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{{Other uses}}
{{short description|1940 novel by Richard Wright}}
{{Infobox book|
| name = Native Son
| image =
| caption = First edition
| author = [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]]
| country = United States
| language = English
| series =
| genre = [[African-American literature]], [[Social protest novel]]
| publisher = [[Harper (publisher)|Harper & Brothers]]
| release_date = March 1, 1940
| media_type = Print (hardback & paperback)
| pages =
| isbn =
| dewey = 813.52
| oclc = 61277693
}}
'''''Native Son''''' (1940) is a novel written by the American author [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]]. It tells the story of 20-year-old [[Bigger Thomas]], a black youth living in utter poverty in [[Douglas, Chicago|a poor area]] on Chicago's [[South Side (Chicago)|South Side]] in the 1930s. Thomas accidentally kills a white woman at a time when racism is at its peak and he pays the price for it. <ref>{{Cite book |last=Wright |first=Richard |title=Native Son |date=16 June 2009 |publisher=Harper Collins |isbn=978-0-06-193541-1}}</ref>
While not apologizing for Bigger's crimes, Wright portrays a systemic causation behind them. Bigger's lawyer, Boris Max, makes the case that there is no escape from this destiny for his client or any other black American, since they are the necessary product of the society that formed them and told them since birth who exactly they were supposed to be.
"No American Negro exists", [[James Baldwin]] once wrote, "who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in his skull." [[Frantz Fanon]] discusses the feeling in his 1952 essay ''L'expérience vécue du noir'' (''The Fact of Blackness''). "In the end", writes Fanon, "Bigger Thomas acts. To put an end to his tension, he acts, he responds to the world's anticipation." The book was a successful and groundbreaking best seller. However, it was also criticized by Baldwin and others as ultimately advancing Bigger as a stereotype, and not a real character.
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=== Book One: Fear ===
Twenty-year-old Bigger Thomas
That evening, Bigger has to see Mr. Dalton, a white man, for a new job. Bigger's family depends on him. He would like to leave his responsibilities forever, but when he thinks of what to do, he only sees a blank wall.
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Bigger walks to a poolroom and meets his friend, Gus. Bigger tells him that every time he thinks about whites, he feels something terrible will happen to him. They meet other friends, G.H. and Jack, and plan a robbery. They are all afraid of attacking and stealing from a white man, but none of them wants to admit their concerns. Before the robbery, Bigger and Jack go to the movies. They are attracted to the world of wealthy whites in the newsreel and feel strangely moved by the tom-toms and the primitive black people in the film, yet also feel they are equal to those worlds. After the film, Bigger returns to the poolroom and attacks Gus violently, forcing him to lick his blade in a demeaning way to hide Bigger's own cowardice. The fight ends any chance of the robbery's occurring, and Bigger is vaguely conscious that he has done this intentionally.
When he finally gets the job, Bigger does not know how to behave in Dalton's large
Then their daughter, Mary, enters the room, asks Bigger why he does not belong to a union, and calls her father a "capitalist". Bigger does not know that word and is even more confused and afraid to lose the job. After the conversation, Peggy, an Irish cook, takes Bigger to his room and tells him the Daltons are a nice family, but he must avoid Mary's [[Communism|Communist]] friends. Bigger has never had a room
That night, he drives Mary around and meets her Communist boyfriend Jan. Throughout the evening, Jan and Mary talk to Bigger, oblige him to take them to the diner where his friends are, invite him to sit at their table, and tell him to call them by their first names. Bigger does not know how to respond to their requests and becomes frustrated, as he is simply their chauffeur for the night. At the diner, they buy a bottle of rum. Bigger drives throughout [[Washington Park (Chicago park)|Washington Park]], and Jan and Mary drink the rum and make out in the back seat. Jan departs, but Mary is so drunk that Bigger has to carry her to her bedroom when they arrive home. He is terrified someone will see him with her in his arms; however, he cannot resist the temptation of the forbidden, and he kisses her.
