Preview

Communism In Richard Wright's Native Son

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
326 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Communism In Richard Wright's Native Son
Richard Wright is a classic novelist as well as the first African-American author to have his literature featured in the national Book-of-the-Month Club. His novel Native Son is among the classics while continuing to expose common issues of the era for what they truly were. While Native Son focuses on racism and the inequitable punishment of African American criminals, the undertones of how communism affects situations are prominently shown. Richard Wright artfully utilizes communism to expose and disprove any justification of racism within his novel. The inspiration for Wright’s use of communistic ideals stems from his personal involvement with the communist party in the 1930’s. When communism is thought of the mind instantly wanders to The

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Imagine the feeling of living in a Jim Crow south after the Civil War. In Richard Wright’s autobiography “Black Boy”, he illustrates his life as he tries to understand the segregated and white dictated world he lives in. Throughout the story he asks questions to others and himself to attempt at understanding the world. Since the book is an autobiography it allows the reader to take a front row seat with the story. “Black Boy” is one of the many books that were challenged for a myriad of reasons. Those reasons ranging from political to religious. Although the book was accused for multiple offenses some teachers and students think the book still holds value.…

    • 114 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the epilog of the book, “Revolutionary Characters,” Gordon Wood wrote, “Still, they had helped create this popular world, for it was rooted in the vital principle that none of them, Federalists included, ever could deny: the people. In the end nothing illustrates better the transforming power of the American Revolution than the way its intellectual and political leaders, that remarkable group of men, contributed to their own demise,” (page 274). This quote means that although these leaders were impeccable at what they did, they contributed to the death of the nation. The founders created the democracy for the people and Wood wrote that no one can deny that its sole purpose is to work for and govern the people. They established the roots…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “ Only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world” W.E.B Du Bois theory double consciousness and how it contains all Africans is unique, advanced, and bitter. Native son by Richard Wright is a remarkable story about Bigger Thomas, who is a black male living in poverty during the great depression who is pushed into doing things he doesn't want to. Bois theory is relatable to bigger's character because it proves that bigger has a double consciousness of the world. I say this because of the murders bigger has committed, the fears he has faced, and suicide though he had received.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Between 1915 and 1970, six million African Americans left their homes in the South and moved to the states in the North and West (Layson and Warren 1). This movement is called the great migration and is explained in The Newberry, Chicago and the Great Migration article. Some of the main reasons that African Americans traveled from the north to the south is because of racism reconstruction and a chance to get more opportunities as equals. In the book native son the main character Bigger Thomas goes through discrimination because of his actions based off of his race. In this paper what bigger went through will be compared to the great migration article. Bigger experiences racism, segregation, and poverty throughout the book native…

    • 124 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, is set in Chicago and revolves around the life of Bigger Thomas, who lives in the city’s impoverished black neighborhood. While attending his job as a chauffeur to the Daltons, a prominent white family, Bigger attempts to carry their intoxicated daughter Mary to her room. Mrs. Dalton suddenly enters, and Bigger, fearing that she would find him, covers Mary’s face with a pillow and suffocates her to death. Afterwards, he throws the dead Mary into the furnace and destroys every piece of evidence from that night.…

    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Less than a century years ago, books were the only source of information, and a person had to search for the books they wanted to read. That is exactly how Richard, the narrator, grew up. Black Boy, an autobiography written by Richard Wright shows the readers the time of life where not a spec of technology existed. He did not fully complete his early school years because he was a luckless fellow, possibly cursed. He could turn anyone into his enemies with his stubbornness, and his family was one of his victims. Still, how did such a child, like Richard, who had grown up in poverty, write such an autobiography? A turning point in Richard’s life was when he was awed by the words in the book that a teacher living with his grandmother was reading…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee conveys injustice and racism through the eyes of a young curious girl is trying to understand the world. The narrator Scout gets caught in many situations and also witnesses the trial of Tom Robinson which changes the way she thinks. While Richard Wright’s “Eight Men” shares eight short stories in one book about different African American men who each face a problem with the white society. Each of these men is open to a realization about themselves or their society at the end of each story. “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Eight Men” both demonstrate similar themes throughout each book. The books express prejudice, innocence, and coming of age. These three themes communicate with the reader by sending messages about life.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Native Son Blog

