A Study Guide for Richard Wright's Native Son

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Richard Wright's "Native Son," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781535829359

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Native Son

Richard Wright

1940

Introduction

Richard Wright's 1940 novel, Native Son, was the first book by an African-American writer to enjoy widespread success. In fact, Wright's novel generated much popular and critical interest before it was even published. Three hours after the book hit the shelves, the first print run sold out. Soon a school of black American writers—the Wright School—began modeling itself after the author in the belief that candid art about the black American would lead to positive political change. Wright suddenly became the most recognized black author in America. Today, the novel is essential to an understanding of twentieth-century American literature.

Native Son introduces a figure familiar to mid-twentieth-century America, the lone man backed into a corner by discrimination and misunderstanding. Frustrated by racism and the limited opportunities afforded black men in society, Bigger strikes out in a futile attempt to transgress the boundaries and limits of his position. He murders Mary Dalton, the only child of a wealthy real estate magnate, by accident. Yet the act of murder gives his life meaning, and the consequent trial and execution are incidental. Bigger Thomas remains a seminal figure in American literature.

Author Biography

Richard Nathaniel Wright came from a family of slaves still living at Rucker's Plantation in Roxie, Mississippi. His father, Nathan Wright, was a sharecropper and his mother, Ella Wilson, had left the teaching profession to farm with him. Richard was born on September 4, 1908, the first of two boys. Three years later, the family moved to Ella's parents' house in Natchez.

The family moved to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, in 1913 but were soon deserted by Richard's father. For the next few years, Ella did her best to feed and clothe the boys, but her first of a series of paralytic strokes ended their independence. They moved a number of times. First, Ella and her boys went to the prosperous home of her sister Maggie and brother-in-law Silas Hoskins in Elaine, Arkansas. Unfortunately, Hoskins was murdered by a white mob, and