Annotation #5 - African-American Literature

NATIVE SON

By Richard Wright

Genre: African-American Literature

Publication Date: 1940

Number of Pages: 430

Summary

Native Son is the story of Bigger Thomas, an African-American man living in 1930’s Chicago. Bigger is trying to leave his life of petty crime behind and finds a good job working for a white family with a daughter about his age. Mary and her boyfriend are activists against racism and take Bigger under their wing. When Mary shows a romantic interest in Bigger, Bigger accidentally kills her in an unfortunate panic while trying to save himself from any more trouble. What follows is the account of Bigger’s escape, his capture and his trial and the racism and unfairness he receives throughout the book. This story is about a lost young man who is inherently good but is consistently thrown into bad situations and, because of his color, is never given the benefit of the doubt but instead is convicted of everything he is accused of without a question. It is a sad look into the lives of how African Americans are treated even today – especially young males.

Subject Headings:
African American Men

Murderers

Chicago

Racism

Trials

Three terms that describe this book: 

Story is based on real life and family with an historical relevance
Bigger Thomas is based on the average African-American male and how society viewed them at the time. Racism is at the heart of this story and reflects how blacks were treated in the 1930’s. Richard Wright was writing from what he experienced as an African-American man. This story is still relevant today.

Story is told from the perspective of African Americans
Even though Native Son is told from the third person perspective, it is told from the point of view of Bigger Thomas. First of all, as mentioned above, Richard Wright was a black man so he is the actual narrator. But the focus of this story is on Bigger Thomas and the tone of the story is that it supports Bigger and his plight.

Repeated clashes between the protagonist’s needs and an unfeeling society
Bigger has all the cards stacked against him. He is black, he is poor and he is known to have committed petty crimes in the past. No matter what Bigger does to improve his situation, he is knocked back down again and again and forced to do the wrong thing fearing if he did the right he would be punished even more severely. Even the white people who seem as though they are helping have their own internalized racism which works against Bigger. He can’t win no matter what he does.

Read-A-likes

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines

Billy by Albert French

The Outsider by Richard Wright