Native Son Part 1

Native Son.

by Richard Wright

Introduction.

The sound of the alarm that opens Native Son Native Son was Richard Wright's was Richard Wright's urgent call in 1940 to America to awaken from its self-induced slumber about the reality of race relations in the nation. As proud, rich, and powerful as America was, Wright insisted, the nation was facing a grave danger, one that would ultimately destroy the United States if its dimensions and devious complexity were not recognized. urgent call in 1940 to America to awaken from its self-induced slumber about the reality of race relations in the nation. As proud, rich, and powerful as America was, Wright insisted, the nation was facing a grave danger, one that would ultimately destroy the United States if its dimensions and devious complexity were not recognized. Native Son Native Son was intended to be America's guide in confronting this danger. was intended to be America's guide in confronting this danger.

Wright believed that few Americans, black or white, were prepared to face squarely and honestly the most profound consequences of more than two centuries of the enslavement and segregation of blacks in North America. The dehumanization of African Americans during slavery had been followed in the long aftermath of the Civil War by their often brutal repression in the South and by conditions of life in many respects equally severe in the nominally integrated North. Nevertheless, Wright knew, blacks and whites alike continued to cling to a range of fantasies about the true nature of the relationship between the races even as the nation lurched inexorably toward a possible collapse over the fundamental question of justice for the despised African American minority.

Among blacks, the centuries of abuse and exploitation had created ways of life marked by patterns of duplicity, including self-deception, as well as something far more forbidding and lethal. Slavery and neo-slavery had led not simply to the development of a psychology of timidity, pa.s.sivity, and even cowardice among the African American ma.s.ses, Wright suggests in Native Son Native Son, but also to an ominous emerging element of which Bigger Thomas, the central character of the novel, is a reliable if particularly forbidding example. Although this new element was itself susceptible to fantasy and self-deception, what set its members apart from other blacks was the depth of their estrangement from both black and white culture, their hatred of both groups, and their sometimes unconscious but powerful identification of violence against other human beings as the most appropriate response to the disastrous conditions of their lives. Within the confines of the black world, this violence was easily directed at fellow blacks; but increasingly, Wright warned his readers, this violence would be aimed at whites.

Wright understood fully that this message was radical to the core, and that his novel Native Son Native Son was like no other book in the history of African American literature. In 1937, in his landmark essay "Blueprint for Negro Writing," he had characterized African American literature to that time as fundamentally lacking in forthrightness and independence. "Generally speaking," he had written reprovingly, "Negro writing in the past has been confined to humble novels, poems, and plays, prim and decorous amba.s.sadors who went a-begging to white America...dressed in the knee-pants of servility.... For the most part these artistic amba.s.sadors were received as though they were French poodles who do clever tricks." To some extent, Wright certainly had overstated the case for the inadequacy of past black writers. At least since the publication of David Walker's vitriolic was like no other book in the history of African American literature. In 1937, in his landmark essay "Blueprint for Negro Writing," he had characterized African American literature to that time as fundamentally lacking in forthrightness and independence. "Generally speaking," he had written reprovingly, "Negro writing in the past has been confined to humble novels, poems, and plays, prim and decorous amba.s.sadors who went a-begging to white America...dressed in the knee-pants of servility.... For the most part these artistic amba.s.sadors were received as though they were French poodles who do clever tricks." To some extent, Wright certainly had overstated the case for the inadequacy of past black writers. At least since the publication of David Walker's vitriolic Appeal Appeal in 1829, some had vigorously protested against racism and warned white Americans about its dire consequences. Indeed, the inevitability of violence as a response to the African American condition had been the subject of literary works not only by blacks but also by whites, such as George Washington Cable in the nineteenth century and, in Wright's own time, William Faulkner. in 1829, some had vigorously protested against racism and warned white Americans about its dire consequences. Indeed, the inevitability of violence as a response to the African American condition had been the subject of literary works not only by blacks but also by whites, such as George Washington Cable in the nineteenth century and, in Wright's own time, William Faulkner.

For example, in his short story "Of the Coming of John" in The Souls of Black Folk The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and in his novel (1903) and in his novel Dark Princess Dark Princess (1928), W. E. B. Du Bois, probably the leading African American intellectual and polemicist of his day, had depicted young black heroes enraged by racism and literally striking whites who had offended them. Blacks had hailed Claude McKay's 1919 sonnet "If We Must Die" as a call to militant self-defense against marauding whites. Jean Toomer's modernist landmark (1928), W. E. B. Du Bois, probably the leading African American intellectual and polemicist of his day, had depicted young black heroes enraged by racism and literally striking whites who had offended them. Blacks had hailed Claude McKay's 1919 sonnet "If We Must Die" as a call to militant self-defense against marauding whites. Jean Toomer's modernist landmark Cane Cane (1923) included one sketch in which a black man coolly kills a white man who draws a knife on him. However, such episodes were few and far between, and-with rare exceptions-virtually all of these black writers had placed at the center of their episodes of violence a protagonist of intelligence and sensitivity driven to an uncharacteristic act, a man of feeling from the black leadership cla.s.s forced to act in ways otherwise beneath him. Not so with Wright in (1923) included one sketch in which a black man coolly kills a white man who draws a knife on him. However, such episodes were few and far between, and-with rare exceptions-virtually all of these black writers had placed at the center of their episodes of violence a protagonist of intelligence and sensitivity driven to an uncharacteristic act, a man of feeling from the black leadership cla.s.s forced to act in ways otherwise beneath him. Not so with Wright in Native Son Native Son.

