Native Son

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Written by acclaimed black author Richard Wright – whose inspiration came from personal experience and evidence from his 1930s social reality, ‘Native Son’ fearlessly describes the unfair treatment of blacks in America, making a case for why members of the race have increasingly drawn to a life of decadence over the years. 

Key Facts about Native Son 

• Title: Native Son
• Book Author: Richard Nathaniel Wright
• Publishers: Harper & Brothers
• Date: March 1st 1940
• Genre: Tragedy. Social protest novel. Psychological Fiction. Classic Noir.
• Pages: 544 pages
• Settings: South Side, Chicago.
• Climax: Bigger goes at large as the police search to apprehend him for the murder of Mary Dalton, a rich white girl, and Bessie – his girlfriend.

Richard Wright and Native Son 

Richard Wright’s life’s trajectory – both personal and literary – was always going to lead him to author a book as daring and controversial as ‘Native Son,’ a memoir-like book where he details several of what he encountered before he came to Harlem.

These encounters, of course, were all related to the way that his fellow black countrymen were unfairly treated. Wright never fully understood the extent of the racial divide while he was in Mississippi, and this was for the obvious reason that his Mississippi neighborhood was small and familiar. He was still little at the time – between five and six years old – to fully comprehend the issue of racial diversity.

After Wright’s father moved the family northward for greener pastures in Memphis, Tennessee. In a city that was bigger, busier, and ethnically diversified, Wright now began to see in a brighter light the massive, in-system discrimination and harassment, and from this point, he began noting these stories and from the experiences of real victims who suffered such. In his search for personal and professional liberation, Wright moved a lot – from Mississippi to Tennessee to Chicago and then to Harlem, New York City, where he finally wrote and published his book ‘Native Son.’

Having tasted the literary waters with his previous books such as ‘Uncle Tom’s Children,’ Wright utilized the naturalism device to bring together all the observations and social experiments he had seen play out against the lives of many black people he had come across in the cause of his interstates, intercity travels – the product of which becomes the fearlessly audacious book, ‘Native Son.’

For a book known for its blatant and aggressive portrayal of violence, vulgarity, and sexual misconduct, ‘Native Son’ (later banned for this but not until the late 1990s) was a surprise book that was present in bookstores and public shelves in the 1940s. The book began spreading like wildfire and in three months, sold a quarter of a million at around 5 dollars each – and would eventually make Wright the richest black writer of his time.

The book was many things all at once: impressive and shocking for both white and black people. Wright’s Harlem contemporaries like Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes acknowledged his work – even though none of them –  who were all black writers – could muster the courage and create such a book with such a high level of controversy.

Books Related to Native Son

The story of ‘Native Son’ is the kind of book that talks about an opinion a lot of people feel and share but are afraid to say because they might be canceled by society or face other negative repercussions. It is to be noted that at the time of the release of ‘Native Son,’ America was run by white supremacists, and there were even laws and judicial precedents passed in the 1880s and late 1890s – Such as the Jim Crow laws and Plessy v. Ferguson – all backing a theoretically ‘equal’ but segregated use of public facilities, transport systems, etcetera.

Wright’s book came at the time it was most needed, serving as the voice for the voiceless as it started to infuse a belief in people (especially people of color) that they were worth more. Wright, through his ‘Native Son,’ laid the groundwork for other artists and authors to begin creating projects and works that pushed for equality and freedom for all races. Such great awakening began expanding and became what eventually led to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

There are a lot of books that are similar to Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’ – and such books are the ones that strive against the odds to report and check a repressive government, state, or society. ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston is a similar book in this category not only because both books are set in the same 1930s reality, known popularly as a dangerous time in America for blacks and other people of color, but because they all explore the stereotypes, discrimination, and prejudices faced by African American – with Wright tackling it from a male’s perspectives, while Hurston does her from a female standpoint.

The Lasting Impact of Native Son