Just then, the bedroom door opens, and Mrs. Dalton enters. Bigger knows she is blind but is terrified she will sense him there. Frightened of the consequences if he, a black man, were to be found in Mary's bedroom, he silences Mary by pressing a pillow into her face. Mary claws at Bigger's hands while Mrs. Dalton is in the room, trying to alert Bigger that she cannot breathe. Mrs. Dalton approaches the bed, smells alcohol in the air, scolds her daughter, and leaves. As Bigger removes the pillow, he realizes that Mary has suffocated to death. Bigger starts thinking frantically, and decides he will tell everyone that Jan, her Communist boyfriend, took Mary into the house that night. Thinking it will be better if Mary disappears as she was supposed to leave for Detroit in the morning, he decides in desperation to burn her body in the house's furnace. Her body
=== Book Two: Flight ===
Bigger's current girlfriend Bessie Mears suspects him of having done something to Mary. Bigger goes back to work.
Mr. Dalton has
Bigger storms away from the Daltons'. He decides to write a false kidnapping note when he discovers that Mr. Dalton owns the rat-infested flat that Bigger's family rents. Bigger slips the note under the Daltons' front door and then returns to his room.
When the Daltons receive the note, they contact the police, who take over the investigation from Britten, and journalists soon arrive at the house. Bigger is afraid, but
Bigger goes directly to Bessie and tells her the whole story. Bessie realizes that white people will think he raped the girl before killing her. They leave together, but Bigger has to drag Bessie around because she is paralyzed by fear. When they lie down together in an abandoned building, Bigger rapes Bessie and falls asleep. In the morning, he decides he has to kill her in her sleep. He hits Bessie on the head with a brick before throwing her through a window and into an air shaft
Bigger runs through the city. He sees newspaper headlines concerning the crime and overhears
=== Book Three: Fate ===
During his first few days in prison, Bigger does not eat, drink, or talk to anyone. Then Jan comes to visit him. He says Bigger has taught him a lot about black
Throughout the trial, the prosecuting team focus primarily on Mary's murder and pay significantly less attention to Bessie's murder. It's also falsely argued that Bigger raped Mary before killing her. Throughout Max's lengthy closing argument, while he doesn't argue that Bigger is innocent, he instead talks about how the white populace intentionally blind themselves to the threat of racial oppression, how the ghettos fueled oppression and crime in the city, and that the court can't sentence Bigger to death since they haven't ever acknowledged that he exists. He urges for them to give him life in prison instead.
Bigger is found guilty in front of the court and sentenced to death for murder. By the end of the novel, he appears to come to terms with his fate.▼
▲Bigger is found guilty
== Development ==
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== Characters ==
{{POV section|date=September 2018}}
'''[[Bigger Thomas]]:''' The protagonist of the novel, Bigger, commits
Debatable as the final scene is, in which for the first time Bigger calls a white man by his first name, Bigger is never anything but a failed human. He represents a black man conscious of a system of racial oppression that leaves him no opportunity to exist but through crime. As he says to Gus, "They don't let us do nothing... [and] I can't get used to it." A line goes, one cannot exist by simply reacting: a man must be more than the sum total of his brutalizations. Bigger admits to wanting to be an aviator and later, to Max, aspire to other positions esteemed in the [[American Dream]]. But here he can do nothing . . . just be one of many blacks in what was called the "ghetto" and maybe get a job serving whites; crime seems preferable, rather than accidental or inevitable. Not surprisingly, then, he already has a criminal history, and he has even been to reform school. Ultimately, the snap decisions which the law calls "crimes" arose from assaults to his dignity, and being trapped like the rat he killed with a pan, living a life where others held the skillet.
'''Mary Dalton:''' An only child, Mary is a
'''Henry Dalton:''' Father of Mary,
'''Mrs. Dalton:''' Mary Dalton's mother. Her blindness serves to accentuate the motif of racial blindness throughout the story. Both Bigger and Max comment on how people are blind to the reality of race in America. Mrs. Dalton betrays her metaphorical blindness when she meets Mrs. Thomas. Mrs. Dalton hides behind her philanthropy and claims there is nothing she can do for Bigger.
'''Jan Erlone:''' Jan is a member of the Communist Party as well as the boyfriend of
'''Gus:''' Gus is a member of Bigger's gang, but he has an uneasy relationship with Bigger. Both are aware of the other's nervous anxiety concerning whites. Consequently, Bigger would rather brutalize Gus than admit he is scared to rob a white man.
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'''G.H.:''' G.H. is another member of Bigger's gang. He is the neutral member of the gang who will do what the gang does, but will not be too closely attached to any one member of the gang.
