Native Son Book Review

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread” ~Richard Wright, Native Son

Native Son…this book was a whole adventure. Richard Wright told the story of Bigger Thomas, a twenty-year-old black American, who lived in 1930s Chicago South Side in utter poverty. In order to make money, he works for a white family, The Daltons, and tried to extort money from Mary’s parents, his bosses, which also failed through. Similar to my last blog post, this novel contains graphic scenes that involved asphyxiation, decapitation, and cremation by *Refer to the Spoiler Alert in the next paragraph, read at your own discretion*

*HUGE SPOILER ALERT!!!! PLEASE SKIP OVER IF YOU WANT TO READ THE NOVEL* It resulted in Bigger killing her which lead readers into Bigger’s Trial that sentenced him to death for which he refused to repent

Bigger is a character that could be seen as “relatable to an extent” for he was a poor, uneducated black man living during the time of harsh racial prejudice that he felt like he had no control of his life with no aspiration to anything other than unskilled, low wage labor. If you could describe Bigger’s life in three words, it would be fear, anger, and frustration, though this wasn’t what drove him to, well, I won’t spoil much of what happens since this novel was one of my favorites back in high school.

This book was published on March 1, 1940, for it’s an example of the history of racial oppression from how black Americans could emerge without suffering a penalty. It was around this time that black Americans were always being dehumanized by White Americans while carrying the scars of America supposedly labeled as “the Land of the Free”.

This book also represented the beginning of novels written by black Americans who treated the subject of race with a lack of social superiority that was almost unimaginable in the 1940s. This 434-page book takes you through life as a black American in the 30s as we learned about oppression and the mentality of the black male.

Since this is week three, I will incorporate three quotes from the author, Richard Wright, that I believe can fit well with the overall theme of the book

“They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces” ~ Richard Wright

“Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed…It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality” ~Richard Wright