Bigger Thomas is decidedly of the poorest cla.s.s, with no pretense to a sophisticated education, to anything more than rudimentary reading, or to ideals. Bigger is occasionally cunning, but there is little that is subtle about his intelligence or refined about his emotions. Knowing almost nothing about books or serious magazines, intellectually he is a creature of the movie house, where he is an easy prey to fantasies concocted by Hollywood for the gullible. He despises religion; appeals to religious faith either bore or enrage him. Estranged from his family, he is remote even from his mother; he has apparently grown up without his father, who is never mentioned in Native Son Native Son. Wright sets the tone for the depiction of Bigger Thomas in the first scene of the novel when he pits him physically against a rat that terrorizes the family. Bigger wins this battle, but not without a loss of dignity from which he barely recovers by the end of the book.

Although American literature had witnessed cameo appearances by renegade blacks (examples of the "bad n.i.g.g.e.r," as Sterling A. Brown called one of the main literary stereotypes of African American character), no one quite like Bigger Thomas had ever been seen before the publication of Native Son Native Son. Nevertheless, one can locate at least some of the key elements of Bigger's characterization in a broader literary tradition. Unmistakably behind Native Son Native Son, although in no way detracting from Wright's personal achievement in creating the novel, is the tradition of naturalism, especially urban naturalism, in American writing as epitomized before Wright by novelists such as Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, and James T. Farrell. To such writers, the city in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries in America could be an alluring place; but it also often was, for persons without brains or money or simply good luck, a crucible in which the superficial elements of personality and civilization were quickly burned away, to reveal the animal underneath.

As Wright grew up in the South under the harsh conditions he would describe in his autobiography Black Boy Black Boy (1945) and began to read fiction, he took readily to urban naturalism. For him, the road to (1945) and began to read fiction, he took readily to urban naturalism. For him, the road to Native Son Native Son had started with his first exposure to the major naturalists and realists. "All my life had shaped me for the realism, the naturalism of the modern novel," he declared in had started with his first exposure to the major naturalists and realists. "All my life had shaped me for the realism, the naturalism of the modern novel," he declared in Black Boy Black Boy, "and I could not read enough of them." He was born in Mississippi in 1908, the first of two sons of a sharecropper who deserted his family when Richard was five or six. Soon after, his mother suffered paralytic strokes that left her dependent on her own mother, a devout religious fundamentalist and stern disciplinarian who apparently tried to crush Wright's childhood interest in the world of the imagination. While his mother sank in he eyes into the embodiment of pa.s.sivity and victimization, he found it almost impossible to forge warm ties with other human beings. For a while, Wright and his brother lived in an orphanage. Later he would recall his childhood as a time of hunger-for food, but also for affection, understanding, and education. A good student, he never finished high school. His jobs in the South were marked by hara.s.sment by whites and by his own disdain for what segregation and racism had done to distort the humanity of his fellow blacks, as he saw it. In 1927, he fled the South for Chicago.

If Wright took quickly to naturalism, two other intellectual forces modified his understanding of its ideas and helped to shape Native Son Native Son. The first was communism, or dialectical materialism; the second was Wright's almost instinctive sympathy for and identification with the germ of the modern philosophy called existentialism-a sympathy and an identification that predate his years of residence in Paris following his emigration in 1947 and his friendship there with some of the most famous existentialist philosophers and artists. Communism and existentialism exist, in certain ways, in tension with naturalism. The former defines ident.i.ty mainly through the instrument of economic determinism; economic, social, political, and historic factors, above all, determine consciousness. The latter, existentialism, shares with naturalism a gloomy sense of fundamental human relations but emphasizes the power of the will in creating ident.i.ty. In his rise to intellectual maturity as represented by Native Son Native Son, Wright took upon himself the daunting task of reconciling sometimes conflicting elements of these intellectual traditions in order to represent reality as he understood it. Above all, he undertook to achieve as an artist, working in the form of the novel, a synthesis he would have found virtually impossible as a philosopher or an ideologue.

Between 1933 and 1940, or during the first major stage of his literary career, communism was clearly the major intellectual and political force of Wright's life. In Chicago he seemed headed for a career in the post office but was also determined to become a writer. In that city (the setting of Native Son Native Son), he found a circle of like-minded young men and women when, in 1933, he joined the recently formed local branch of the John Reed Club, a nationwide organization founded by the party precisely to attract writers and artists to its ranks. If, as Wright later claimed, he had learned from the iconoclastic journalist H. L. Mencken how one could use "words as weapons," the Communist party offered him and other writers, in the midst of the Great Depression, a sense of ideological and political purpose and consistency, as well as international connections.

