Richard Wright's Art of Tragedy

by Joyce Ann Joyce

This book shifts emphasis from biography to the artistic vision and masterful crafting of Wright's major work. I have tries to provide - for the first time in a full-length study -a means by which students and teachers can firmly grasp the stylistic genius that marks Native Son.Chapter 1 attempts to show the commonality among naturalism, existentialism, and tragedy as well as their points of demarcation, while Chapters 2 and 3 examine respectively the nature of Bigger's environment and his personality traits from the point of view of tragedy.These three chapters prepare the way for Chapter 4, which shows how Wright's ingenious use of language captures the tragic vision through its illumination of the dichotomies responsible for the tension in Bigger's life. Chapter 5 illustrates the processes by which Wright's synthesizes these dichotomies..

149 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 1991