"Native Son": A Polemic On the Poverty of the Poor

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	• Native Son (Abridged) Richard A. Wright Perennial, 2003 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 183 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Unnerving

As many reviews document, some readers like this book while other dislike it. The reality of the situation may not be whether one likes the book so much as whether the book has the ability to disturb you. It is tough to like the main character. Yet most will have trouble identifying with the rich class that manipulates the system and Bigger's life. The story may be best described as unnerving.

"When men of wealth urge the use and show of force, quick death, swift revenge, then it is to protect a little spot of private security against the resentful millions from whom they have filched it, the resentful millions in whose militant hearts the dream and hope of security still lives." (p 405). While this quote may be more broadly applied, it summarizes the overall theme of the story. Bigger Thomas is accused of the murder and rape of a white woman. Though the argument is never posed that the murder is not a crime, the author presents the argument that it is a symptom of a flawed system. The squalor and graft to which African-Americans were subjected in the story does not exempt Bigger Thomas from guilt. However, it is certain to increase the likelihood of future Bigger Thomases.

One can argue against the author's point, yet it is hard not to be disturbed by the hopeless story of Bigger Thomas. Though Bigger made poor decisions in his life, he was right to see that something bad would eventually happen to him.

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"Native Son": A Polemic On the Poverty of the Poor

Indeed, Richard Wright's "Native Son" is a polemic about what happens to the poor who are impovished by the psychic chain of economic poverty coupled with rascism and class discrimination. Often I am thinking about black life and I am reminded of Bigger's mantra, "I didn't want to kill." And yet he did and many have and, sadly enough, as Wright suggests, it is after the killings that the Biggers of the world find a piece of their own humanity.The question is, thus, this: Does a death compell one to be human? I wonder what Wright would say?In the Sanctuary of a South

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A Predestined Path of Life

Author, Richard Wright, weaves a fictional tale of Bigger Thomas, a 20 yr. black male living, striving in the Black Belt of Chicago. The story takes place sometime ago when the world seemed to be a lot different, but make no mistake about it, most of us know that Bigger Thomas still exists today. Early in the first chapter, Fear, Wright describes Bigger as:

"...a strange plant blooming in the day and wilting at night; but the sun that made it bloom and the cold darkness that made it wilt were never seen. It was his own sun and darkness, a private and personal sun and darkness. He was bitterly proud of his swiftly changing moods and boasted when he had to suffer the results of them. It was the way he was, he would say; he could not help it, he would say.... And it was his sullen stare and the violent action that followed that made Gus and Jack and G.H. hate and fear him as much as he hated and feared himself."

The more one becomes familiar with Bigger, the more one realizes that a tragedy will befall Bigger; a tragedy that is a result of his own doing. Bigger's instincts, honed by the pressures of being black and poor, will lead him down a path of ill-fated acts. The reader shadows his every move in the second chapter, Flight, and watches his destiny come to fruition in Fate, the final chapter.

If you want to experience oppression, race relations, poverty through the plight of a young black male in the early 20th Century, then this is one of the books to read.

As a final note, I couldn't help but notice the Du Boisian references, where on occasion, Bigger is portrayed as being "...behind a veil" or "...behind a curtain".

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A jarring cautionary tale

Performed by Peter Francis James, Native Son is an unabridged audiobook presentation of African-American author Richard Wright's well-known tale of cultural oppression and human psychopathy. Set in 1930s Chicago, Native Son follows Bigger Thomas, a black man who has grown up amid extreme racial prejudice and persecution all his life, and matured into an utter sociopath. He commits the second-degree murder of a white woman and is eventually taken to trial for his crime; he remains completely unrepentant to the last, seething with homicidal hatred for all whites, even those who tried to treat him with compassion, and even the white lawyer who defends him. A jarring cautionary tale of how societal oppression can turn the oppressed into monsters that in turn menace their oppressors, Native Son remains an enduring work of literature. 15 CDs, 17 1/2 hours.

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Wright is right

Richard Wright's America is still here. July, 2008- events of today could be taken from this novel or his short stories.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what it means to be black in America.

This abridged edition includes an introduction, "How Bigger Was Born," by the author, as well as an afterword by John Reilly.

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