As a creative writer, Wright started out as a poet, singing, sometimes in a fashion that showed the influence of Walt Whitman, the revolutionary potential of the ma.s.ses, including the black ma.s.ses. When he turned to fiction, however, in the novel Lawd Today! Lawd Today! (posthumously published), the radical socialist fervor that marked his poetry was severely modified by a different vision, that of a particularly bleak urban naturalism mixed somewhat uneasily with elements of modernist fictional technique borrowed from various sources, including James Joyce's (posthumously published), the radical socialist fervor that marked his poetry was severely modified by a different vision, that of a particularly bleak urban naturalism mixed somewhat uneasily with elements of modernist fictional technique borrowed from various sources, including James Joyce's Ulysses. Lawd Today! Ulysses. Lawd Today! tells the story of one day in the life of a black postal worker and his three closest friends, also male black post office employees, in Chicago's South Side. Dominating the lives of these men is a chronic desire for sensual gratification, mainly in the form of food, alcohol, and s.e.x. If in a sometimes heavy-handed way, Wright seeks to doc.u.ment a typical day in their lives, the better to show the extent to which they are ignorant of any moral, intellectual, esthetic, or religious idea or ideal worthy of the name. The action of the novel, which takes place on Lincoln's Birthday, is juxtaposed against a solemn tribute to Abraham Lincoln that casts a further pall over the aimless lives of these men. tells the story of one day in the life of a black postal worker and his three closest friends, also male black post office employees, in Chicago's South Side. Dominating the lives of these men is a chronic desire for sensual gratification, mainly in the form of food, alcohol, and s.e.x. If in a sometimes heavy-handed way, Wright seeks to doc.u.ment a typical day in their lives, the better to show the extent to which they are ignorant of any moral, intellectual, esthetic, or religious idea or ideal worthy of the name. The action of the novel, which takes place on Lincoln's Birthday, is juxtaposed against a solemn tribute to Abraham Lincoln that casts a further pall over the aimless lives of these men.

Lawd Today! was rejected by at least a half-dozen major American publishers. When Wright's first book, was rejected by at least a half-dozen major American publishers. When Wright's first book, Uncle Tom's Children Uncle Tom's Children, finally appeared, it comprised four stories or novellas; a revised edition in 1940 added a fifth story, "Bright and Morning Star." In these tales, all set in the South, Wright showed his skill in writing not only Communist-style narrations but also far less didactic fictions. The pieces "Fire and Cloud" and "Bright and Morning Star" are stories about radical political activity that feature a strong endors.e.m.e.nt of the revolutionary potential of the ma.s.ses; they both also touch on the uneasy interplay between communism and elements of black cultural nationalism. The other stories, "Big Boy Leaves Home," "Long Black Song," and "Down by the Riverside," are far less didactic. All of the five stories implicitly protest against racism and segregation, but the second group offers no program that would show the way out of the mora.s.s of racial discrimination.

By the time Uncle Tom's Children Uncle Tom's Children appeared in 1938, Wright was already questioning the authority of the Communist party where it mattered most to him, that is, where his autonomy as an artist was concerned. Clearly for him the revolutionary confidence of "Bright and Morning Star" and the prize-winning "Fire and Cloud," which ends with blacks and whites marching together in the South, obscured the truth about the two major races in America. His non-Communist stories, too, with their country Southern settings and their emphasis on youth, womanhood, or a struggle with the elements, later seemed to Wright curiously curtailed expositions, indeed, almost local color. Most disturbing to Wright even as he enjoyed the accolades that came to him as a result of appeared in 1938, Wright was already questioning the authority of the Communist party where it mattered most to him, that is, where his autonomy as an artist was concerned. Clearly for him the revolutionary confidence of "Bright and Morning Star" and the prize-winning "Fire and Cloud," which ends with blacks and whites marching together in the South, obscured the truth about the two major races in America. His non-Communist stories, too, with their country Southern settings and their emphasis on youth, womanhood, or a struggle with the elements, later seemed to Wright curiously curtailed expositions, indeed, almost local color. Most disturbing to Wright even as he enjoyed the accolades that came to him as a result of Uncle Tom's Children Uncle Tom's Children was the quality of lyric idealism that suffused the entire collection and allowed the final effect of the book to be mainly, at least as Wright saw it in his uncompromising way, a good cry. was the quality of lyric idealism that suffused the entire collection and allowed the final effect of the book to be mainly, at least as Wright saw it in his uncompromising way, a good cry.

Wright understood that neither his employment of a radical socialist esthetic, which preferred simple stories of revolutionary activity, nor his more subjective attempts to depict and comment on race relations in the South, had succeeded in doing what he had established as the major goal of his writing-the exposure of the starkest realities of American life where race was concerned. Wright knew that much of that life was quite beyond hope, that racism and segregation were not forces to be eradicated easily by programs, much less by slogans, and that even the most graphic evocations of suffering would not be enough to move readers to see racism for what it was. As he himself put it, Wright discovered that in Uncle Tom's Children Uncle Tom's Children he had written "a book which even bankers' daughters could read and feel good about." He then swore that the one that followed would be different. He would make sure that "no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears." he had written "a book which even bankers' daughters could read and feel good about." He then swore that the one that followed would be different. He would make sure that "no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears."