'''Mr. Boris Max:''' A lawyer from the Communist Party who represents Bigger against the State's prosecuting attorney. As a Jewish American, he is in a position to understand Bigger. It is through his speech during the trial that Wright reveals the greater moral and political implications of Bigger Thomas' life. Even though Mr. Max is the only one who understands Bigger, Bigger still horrifies him by displaying just how damaged white society has made him. When Mr. Max finally leaves Bigger, he is aghast at the extent of the brutality of racism in America. The third part of the novel, called Fate, seems to focus on Max's relationship with Bigger, and because of this Max becomes the main character of Fate.
'''Bessie Mears:'''
'''Peggy:''' Peggy is the Daltons' Irish-American housekeeper and, like Max, can empathize with Bigger's status as an
'''Buddy Thomas:''' Buddy, Bigger's younger brother, idolizes Bigger as a male role model. He defends him to the rest of the family and consistently asks if he can help Bigger.
'''Mrs. Thomas:''' Bigger's mother. She struggles to keep her family alive on the meager wages earned by taking in
'''Vera Thomas:''' Vera is Bigger's sister. In her, Bigger sees many similarities to his mother. Bigger fears Vera will grow up to either be like his mother, constantly exhausted with the strain of supporting a family, or like Bessie, a drunk trying to escape her troubles.
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'''Buckley:''' The state prosecutor.
'''Britten:''' The Daltons' investigator. He seems quite prejudiced, first
== True crime influence ==
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== Literary significance and criticism ==
Wright's protest novel was an immediate best-seller; it sold 250,000 hardcover copies within three weeks of its publication by the [[Book-of-the-Month Club]] on March 1, 1940. It was one of the earliest successful attempts to explain the racial divide in America in terms of the social conditions imposed on African Americans by the dominant white society. It also made Wright the wealthiest Black writer of his time and established him as a spokesperson for African American issues, and the "father of Black American literature." As [[Irving Howe]] said in his 1963 essay "Black Boys and Native Sons": "The day ''Native Son'' appeared, American culture was changed forever. No matter how much qualifying the book might later need, it made impossible a repetition of the old lies ... [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear, and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/wright_life.htm|title=Richard Wright's Life|work=uiuc.edu|access-date=2007-12-26|archive-date=2008-12-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219231923/http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/wright_life.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
The novel's treatment of Bigger and his motivations is an example of literary [[naturalism (literature)|naturalism]].
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}}</ref> The essay was collected with nine others in Baldwin's ''[[Notes of a Native Son]]'' (1955).
In 1991, ''Native Son'' was published for the first time in its entirety by the [[Library of America]], together with an introduction, a chronology, and notes by [[Arnold Rampersad]], a well-regarded scholar of African American literary works. This edition also contains [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]]'s 1940 essay "How 'Bigger' Was Born." The original edition had a masturbation scene removed at the request of the Book-of-the-Month club.<ref>Miles, Jack (November 3, 1991), [
The novel has endured a series of challenges in public high schools and libraries all over the United States. Many of these challenges focus on the book's being "sexually graphic,"<ref name="American Library Association">[http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=136590 "Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century"], ''[[American Library Association]].'' Retrieved April 27, 2012.</ref> "unnecessarily violent,"<ref name="American Library Association" /> and "profane."<ref name="American Library Association" /> Despite complaints from parents, many schools have successfully fought to keep Wright's work in the classroom.<ref name="American Library Association" /> Some teachers believe the themes in ''Native Son'' and other challenged books "foster dialogue and discussion in the classroom"<ref name="Chen, Grace">[http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/66 "High School Reading Lists: Pros and Cons of Controversial Books"], ''[[Public School Review]]'', December 28, 2008. Retrieved April 27, 2012.</ref> and "guide students into the reality of the complex adult and social world."<ref name="Chen, Grace" /> ''Native Son'' is number 27 on ''Radcliffe's Rival 100 Best Novels List''.<ref>[http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=136590 "Radcliffe's Rival 100 Best Novels List"], ''[[Random House, Inc]]''. Retrieved April 27, 2012.</ref>▼
=== Censorship in the United States ===
▲The book is number 71 on the [[American Library Association]]'s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000.<ref>[http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=85714 The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000]</ref> The [[Modern Library]] placed it number 20 on its list of the [[Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels|100 best novels of the 20th Century]]. ''[[Time Magazine]]'' also included the novel in its ''TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.''<ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051019053903/http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=October 19, 2005 | magazine=Time | title=All Time 100 Novels | access-date=May 20, 2010 | date=October 16, 2005}}</ref>
