Native Son- review

NATIVE SON written by Richard Wright, published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 2005. Originally published by Harper & Brothers in 1940. The story is broken down into three sections: Fear, Flight, and Fate. Then there is an author section entitled "How 'Bigger' was Born" written originally for The Saturday Review of Literature, June 1, 1940. It was then added to Mr. Wrights books. I enjoyed reading the character development that Mr. Wright used for Bigger and his nod to the fact it doesn't matter what the skin tone there are always Biggers in the world. He also commented that he had written short stories and it made people weep and think that white people felt the need to crusade, that he wrote this story to combat that feeling. That he did not want people to cry for the characters. Well, I have to say that this book saddened me, maybe because it is 70 some years later, but the characters made me feel that it should have been different for African Americans. I cannot and will not use the words that Mr. Wright used for the blacks portrayed in the book.

So how do you right a synopsis on a book that is still relevant today, in terms of politics, minorities and depressed economies.  When Mr. Wright wrote this book, he could not come up with a beginning, wrote the whole book, except for the beginning and end, went back and edited and then came up with both, tying them together. Let me start with FEAR concept, this does not just show up in the first segment but is what guides Bigger throughout the whole book. His decisions are based solely on fear and anger. He is angry and fearful of his situation in life. He at the age of 20 has to be the sole bread winner for his Mom, sister Vera and his brother Buddy. He and his friends rob from other black people and are thinking of robbing from a white man. But he is afraid that if he does this he might get caught and his Mom and Vera are always nagging on him to go to the job that relief offered him. So to appear bigger to his friends and not caring, he proposes they pull this heist off before he goes for his job interview. He tries to make it seem like his friend Gus is the fearful one, so beats Gus up to get out of the heist and tells him your fear made you late, it is too late to do the job.

So is he afraid to succeed, afraid to fail, afraid to break out of this poverty or afraid what he would do to someone who made him feel bad about himself. It is a combination of these things that make up Bigger. He does go to his interview and comes to work for a man named Henry Dalton, who has a wild daughter, who hangs out with a communist named Jan. On his first night she puts him in several uncomfortable positions and he thinks she is doing it to make him feel that discomfort, but she really is trying to help but her naitvity works against her. The final problem comes when he finds himself alone with Mary Dalton, who is can't stand up drunk, and he is not sure how to get her in the house and to her room. She suggests he carries her and she passes out. Mom, who is blind, comes in the room and instead of explaining, because black men are not supposed to be in white a white woman's bedroom, he becomes fearful and sticks a pillow over her face and holds her down. She dies.

The rest of the story is him hiding the body, pretending that someone else was at fault, being found out, evading police, getting caught and being put on trial and being represented by a communist lawyer. All throughout these sequences Bigger acts on fear and anger, except in the end.

He lived in a one room apartment with his Mom, brother and sister. They lived in what is called Chicago's Black Belt. Though there were buildings just outside the Black Belt they could not live in them because they were for white folk and had been abandoned for the most part because they were to close to the Black Belt. This is a historical fact about the region. In addition, the black community was always the first rounded up when there was a crime, especially if it involved a white woman. It seems that the authorities always added rape to any crime committed, because it was a crime punishable by death. Not a time I would want to live in, but then have we remained the same in some instances do we still jump to conclusions, act irrationally depending on race. As Mr. Wright pointed out in his book, there are Bigger's who let fear and anger control them and they come in all races. But do we only hear about the African American races.

Many questions, many feelings were aroused by this book. Especially, reading why Mr. Wright, a communist, wrote the book.