That next book was Native Son Native Son. As Wright later recalled, when he started to write the story of Bigger Thomas, the basic story flowed almost without an effort. In a real sense, he had been studying Bigger Thomas all of his life. Wright's essential Bigger Thomas was not so much a particular character caught in a specific episode of criminal activity as a crime waiting to happen; all the elements to create Bigger's mentality were historically in place in America, stocked by the criminal racial situation that was America. "I had spent years learning about Bigger, what had made him, what he meant; so, when the time came for writing, what had made him and what he meant what had made him and what he meant const.i.tuted my plot." Translating this idea into a narrative also came easily; the plot "fell out, so to speak." In truth, Wright heavily revised the ma.n.u.script as he worked, and the dramatic opening scene, featuring Bigger and his rat, was a late addition; but almost everything else took shape swiftly in response to a mighty effort by Wright to complete his novel. const.i.tuted my plot." Translating this idea into a narrative also came easily; the plot "fell out, so to speak." In truth, Wright heavily revised the ma.n.u.script as he worked, and the dramatic opening scene, featuring Bigger and his rat, was a late addition; but almost everything else took shape swiftly in response to a mighty effort by Wright to complete his novel.

At the center of Native Son Native Son is Bigger's consciousness. Where had Bigger come from? In his essay "How 'Bigger' Was Born," also published in 1940, Wright conceded that as with any sincere artist, his work of art had a life of its own: "There are meanings in my books of which I was not aware until they literally spilled out upon the paper." On the other hand, he was well aware from the start of the fundamental nature of his central character, who epitomized for Wright the most radical effect of racism on the black psyche. He recalled having met at least five specific Biggers in his youth. The first had been an ugly, brutish bully who, impervious to notions of justice or fair play, had intimidated and abused Wright and other black boys. The remaining prototypes of Bigger, however, distinguished themselves by the way in which their antisocial behavior was linked to their hatred of whites. That behavior moved on a spectrum from a devious opposition to white power to an open defiance of even its most intimidating shibboleths. Surviving miraculously in some cases, the most aggressive Biggers could not be cowed by threats of violence or by the law. is Bigger's consciousness. Where had Bigger come from? In his essay "How 'Bigger' Was Born," also published in 1940, Wright conceded that as with any sincere artist, his work of art had a life of its own: "There are meanings in my books of which I was not aware until they literally spilled out upon the paper." On the other hand, he was well aware from the start of the fundamental nature of his central character, who epitomized for Wright the most radical effect of racism on the black psyche. He recalled having met at least five specific Biggers in his youth. The first had been an ugly, brutish bully who, impervious to notions of justice or fair play, had intimidated and abused Wright and other black boys. The remaining prototypes of Bigger, however, distinguished themselves by the way in which their antisocial behavior was linked to their hatred of whites. That behavior moved on a spectrum from a devious opposition to white power to an open defiance of even its most intimidating shibboleths. Surviving miraculously in some cases, the most aggressive Biggers could not be cowed by threats of violence or by the law.

Bigger, however, was not an exclusively black phenomenon. Wright himself declared that the turning point for him in his understanding of social reality-"the pivot of my life"-was his discovery of the ubiquitousness of Bigger: "there were literally millions of him everywhere." White Biggers abounded in response to the same fundamental environment that had helped sponsor, in situations that involved blacks, the secondary conditions that produced black Biggers. These conditions reflected the failures of modern civilization-the death of genuine spiritual values and traditions, the harsh ness of economic greed and exploitation, the avarice for glittering material goods that, in a culture of consumerism, ultimately possessed the possessor. White Biggers, too, were as cut off from nurturing communal values and as emotionally ravaged by a gnawing sense of alienation as the black Biggers who had impressed themselves on Wright's imagination. These men (Wright seems never to have conceived of Bigger in female terms) saw in a garish light the failure of their society, its cultural and political ideals and promises, and refused to accept the compromises that most individuals make for simple self-preservation.

The existence of Bigger across racial lines enabled Wright both to come to terms with the limitations of black American culture, of which he would write with almost abusive force in his autobiography Black Boy Black Boy, and to set the problems facing blacks alongside those facing whites and thus allow a reciprocity of interest and influence that he had never guessed at in his youth. Nevertheless, the task of representing Bigger in fiction remained daunting. Unlike the dogmatic Communist ideology Wright was in the process of repudiating, the social and political criticism implicit in these marginal lives was by definition incoherent. "Their actions had simply made impressions upon my sensibilities as I lived from day to day," Wright recalled, "impressions which crystallized and coagulated into cl.u.s.ters and configurations of memory, att.i.tudes, moods, ideas. And these subjective states, in turn, were automatically stored away somewhere in me. I was not even aware of the process. But, excited over the book which I had set myself to write, under the stress of emotion, these things came surging up, tangled, fused, knotted, entertaining me by the sheer variety and potency of their meaning and suggestiveness."

Around the centrality of Bigger, Wright set a cast of characters meant to stand for the princ.i.p.al players on the American stage where race is concerned. One group represented the black world-Bigger and Bigger's family and friends, but also peripheral figures ready to support or betray him. Capitalism appears, in the person of Mr. Dalton; and capitalism's fair handmaiden, liberalism, in the persons of the blind Mrs. Dalton and the warm but giddy figure of Mary; communism, cold and a.n.a.lytical but fallible in the person of Max, genial but susceptible in the figure of Jan Erlone, whose naivete and paternalism help to precipitate the tragedy; religion, in the hapless, incompetent black preacher scorned by Bigger; and overt racism and reaction as represented best perhaps by the state's attorney. The city of Chicago, too, looms as a character in itself-like Bigger much of the time, brooding, dark, and violent. Nature also partic.i.p.ates, especially in the form of the snowfall that ultimately and pointedly, given its color, traps and delivers Bigger to his fate. Setting in motion the tragedy is the relatively simple act of bringing Bigger, with his alienations and hostilities, into contact with the hypocrisy and culpable ignorance of the Dalton world.