▲The novel has endured a series of challenges in public high schools and libraries all over the United States. Many of these challenges focus on the book's being "sexually graphic,"<ref name="American Library Association">[http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=136590 "Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century"], ''[[American Library Association]].'' Retrieved April 27, 2012.</ref> "unnecessarily violent,"<ref name="American Library Association" /> and "profane."<ref name="American Library Association" /> Despite complaints from parents, many schools have successfully fought to keep Wright's work in the classroom.<ref name="American Library Association" /> Some teachers believe the themes in ''Native Son'' and other challenged books "foster dialogue and discussion in the classroom"<ref name="Chen, Grace">[http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/66 "High School Reading Lists: Pros and Cons of Controversial Books"], ''[[Public School Review]]'', December 28, 2008. Retrieved April 27, 2012.</ref> and "guide students into the reality of the complex adult and social world."<ref name="Chen, Grace" /> ''Native Son'' is number 27 on ''Radcliffe's Rival 100 Best Novels List''.<ref name=":0">[http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=136590 "Radcliffe's Rival 100 Best Novels List"], ''[[Random House, Inc]]''. Retrieved April 27, 2012.</ref>
The book is number 71 on the [[American Library Association]]'s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000.<ref>[http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=85714 The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000]</ref>
=== ''Native Son'' and the Bible ===
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Wright's ''Native Son'' (1940) contains multiple similarities to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. Like ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', ''Native Son'' can be interpreted as an illustration of the harsh reality of racial injustice in the United States. James Baldwin, writing in the ''[[Partisan Review]]'', boldly linked the two novels.<ref name="Notes">Baldwin, James. ''Notes of a Native Son''. Boston: [[Beacon Press]], 1955. Print.</ref> In both books, racial injustice is a "pre-ordained pattern set upon the living reality".<ref>Charney, Maurice. "James Baldwin's quarrel with Richard Wright". ''American Quarterly''. Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 1963, pp. 65–75.</ref> There is little the characters can do to escape racial discrimination. Additionally, both of these novels are a form of [[Social protest novel|social protest]], seek to disprove the idea that society neatly analyzes and treats race, and portrays African Americans who emerge confused, dishonest, and panicked as they are trapped and immobilized as prisoners within the American dream.<ref>Pinsker, Sanford. "Spike Lee: protest, literary tradition, and the individual filmmaker". ''The Midwest Quarterly'' 35.1 (1993): 63+. Literature Resources from Gale. Retrieved April 17, 2011.</ref>
The title and content of another book Wright published, the collection of short stories ''[[Uncle Tom's Children]]'' (1938), suggest the inspiration Stowe's work provided Wright in his own books. Both ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and ''Uncle Tom's Children'' exploit the term "Uncle Tom," attacking an African American who seems to act in a subservient manner toward white people. However, while these two titles are similar and contain similar themes, Wright's ''Native Son'' can also be considered reactionary against ''Uncle Tom's Cabin.
=== Influence of Communism on ''Native Son'' ===
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There are many different interpretations concerning which group was the intended target of Max's speech. [[James Baldwin]], a renowned critic of Wright's, presented his own interpretation of Max's final speech in ''Notes by a Native Son''; Baldwin says Max's speech is "addressed to those among us of good will and it seems to say that, though there are whites and blacks among us who hate each other, we will not; there are those who are betrayed by greed, by guilt, by blood, by blood lust, but not we; we will set our faces against them and join hands and walk together into that dazzling future when there will be no white or black" (Baldwin, p. 47). However, other critics, such as Siegel, have argued that the original text in ''Native Son'' does not imply "the dazzling future when there will be no white or black".{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}
<!-- Thus, the argument that Max's final speech is a Communist promotion is not supported by the texts in the novel.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kinnamon|first=Kenneth|title=Critical Essays on Richard Wright's Native Son|year=1997|publisher=Twayne Publishers|location=New York|page=96}}</ref> Max referred to Bigger as a part of the working class in his closing statement. Furthermore, in 1938, Wright also advocated the image of African Americans as members of the working class in his article in the ''[[New York Amsterdam News]]'': "I have found in the Negro worker the real symbol of the working class in America."<ref>{{cite book|last=Foley|first=Barbara|title=Radical Representations|year=1993|publisher=[[Duke University Press]]|location=Durham|page=190}}</ref> Thus, Wright's depiction of and belief in the figure of African American workers and his depiction of Bigger Thomas as a worker showed evidence of Communist influence on ''Native Son''. -->
<!-- see talk page regarding previous paragraph -->
== Allusions and references in other works ==
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In the motion picture ''[[The Help (film)|The Help]]'' (2011), the main character (played by [[Emma Stone]]) is seen in an oblique camera angle to have a copy of ''Native Son'' on her bookshelf.
