacher, even hismother. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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