Wright also understood fully (as Faulkner showed he himself understood in his novels Light in August Light in August and and Absalom, Absalom! Absalom, Absalom!, both published in the 1930s) that there could be no truly probing discussion of the subject of race in America without extended reference to questions of s.e.xuality and miscegenation. After his arrest, Bigger Thomas is falsely accused of the rape of Mary Dalton, a crime obviously worse than murder in the minds of some whites; however, Wright took pains to show that the rape of Mary Dalton was indeed a possibility with Bigger. In material expurgated by the Book-of-the-Month Club (but restored in this edition of the novel) Bigger responds s.e.xually to a newsreel that shows Mary and other apparently wealthy, carefree, young white women cavorting on a beach in Florida. In a scene that particularly appalled the Club, Bigger and a friend m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e soon after in the movie house. Bigger essentially rapes his girlfriend Bessie before killing her. Wright makes it clear that Bigger's harsh upbringing has left his s.e.xuality contaminated with feelings of aggression and violence toward women, black and white. Because the s.e.xuality of white women is flaunted in movies and magazines but absolutely forbidden to black men, Bigger and men like him sometimes develop a potentially murderous fixation on these women. Rape may then acquire the illusion of being a political act; but the underlying threat to women is real and deadly.

Much of the composition of the novel came almost spontaneously, especially after Bigger had committed his crime, because the relationship of the white police to the black male was a story absolutely familiar to Wright and indeed to the black community as a whole. A windfall also came to Wright in May 1938 when a case similar in crucial respects to Bigger's in Native Son Native Son broke in Chicago. That month, Robert Nixon, a young black man, along with an accomplice, was arrested and charged with the murder of a white woman beaten to death with a brick in her apartment in the course of a robbery. Securing virtually all the newspaper clippings about the Nixon case, Wright used many of its details in his novel. These details included copious examples of raw white racism, especially in depicting the black defendant as hardly more than an animal. (Confessing to an earlier murder of a woman with a brick, Robert Nixon was also implicated in the similar killing in Los Angeles of a woman and her young daughter. He was executed in August 1939.) broke in Chicago. That month, Robert Nixon, a young black man, along with an accomplice, was arrested and charged with the murder of a white woman beaten to death with a brick in her apartment in the course of a robbery. Securing virtually all the newspaper clippings about the Nixon case, Wright used many of its details in his novel. These details included copious examples of raw white racism, especially in depicting the black defendant as hardly more than an animal. (Confessing to an earlier murder of a woman with a brick, Robert Nixon was also implicated in the similar killing in Los Angeles of a woman and her young daughter. He was executed in August 1939.) Although the Nixon trial material helped Wright, he was still left with the supreme problem of creating a fictional narrative with so brutalized and limited a character at its core. In a way, this was the same dilemma that faced all the major naturalist writers-for example, Stephen Crane in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Maggie: A Girl of the Streets or Frank Norris in or Frank Norris in McTeague; McTeague; but Wright's difficulties were more severe, because it is hard to think of a central character in all of literature who is less likable than Bigger Thomas. With other blacks, Bigger is bullying, surly, treacherous, and cowardly; with whites-understandably, to be sure-he is wary and deceitful. How could Wright expect such a character to hold his novel together, and hold his readers' interest? but Wright's difficulties were more severe, because it is hard to think of a central character in all of literature who is less likable than Bigger Thomas. With other blacks, Bigger is bullying, surly, treacherous, and cowardly; with whites-understandably, to be sure-he is wary and deceitful. How could Wright expect such a character to hold his novel together, and hold his readers' interest?

Rather than dismiss Bigger's inner life as unworthy of artistic attention (or social and political attention), Wright set out not simply to recreate its princ.i.p.al features but to allow these features to prescribe the form of his novel. He worked hard to evoke and dramatize the sordid, unstable reality of his main character's inner life, which matched the sordidness and instability imposed on Bigger by white racism and the deep effects of that racism on black culture. In the tripart.i.te division of Native Son- Native Son-Fear, Flight, and Fate-is seen Wright's instinctive grasp of the elemental starkness of Bigger's life. From Wright's sense of the pulsing instability of Bigger's thoughts and emotions-now flaring with rage and desire, now chilly and brackish with despair and impotence-he fashioned the peculiar prose rhythms that dominate the book and make us feel, as readers, that we are sharing in Bigger's moods and thoughts.

Native Son is a story that is at one level a seedy melodrama from the police blotter and, at the same time, an illuminating drama of an individual consciousness that challenges traditional definitions of character. Although at least one critic has written eloquently about the tragic dimensions of Bigger Thomas, to many other critics the most that probably can be said in this respect is that, at the end of his ordeal, Bigger possesses glimmerings of the ideals that might have allowed him to be seen as a tragic hero. There are many critics of the novel who find unconvincing even the modic.u.m of change in Bigger at the end of the book. To Wright, it was also absolutely necessary that Bigger should learn from his ordeal; the problem was to find the appropriate degree of redemption or growth for a character who had been established at such a low point on the scale of humanity. Perhaps the change is unconvincing, as some a.s.sert; but it is hardly excessive. Wright resisted the promptings of propaganda-for communism, or for the vaunted American way of life, or on behalf of black middle-cla.s.s sensitivity-and of liberal sentiment, which could easily have led him to patronize Bigger and transform him, by the end of the novel, into what Bigger never could be: a sensitive, "normal" human being. Tough-minded to the end, Wright refused to compromise his commitment to the truth, as he saw it. is a story that is at one level a seedy melodrama from the police blotter and, at the same time, an illuminating drama of an individual consciousness that challenges traditional definitions of character. Although at least one critic has written eloquently about the tragic dimensions of Bigger Thomas, to many other critics the most that probably can be said in this respect is that, at the end of his ordeal, Bigger possesses glimmerings of the ideals that might have allowed him to be seen as a tragic hero. There are many critics of the novel who find unconvincing even the modic.u.m of change in Bigger at the end of the book. To Wright, it was also absolutely necessary that Bigger should learn from his ordeal; the problem was to find the appropriate degree of redemption or growth for a character who had been established at such a low point on the scale of humanity. Perhaps the change is unconvincing, as some a.s.sert; but it is hardly excessive. Wright resisted the promptings of propaganda-for communism, or for the vaunted American way of life, or on behalf of black middle-cla.s.s sensitivity-and of liberal sentiment, which could easily have led him to patronize Bigger and transform him, by the end of the novel, into what Bigger never could be: a sensitive, "normal" human being. Tough-minded to the end, Wright refused to compromise his commitment to the truth, as he saw it.

Virtually from the day of its publication, the artistry of Native Son Native Son has been questioned and found wanting. Citing a category of writing identified by R. P. Blackmur, one scholar-critic called the novel (the words are Blackmur's) "one of those books in which everything is undertaken with seriousness except the writing." This is a common accusation against naturalist writers, as well as the literature of social protest in general; Dreiser, for one, comes quickly to mind. Certainly, Wright took chances in the course of writing this novel. At one point, for example, in defiance of artistic common sense, he crowds into Bigger's cell almost every princ.i.p.al character in his story (three members of Bigger's family, three of his friends, his lawyer Max, his prosecutor, the Daltons, Jan Erlone, and a minister). Wright conceded the improbability of such a scene but gave as his reason for keeping it the fact that "I wanted those people in that cell to elicit a certain important emotional response from Bigger.... What I wanted that scene to say to the reader was has been questioned and found wanting. Citing a category of writing identified by R. P. Blackmur, one scholar-critic called the novel (the words are Blackmur's) "one of those books in which everything is undertaken with seriousness except the writing." This is a common accusation against naturalist writers, as well as the literature of social protest in general; Dreiser, for one, comes quickly to mind. Certainly, Wright took chances in the course of writing this novel. At one point, for example, in defiance of artistic common sense, he crowds into Bigger's cell almost every princ.i.p.al character in his story (three members of Bigger's family, three of his friends, his lawyer Max, his prosecutor, the Daltons, Jan Erlone, and a minister). Wright conceded the improbability of such a scene but gave as his reason for keeping it the fact that "I wanted those people in that cell to elicit a certain important emotional response from Bigger.... What I wanted that scene to say to the reader was more important than its surface reality of implausibility more important than its surface reality of implausibility."

The long speeches in summation by the state's attorney and the defense lawyer also seem to some readers to be an unnecessary challenge to their powers of attention and to underscore Wright's didactic purposes in Native Son Native Son. Wright knew the risk, but hoped that his readers would pay attention to the arguments; they were both pieces of verisimilitude that replicated the activity of a murder trial and, at the same time, indispensable extended statements of rival intellectual positions on the matter of race in America. In a way, these lectures prove Wright's artistic power, since Native Son Native Son is already unforgettable long before they are delivered; and these speeches do not detract from the power of the last scene, and especially the last page, of the novel. With some justification, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who in her introduction to the first edition of is already unforgettable long before they are delivered; and these speeches do not detract from the power of the last scene, and especially the last page, of the novel. With some justification, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who in her introduction to the first edition of Native Son Native Son compared the novel to Dostoevsky's "revelation of human misery in wrongdoing," declared that there is "no one single effect in [Dostoevsky] finer" than this last page, in which Bigger "is born at last into humanity and makes his first simple, normal human response to a fellowman." compared the novel to Dostoevsky's "revelation of human misery in wrongdoing," declared that there is "no one single effect in [Dostoevsky] finer" than this last page, in which Bigger "is born at last into humanity and makes his first simple, normal human response to a fellowman."

Set to be published in 1939 by Harper's (which had brought out Uncle Tom's Children Uncle Tom's Children in 1938), in 1938), Native Son Native Son was selected by the influential Book-of-the-Month Club and issued as a main selection in 1940 (after Wright made revisions demanded by the club). That year, it sold some 250,000 copies, no doubt mainly to members of the club. However, sales of the book fell off sharply, according to at least one report, once prospective buyers understood that was selected by the influential Book-of-the-Month Club and issued as a main selection in 1940 (after Wright made revisions demanded by the club). That year, it sold some 250,000 copies, no doubt mainly to members of the club. However, sales of the book fell off sharply, according to at least one report, once prospective buyers understood that Native Son Native Son was not an entertaining detective story, as some had supposed, but a serious, even harrowing, text. The reviews, generally favorable, certainly remarked on the violence and gloom of the novel. Blacks were on the whole pleased by Wright's success, although some had doubts about the wisdom of offering Bigger Thomas as an example of African American character to the white world. Alain Locke, a highly respected commentator on black American art and culture, noted that it had taken "artistic courage and integrity of the first order" for Wright to have ignored "both the squeamishness of the Negro minority and the deprecating bias of the prejudiced majority." was not an entertaining detective story, as some had supposed, but a serious, even harrowing, text. The reviews, generally favorable, certainly remarked on the violence and gloom of the novel. Blacks were on the whole pleased by Wright's success, although some had doubts about the wisdom of offering Bigger Thomas as an example of African American character to the white world. Alain Locke, a highly respected commentator on black American art and culture, noted that it had taken "artistic courage and integrity of the first order" for Wright to have ignored "both the squeamishness of the Negro minority and the deprecating bias of the prejudiced majority."

Native Son made Wright easily the most respected black writer in America, and the most prosperous by far. In 1941, a stage production of the novel, directed by Orson Welles, only enhanced Wright's fame. (A motion picture of the novel, photographed mainly in Argentina, with Wright himself cast as Bigger Thomas, was finished in 1950; however, it enjoyed little success, especially after censors in the United States ordered deep cuts.) In 1945, his autobiography, made Wright easily the most respected black writer in America, and the most prosperous by far. In 1941, a stage production of the novel, directed by Orson Welles, only enhanced Wright's fame. (A motion picture of the novel, photographed mainly in Argentina, with Wright himself cast as Bigger Thomas, was finished in 1950; however, it enjoyed little success, especially after censors in the United States ordered deep cuts.) In 1945, his autobiography, Black Boy Black Boy, was also a bestseller; but Native Son Native Son remained the cornerstone of his success. In 1948, his reputation suffered undoubtedly from the adverse criticism of James Baldwin, who essentially launched his own career that year with an essay, "Everybody's Protest Novel," which dismissed remained the cornerstone of his success. In 1948, his reputation suffered undoubtedly from the adverse criticism of James Baldwin, who essentially launched his own career that year with an essay, "Everybody's Protest Novel," which dismissed Native Son Native Son as a piece of mere "protest" fiction, reductive of human character and thus fatally limited as art. In 1952, the appearance of Ralph Ellison's as a piece of mere "protest" fiction, reductive of human character and thus fatally limited as art. In 1952, the appearance of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man Invisible Man, with its dazzling modernist techniques, its lyricism, humor, and final optimism about America, also tended to make Native Son Native Son seem crude in comparison. seem crude in comparison.

In the 1960s, however, with the dawning of the Black Power movement after the most b.l.o.o.d.y stage of the civil rights struggle, and the shocking upsurge of violent crime in the cities, especially among young black males, Wright's novel increasingly seemed strikingly accurate and, indeed, prophetic. Later, in the 1980s, Wright's reputation suffered again, this time under the scrutiny of feminist literary criticism, which could hardly miss the fact that, with few exceptions, the world of his fiction is fundamentally hostile to women, especially black women.

Nevertheless, Wright seems certain to continue to enjoy a lasting place of high honor in the African American and American literary traditions, and to be recognized as an author of world-cla.s.s dimensions. While his overall reputation rests on a number of texts in different genres, including autobiography, essays, and travel writing, Native Son Native Son remains his greatest achievement. In 1963 (three years after Wright's sudden death in a Paris hospital), the acclaimed cultural historian Irving Howe summed up, perhaps for all time, the epochal significance of the novel even as he criticized several of its aspects. "The day remains his greatest achievement. In 1963 (three years after Wright's sudden death in a Paris hospital), the acclaimed cultural historian Irving Howe summed up, perhaps for all time, the epochal significance of the novel even as he criticized several of its aspects. "The day Native Son Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever," Howe declared. "It made impossible a repet.i.tion of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture." appeared, American culture was changed forever," Howe declared. "It made impossible a repet.i.tion of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."

ARNOLD R RAMPERSAD.

PRINCETON U UNIVERSITY.

BOOK ONE.

FEAR.

Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng!

An alarm clock clanged in the dark and silent room. A bed spring creaked. A woman's voice sang out impatiently: "Bigger, shut that thing off!"

A surly grunt sounded above the tinny ring of metal. Naked feet swished dryly across the planks in the wooden floor and the clang ceased abruptly.

"Turn on the light, Bigger."

"Awright," came a sleepy mumble.

Light flooded the room and revealed a black boy standing in a narrow s.p.a.ce between two iron beds, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands. From a bed to his right the woman spoke again: "Buddy, get up from there! I got a big washing on my hands today and I want you-all out of here."

Another black boy rolled from bed and stood up. The woman also rose and stood in her nightgown.

"Turn your heads so I can dress," she said.

The two boys averted their eyes and gazed into a far corner of the room. The woman rushed out of her nightgown and put on a pair of step-ins. She turned to the bed from which she had risen and called: "Vera! Get up from there!"

"What time is it, Ma?" asked a m.u.f.fled, adolescent voice from beneath a quilt.

"Get up from there, I say!"

"O.K., Ma."

A brown-skinned girl in a cotton gown got up and stretched her arms above her head and yawned. Sleepily, she sat on a chair and fumbled with her stockings. The two boys kept their faces averted while their mother and sister put on enough clothes to keep them from feeling ashamed; and the mother and sister did the same while the boys dressed. Abruptly, they all paused, holding their clothes in their hands, their attention caught by a light tapping in the thinly plastered walls of the room. They forgot their conspiracy against shame and their eyes strayed apprehensively over the floor.

"There he is again, Bigger!" the woman screamed, and the tiny, one-room apartment galvanized into violent action. A chair toppled as the woman, half-dressed and in her stocking feet, scrambled breathlessly upon the bed. Her two sons, barefoot, stood tense and motionless, their eyes searching anxiously under the bed and chairs. The girl ran into a corner, half-stooped and gathered the hem of her slip into both of her hands and held it tightly over her knees.

"Oh! Oh!" she wailed.

"There he goes!"

The woman pointed a shaking finger. Her eyes were round with fascinated horror.

"Where?"

"I don't see 'im!"

"Bigger, he's behind the trunk!" the girl whimpered.

"Vera!" the woman screamed. "Get up here on the bed! Don't let that thing bite bite you!" you!"

Frantically, Vera climbed upon the bed and the woman caught hold of her. With their arms entwined about each other, the black mother and the brown daughter gazed open-mouthed at the trunk in the corner.

Bigger looked round the room wildly, then darted to a curtain and swept it aside and grabbed two heavy iron skillets from a wall above a gas stove. He whirled and called softly to his brother, his eyes glued to the trunk.

"Buddy!"

"Yeah?"

"Here; take this skillet."

"O.K."

"Now, get over by the door!"

"O.K."

Buddy crouched by the door and held the iron skillet by its handle, his arm flexed and poised. Save for the quick, deep breathing of the four people, the room was quiet. Bigger crept on tiptoe toward the trunk with the skillet clutched stiffly in his hand, his eyes dancing and watching every inch of the wooden floor in front of him. He paused and, without moving an eye or muscle, called: "Buddy!"

"Hunh?"

"Put that box in front of the hole so he can't get out!"

"O.K."

Buddy ran to a wooden box and shoved it quickly in front of a gaping hole in the molding and then backed again to the door, holding the skillet ready. Bigger eased to the trunk and peered behind it cautiously. He saw nothing. Carefully, he stuck out his bare foot and pushed the trunk a few inches.

"There he is!" the mother screamed again.

A huge black rat squealed and leaped at Bigger's trouser-leg and snagged it in his teeth, hanging on.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n!" Bigger whispered fiercely, whirling and kicking out his leg with all the strength of his body. The force of his movement shook the rat loose and it sailed through the air and struck a wall. Instantly, it rolled over and leaped again. Bigger dodged and the rat landed against a table leg. With clenched teeth, Bigger held the skillet; he was afraid to hurl it, fearing that he might miss. The rat squeaked and turned and ran in a narrow circle, looking for a place to hide; it leaped again past Bigger and scurried on dry rasping feet to one side of the box and then to the other, searching for the hole. Then it turned and reared upon its hind legs.

"Hit 'im, Bigger!" Buddy shouted.

"Kill 'im!" the woman screamed.

The rat's belly pulsed with fear. Bigger advanced a step and the rat emitted a long thin song of defiance, its black beady eyes glittering, its tiny forefeet pawing the air restlessly. Bigger swung the skillet; it skidded over the floor, missing the rat, and clattered to a stop against a wall.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n!"

The rat leaped. Bigger sprang to one side. The rat stopped under a chair and let out a furious screak. Bigger moved slowly backward toward the door.

"Gimme that skillet, Buddy," he asked quietly, not taking his eyes from the rat.

Buddy extended his hand. Bigger caught the skillet and lifted it high in the air. The rat scuttled across the floor and stopped again at the box and searched quickly for the hole; then it reared once more and bared long yellow fangs, piping shrilly, belly quivering.

Bigger aimed and let the skillet fly with a heavy grunt. There was a shattering of wood as the box caved in. The woman screamed and hid her face in her hands. Bigger tiptoed forward and peered.

"I got 'im," he muttered, his clenched teeth bared in a smile. "By G.o.d, I got 'im."

He kicked the splintered box out of the way and the flat black body of the rat lay exposed, its two long yellow tusks showing distinctly. Bigger took a shoe and pounded the rat's head, crushing it, cursing hysterically: "You sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

The woman on the bed sank to her knees and buried her face in the quilts and sobbed: "Lord, Lord, have mercy...."

"Aw, Mama," Vera whimpered, bending to her. "Don't cry. It's dead now."

The two brothers stood over the dead rat and spoke in tones of awed admiration.

"Gee, but he's a big b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"That sonofab.i.t.c.h could cut your throat."

"He's over a foot long."

"How in h.e.l.l do they get so big?"

"Eating garbage and anything else they can get."

"Look, Bigger, there's a three-inch rip in your pantleg."

"Yeah; he was after me, all right."