Film adaptations were released in [[Native Son
=== Literature ===
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== Critical reception ==
Critical reception remains mixed given disparities in the perception of Bigger Thomas: "Is he a helpless victim of his environment? A symbol of the proletariat empowered by violence? Is the incompleteness of Bigger's personality a realistic portrayal or an act of bad faith that succumbs to racist caricature?" Audiences were also split along the divide of race and gender: they were forced to choose between sympathizing with a rapist, or condemn him and ignore that he was a victim of systemic racism.<ref>"Richard Wright's Native Son." UChicago – Grad, October 2003.</ref> Said [[Ayana Mathis]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'', "I don't imagine many black people would have embraced such a grotesque portrait of themselves. […] What future, what vision is reflected in such a miserable and incompletely realized creature?"<ref name=MathisMishra>{{Cite
The novel was intended to educate its audience about the black experience in the ghetto. Thus, its intended audience was (and remains) white people. Baldwin called it a "pamphlet in literary disguise," exaggerating characters with the sole purpose of carrying his message. He went on to say that Wright failed because of his "insistence that it is … categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended." Wright exaggerated his characters with the intention of gaining the sympathies of white people, but many of his audiences felt that it perpetuated stereotypes of African Americans with little to no benefit. One of the few successes noted was that the controversial, struggling Bigger Thomas was a strong attack on white people who wanted to be comforted by complacent black characters onstage.{{fact|date=February 2021}}
==Analysis==
David Bradley wrote in ''[[The New York Times]]'' that, in his first reading of the novel, while he strongly disliked the work, "It wasn't that Bigger failed as a character, exactly" as Bradley knew of the author's intentions to make Bigger unlikeable, but Bradley felt the author did not succeed in making Bigger symbolize ordinary black men.<ref name=Bradley>{{cite web|last=Bradley|first=David|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/07/magazine/on-rereading-native-son.html|title=ON REREADING 'NATIVE SON'|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=1986-12-07|accessdate=February 22, 2021}}</ref> Upon reading an edition of the book with an introduction, Bradley stated "Suddenly I realized that many readers of ''Native Son'' had seen Bigger Thomas as a symbol".<ref name=Bradley/> Upon researching other writings from the author Bradley interpreted Bigger as Wright's autobiographical view of himself, and Bradley changed his own view to see the work as a tragedy despite Wright initially not meaning for this.<ref name=Bradley/>
Clyde Taylor, an associate professor of English at [[Tufts University]], criticized Bradley's view,
== See also ==
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==Further reading==
* {{cite journal|last=Wasserman|first=Jerry|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/441289|title=Embracing the Negative: ''Native Son'' and ''Invisible Man''|journal=
== External links ==
* "The Difficult Lessons of Richard Wright's ''Native Son''" (blog entry) at [https://aqua-eagle-7c7w.squarespace.com/config/ Hilary-Holladay.com]
* {{IMDb title|
* {{
* {{YouTube|kUeeWDH6DB0|"Screen test for Native Son: Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas"}}
* [https://www.wnyc.org/story/american-icons-native-son-2 Discussion of Native Son on Studio 360], aired September 6, 2013
* [https://archive.org/details/sim_boston-phoenix_1981-08-11_10_32/page/n2/mode/1up Article on attempted censorship of the book in North Adams, Massachusetts]
{{Native Son}}
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[[Category:American novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:American novels adapted into plays]]
[[Category:Harper & Brothers books]]
[[Category:Novels by Richard Wright (author)]]
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