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the 19th century, all civilians of African descent were treated as inferiors to citizens of white skin complexion. Segregation became a dominant influence in society, and the living conditions (comparing white communities versus black communities) were practically contrapositive to each other. Basically, on average, the black people (or other inferior races during this time period) lived in terrible isolated districts that consist of tenements, where brown-skinned families live in extremely crowded habitats, unsanitary “rat-infested” (174) living conditions, with a barely affordable price. Whites on the other hand, lived in lavish and sanitary living conditions, with plenty of territory to spare. This time period is also classified as an era where wealthy individuals took advantage of the less fortunate people. These actions included lowering wages, increasing rent, and excluding the poverty-stricken to crowded slovenly dumps. In Native Son, Wright exposes the fabricated heroisms of hypocritical philanthropists like Mr. Dalton, who donate or make amends for their own iniquitous actions.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    2 years later followed by his second fictional piece, The Man Who Was Almost a Man, which was followed a year later by Native Son. Richard Wright also published works of nonfiction, which include 12 Million Black Voices, printed in 1941 by New York: Viking, as well as essays and poetry. Blackboy was “designed to illuminate how obscene was [the] denial of access to full participation in the democratic process by law, custom, and the practice of race”. It was a way for Americans, and for the readers, to see Richard’s response “to the call of the most sacred American principles regarding human rights” (XV). His autobiography stirred success that followed Uncle Tom’s Children and the financial stability from Native Son. The purpose was to inform his readers of his life as a child and how it felt like to be a black male in “an oppressive society” (XV) and it’s consistency remains the same throughout the…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blackboyyyyzzzzz

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ichard Wright's 1945 autobiography Black Boy covers his life from four years of age to the moment of his departure from the South (Memphis, Tennessee, where he had earlier migrated from Mississippi) to the North (Chicago) at nineteen. Its subject and title place it in the tradition of African American autobiography, beginning with the nineteenth-century slave narrative, a genre in which the autobiographer describes the particularities of his own life in order to speak of the situation and condition of the race in general. While presenting the details of one life, Black Boy is intended to reveal the horrors, cruelties, and privations undergone by the masses of African Americans living in the South (and in the United States as a whole) during the first decades of the twentieth century.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Marxist Criticism literary lens describes a scenario in literature where one group of people in society is more powerful than another. The wealthy community is usually in control of the lower class citizens and as a result the lower class people living under oppression. Native Son by Richard Wright is a fictional novel set in the 1930s in Chicago that depicts the harsh realities of African American due to oppression from the wealthy upper class white community. Bigger Thomas, a typical African American male, is the protagonist, yet the oppression that confronts him leads to his death by the end of the novel. Marxist Criticism conveys a warning against racial segregation in Native Son because the impoverished African American community is…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The conflicts between man and bigotry have caused casualties within man, which caused them to become victims. In the novel Black Boy Richard Wright explores the struggles throughout his life has been the victim of abuse from his coworkers, family, and his classmates, due to this he is able to return his pain and he becomes a victimizer.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    With these words, Crooks, a character from Of Mice and Men, demonstrates his pride for being the son of a landowner instead of a slave of the South. However, this pride is merely a small comfort, as living in California does not liberate Crooks from the clutches of racial prejudice. During the Great Depression, the era in which the story is set, African-Americans afflicted by economic inequality further suffered from the racist and bigoted opinions of society. John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men depicts Crooks, an African-American farm worker, as a man threatened by the racism of the 1930s. Steinbeck describes the effects of discrimination on Crooks, including his loneliness, crushed aspirations, and bitter attitude, to illustrate the hopelessly bleak situation for African-Americans during the Great Depression.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Native Son Analysis

    • 1966 Words
    • 8 Pages

    African Americans have been trapped within a lifestyle of lack and poverty in their everyday lives for centuries. They were brought into a system that was not built to help them reach their goals and dreams. African Americans were broken and deceived into weak pawns of a white society. The late writer, Richard Wright shed light on this plight within America. Richard Wright was born in Roxie, Mississippi in 1908. This was an era that African Americans were treated as second class citizens. The novel Native Son by Richard Wright is about discovering strength through family pressures, self values and social norms. This…

    • 1966 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    African American Curse

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Richard Wright enters us into the lens of an African American to depict the social conditions during that time period. The novel illustrates how racism forces the African Americans into a dangerous state of mind. They become immutable and socially inferior. Unfortunately, these social conditions still stand today. It is a blessing and a curse to be at Mather High where it is diverse. It is a blessing, because we are more accustomed to the many cultures around us and we learn to appreciate them. On the other hand, it’s a curse because we become blind to the fact that racism exists. We’re not exposed to those who are narrow minded as if we live in a small utopia.…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays