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Native Son

Richard Wright

3.99 · Rating details · 91,830 ratings · 3,910 reviews

“If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the st ...more

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ebook, 432 pages

Published June 16th 2009 by HarperCollins e-books (first published 1940)

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Dec 26, 2007 Ben Siems rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone!

My older brother Larry, who is extremely well-read, recently came to town for a visit. He had with him a copy of Native Son. I asked what prompted him to re-read it. He explained that he had actually never read it before, which he confessed was really odd, given that the book is an undisputed classic.

Well, here is Larry's two-word review of the book:
Holy shit.

I concur.

Those who have studied the Harlem Renaissance know that Richard Wright was a passionate, angry man, the writer about whom other ...more

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Dec 09, 2018 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, audio, classic, completist-book-club, legal-drama

This book is extremely powerful. I saw another review saying that they could not believe this was written and released in 1940. I agree - as I can only imagine how controversial the content would have been at that time. And, even today it touches so closely on some of the topics you see in the news everyday, it's like Wright could see into the future.

The main themes in the story involve perceptions and misconceptions of black people as well as how Communism was viewed in the decade leading up to ...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Rowena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american-lit, afrocentric, african-american, banned-book-challenges

“These were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence; periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger—like water ebbing and flowing from the tug of a far-away invisible force. Being this way was a need of his as deep as eating. He was like a strange plant blooming in the day and wilting at night; but the sun that made it bloom and the cold darkness that made it wilt were never seen. It was his own sun and darkness, a private and perso ...more

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Nov 28, 2017 Brina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, chicago-setting, african-american

Updating my shelves. I read this in high school for a book report. Being that I'm from the Chicago suburbs originally this was one of my first exposures to life in another part of the city and I found the book to be fascinating. It would be interesting to reread it through adult eyes. ...more

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Sep 12, 2013 Samadrita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Samadrita by: Lit Bug

Shelves: in-by-about-america, social-justice, racism-slavery-post-colonial, bygones-are-never-bygones, sociology, crime-noir, cherished

One has got to appreciate the diplomatic mincing of words that graces the GR blurb.

"Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America."

A distinctly innocuous 'what it means to be black in America' is a nice little euphemism for 'institutionalized racism' or terminology like 'white supremacist capitalist patriarchy' which are too confrontational, too accusatory, too ominous sounding. That America continues to practice a similar form of conscious prevarication to avoid facing the true sordidness of its race problem is in some small way responsible for this book's enduring relevance. America is still bowed under the weight of its real Bigger Thomas-es and their collective existential agony, otherwise Travyon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner would, perhaps, still be alive.
What the book blurb avoids spelling out is that to be black in America is to follow a trajectory of limited self improvement or slow and gradual decline carved out for one by malevolent, mysterious forces way beyond one's control. To be deprived of an agency, to have one's freedom of movement, thought, and speech so severely restricted that the only way for a working class black man to make his presence felt in the world is by (accidentally) killing a rich white girl, one whose coveted sexuality and beauty are treated as valuable objects in the ownership of the white supremacist capitalist patriarch.

Half the time I feel like I'm on the outside of the world peeping in through a knothole in the fence... .

Bigger Thomas embraces an absurd world and finds meaning in an otherwise futile existence only by committing accidental murder and finding a sense of accomplishment in that act but unlike Camus's Meursault the source of his private angst and indifference in the face of persecution is situated within a realm in which Jim Crow laws reign supreme.

It was the first full act of his life; it was the most meaningful, exciting and stirring thing that had ever happened to him. He accepted it because it made him free, gave him the possibility of choice, of action, the opportunity to act and to feel that his actions carried weight.

No other work has brought back memories of 'The Wire' (which has got to be the best thing ever made for television viewing) as acutely as 'Native Son' and Ta-Nehisi Coates' powerful diatribe against the systematic destruction of 'black bodies' in contemporary America (Between the World and Me) because both books and tv show explicate the heart-breaking consequences of social injustice in its many macabre avatars and the trickle-down effect of public policy aimed at preserving the noxious but brittle status quo. And yet the discerning will not fail to notice that I have rated this work 4 stars despite my limitless love for The Wire. This is majorly owing to the fact that Wright, much like Camus in The Stranger, seeks to rationalize a crime(s) simply to propound a philosophy. The murdered women, especially Bessie Mears, are relegated to the status of lifeless plot devices whose purpose is merely to flesh out Bigger's fear of and anger at a world in which he is perpetually treated as a pariah. Silly white entitled ignorant Mary Dalton is as much objectified by Bigger and his friends as by the self-righteously outraged white community which treats her murder as an event of communal humiliation. Her personhood, life, socialist inclinations, and opinions are eventually subsumed by the color of her skin and its implied political symbolism. That Bessie, as a black woman, is a doubly marginalized victim who suffers a two-pronged form of oppression perpetrated both by an essentially racist social order and black men who find an amoral form of self expression through inflicting some kind of violence on the vulnerable is also never acknowledged by the narrative.

Not that I question Richard Wright's right to place black masculinity in the foreground of his novel, but he achieves his narrative aim at the expense of overlooking the gravity of the hardships and everyday violence that black women endure. Camus displays a similar thoughtlessness while portraying the accidental murder of a nameless 'Arab' simply so that Meursault could have an epiphany and make peace with his absurd life and imminent execution. Either scenario does not sit well with me. After all, it is usually the women and people of color who are robbed of even the minimal glory of true victimhood in literature. ...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Fabian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

(SPOILERS!) Reading the first 2 parts of "Native Son," Richard Wright's landmark novel is an absolute thrill. One part Tom Ripley, one part Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock," the antihero always reigns triumphant. But this antihero lacks panache, intelligence, even, perhaps, a conscience... all the character traits of a true villain. So he's somewhere in between. The crimes committed by the much-studied, much-written-about Bigger Thomas are heinous. The character study is super taut and intense. " ...more

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May 18, 2013 Aubrey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-are-the-best-invention, 5-star, r-2013, reviewed, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, 1-read-on-hand, person-of-everything, r-goodreads, antidote-think-twice-read, antidote-think-twice-all

Have you heard the name Trayvon Martin? If you have, good. If you haven’t, look him up. Open a tab, search up the name, T-R-A-Y-V-O-N etc, and read. Familiarize yourself with the exact definitions of the atrocity, the scope of the repercussions throughout the US, the up and currently running process of rectification that in a fair and just world would not be as excruciatingly slow and painful as it’s turning out to be. In a fair and just world, he would not be one of countless mown down for ever Have you heard the name Trayvon Martin? If you have, good. If you haven’t, look him up. Open a tab, search up the name, T-R-A-Y-V-O-N etc, and read. Familiarize yourself with the exact definitions of the atrocity, the scope of the repercussions throughout the US, the up and currently running process of rectification that in a fair and just world would not be as excruciatingly slow and painful as it’s turning out to be. In a fair and just world, he would not be one of countless mown down for everything but a valid reason.

This is not a fair and just world.

No, this is a world where we have those who profess to be not only good writers deserving of literary rewards, but good teachers of writing to boot, despite bigoting their scope of literature down to the basic principle of whom they identify with based on parameters such as gender, sexuality, and color of skin.

Do you know what that sort of mentality would leave me, reading this book? Do you know which character I was expected to perfectly align with, the one most feasible for the goal of sewing myself up in the skin and riding around in perfect harmony? The young white girl, so filled with highflown aspirations of social justice, so loaded with easy income, so filthy with white privilege, who is suffocated and mutilated and burned up into a few fragments of bone and a single earring.

Tell me, then, oh wise teacher, keeper of books and innate sense of good literature, white, middle-aged, heterosexual, the banality of character, the default of personalization, the one archetype for whom nearly the whole of literature has been customized for and has never known what it means to eke out an empathetic terrain on the basis of understanding, not physicality. Even here, in this book written by a black man, you have an overwhelming majority in terms of representation, what with your Buckley, your Max, your multitudes of Klu Klux Klan and crowds and judges all in a big fat white male world. While I have a single soul, a Mary Dalton.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with her, this small, pretty, idiot girl who knows nothing of the agony she is sustained by, and thinks herself kind and generous by reaching out to those her very skin tone persecutes and compromising their existence with a single moment of stupidly inane trust? What am I supposed to do with this pompously fulfilled imbecile, this suicidally naïve prat who innocently frames her words out of what she perceives as an intention of kindness, treating the other as an animal when she notices their plight and accessory ensuring her comfortable existence when she returns to her natural state of self-righteous ignorance?

For you know, teacher, in spite of all that deficiencies on her part, there is a case to be made when it comes to the casual abuse and even more casual conformation of mind and soul of countless women in the history of both reality and literature. Saintly virgin, blighted whore, girlfriend in a refrigerator, all objects used with unconscious persistence of augmenting the male reality, the male realization, the male point of view. You may not know, teacher, with your blatant refusal to even consider reading literature on the other side of the curtain of your all too male sensibilities, but that is not how woman are. That is not how I am, and as such it would be all too easy to resonate with Bessie and Mary above all others, young women there and gone in a swift spending of their use in the pursuit of a story of a young and violent man.

Tell me, in light of that, should I hate Bigger Thomas? Should I spit on him and his indomitable pride of living, one that will not be blinded to the misery of him and his people no matter how much they beg and plead? Should I ignore his anger, his shame, his fearful panic in the face of living cut and dried at every second, every year, every century that his ancestors were first wrenched away from their homeland and have suffered in inhuman bondage ever since? Should I withhold my empathy for someone who looks the reality of his existence in the face, dregging out his life in a country that rapes him into a corner and sees that as the way it ought to be? Should I refuse to recognize the effects of a neverending amputation of the self’s expression onto the wider plane of life and living, the horrible consequences that can and will result so long as oppression stamps its broken and bloody way across ethics and humanity?

Should I close my ears to the integrity of Max, the manipulation of Buckley, not chase the slightest bit of critical analysis of the two and their diatribes, all because I cannot relate in terms of simple physicality? Above all, should I have not even embarked on this book written by Richard Wright, because somehow I ‘knew’ that I wouldn’t relate because of the differences the author and I have in terms of skin and gender?

Tell me, teacher, although it’s unlikely you would ever deserve the title no matter how much writing you did. Would you have me stuff myself into a box that will cradle me with familiar blindness forevermore? Would you have me tie myself down to the identity of someone like poor Mary Dalton, the little fool, and rightfully suffer for it? For I will never know what it means on a visceral level to be black, male, and in the United States, pushed past the farthest boundaries of humanity by centuries of systematic oppression of an entire people into a barren void where right and wrong squeak along with the voices of ghosts. But I do know how to read, as well as listen. I do know how to write, as well as think. I do know, in the fundamental ache of my self, what it means to be a human being.

Do you know that last one, teacher? I doubt it. ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 Michael added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

A gripping naturalist novel delving into the psychological toll of racism on Black interiority. There’s so much to critique about the work, from its misogyny to its clunky structure, but its influence and forceful condemnation of white supremacy make it still worth reading.

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Jan 25, 2020 Monica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, aoc, fiction, pub-b4_1950, pre-popular-85-99, puppy-squishers, audible, classics, aoc-male, kindle_fiction

I've struggled for almost a year to write a review for this book. I think it's so difficult because I just didn't like the way that I felt about it. A main character who is despicable surround by well meaning but ultimately patronizing people who aren't that all fired likeable either. This was easily one of the most uncomfortable and unpleasant reading experiences this year. Normally I would have written this off as terrible but for one thing. Wright has achieved exactly what he set out to do. T I've struggled for almost a year to write a review for this book. I think it's so difficult because I just didn't like the way that I felt about it. A main character who is despicable surround by well meaning but ultimately patronizing people who aren't that all fired likeable either. This was easily one of the most uncomfortable and unpleasant reading experiences this year. Normally I would have written this off as terrible but for one thing. Wright has achieved exactly what he set out to do. This was not a read one picks up for enjoyment. This book was a demonstrative principle. It showcases Bigger Thomas as a product of his environment.

It's an ugly story. Vile in fact and Bigger Thomas in my view has no redeeming qualities. And even though Wright uses a freaking sledgehammer, I can't deny it's effectiveness. Nor can I deny the realism of the characters. The wealthy, patronizing folks who represent the elite in the world so distinctly as they reach out to give one disadvantaged person an opportunity so they can pat themselves on the back for their generosity while they are prey on the disadvantaged community offering substandard housing at unaffordable prices pretending they do much more good than harm. The liberal condescending female, who looks down from a pretentious perch and claims to be colorblind and believe in equality unable to recognize her wealth and whiteness exempt her from consequences that endanger Bigger. It's a little like "The Great Gatsby". These people were callous and don't really care. Bigger was a selfish, brutish, bitter man whose size allowed him to bully a lot of people. He is of average intelligence and lacks the drive to do better. His single mother relies on him for income to help her and her 3 kids and is constantly degrading him. He can't keep a job because he's lazy and entitled as the oldest male in the family. He lacks motivation because he really has no opportunity. This vile man is made in America. This is why I believe this book is worthy of praise. It stays with you and is still resonant today with the boot of wealthy on the neck of the poor. And the fact is that ethnic identity is still entrenched and systemic and extends beyond black and white. What are we creating when we wrest kids from their parents and put them in cages for trying to escape a violent environment. When we refuse to help people out of work due to the pandemic stay in a safe environment and keep their families fed. When the we poison the public water source in a city but make no attempt to help the folks who have no other options for drinking and cleaning. When we overlook the indignities our system imposes on others because it doesn't affect us. Wright says that we create a generation of monsters. I think he's correct. A horrible book that stings because it's like a mirror reflecting things we don't like about ourselves.

4+ Stars

Listened to Audible. Narration was fine though in my mind a little emotionless. I believe that was the narrators interpretation. Narrator was Peter Francis James.

One note on this audible selection: Fortunately I was able to turn this one back in for another selection. This recording was a streaming of CDs without any type of audio editing so frequently the listener hears for example "CD 4" then continues into the story. Unprofessional for the cost of the audiobook. ...more

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Oct 23, 2020 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What a brave and confrontational book this is! Wright could have gone down the easy route of making Bigger Thomas a falsely accused man and generated sympathy by showing him as the victim of a racialised legal system, but he doesn't - instead he gives us a far more complex portrait of Blackness, masculinity and class, all of which collide in Bigger.

Wright's introduction makes the point that Bigger is a composite of men he has known - white as well as black - ill-educated, dispossessed, alienate ...more

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Dec 27, 2013 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: black-authors, urban-gothic, classics, afrocentric, regular-old-fiction

A challenging read. The easy route for the author Richard Wright would've been to write a novel asking us to sympathize with a black man wrongfully accused of murder in a racist community. But he does not take the easy route. Instead he implores the reader to follow Bigger Thomas, a young black man who is absolutely guilty of committing a deplorable act (for reasons which he himself cannot fully explain), and forces us to look at the circumstances which might have possibly created this complex m ...more

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Feb 18, 2015 Brian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Brian by: Rowena

Maybe it's the inevitable melancholy of getting older, but reading this novel for the second time, roughly 13 years after the first go, has made me tremendously sad and despairing.

I would like to think the country is so much different 70 years after its publication, but is it? ...more

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Mar 17, 2017 Peter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-stars, african-american-writers, literary, favorites

What a powerful book. In narrative, theme, character and motifs, Wright uses his whole arsenal to show us the horrors of racism. He seems to be able to reflect back the experience of racism—how it's created and it's cycle of destruction. I've read other Black writers before, but this book is probably the one that has taken on and embodied racism more so than any other book for me.

For a novel written in 1940, the book holds up quite well. Unfortunately, while our nation has made progress, especi ...more

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Oct 08, 2008 Ryan Lawson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Richard Wright's Native Son is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most powerful books that I have read, ever. This nightmarish story packs such an overwhelming amount of emotion and controversy that it is hard to pull away from much like the sight of a gruesome car crash on an interstate, you don't want to look but you must look. If you're looking for a competent, confident example of verisimilitude in literature then you need not look further.

Upon reading this piece, I wondered the entire Richard Wright's Native Son is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most powerful books that I have read, ever. This nightmarish story packs such an overwhelming amount of emotion and controversy that it is hard to pull away from much like the sight of a gruesome car crash on an interstate, you don't want to look but you must look. If you're looking for a competent, confident example of verisimilitude in literature then you need not look further.

Upon reading this piece, I wondered the entire time, "How had I not been exposed to this book or Richard Wright?" And, it still escapes me how this masterpiece is not at the forefront (if not, the very front) of not only American Literature but more specifically African-American Literature. I've yet to read a piece that surpasses the violent honesty of this book; and, perhaps, that is why it is not as much a part of the American-Literature Subconscious Canon. Wright's work isn't as tame as the weary Hughes and he manages to surpass the shocking tact of James Baldwin.

Bigger Thomas is a murderous and rapacious young man who through his horrendous acts of rape, theft, and violence somehow manages to elicit an amount of sympathy. Wright is able to portray him in such a light that makes the reader understand fully that Bigger is committing unconscionable crimes yet no matter how atrocious the crimes are not unforgivable.

There were times I felt guilty for rooting for Bigger Thomas, but that is the mastery in Wright's writing! Bigger is such an uncanny character that it is next to impossible to not feel sympathy for him.

"Why?" I kept asking myself. "Why do I not want this man's head on a plate?"

It's as if Bigger is in a nightmare but is unable to wake up. If you've ever been in a situation so bad, so unbearable that you actually wished it to be a terrible dream then you will understand Bigger. You'll beg for him to stop committing these crimes instead of demanding him to be caught and killed.

The mob mentality in this book is frightening and dark, darker than Bigger Thomas himself. To think that some of Bigger's case was based on an actual trial of a man named Robert Nixon is almost unbelievable. The hate is so gigantic within the mob.

As a reader, you really get to see how minorities (blacks), laborers (unions), and people with differing social opinions (socialist & communists) have been and, sometimes, still are persecuted by mass mentality... The tragedy is that the mass mentality is controlled by an elite few. This book offers a dramatic understanding of how those in power maintain a steady hand on their subordinates and pit each subordinate against one another so they do not focus on the real monsters, the employers! It bears witness to the class-struggle of the times and the class-struggles that are still occurring today.

Bless this book. It's a good one.
...more

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Jul 11, 2010 Esteban del Mal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, fiction, americana

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I’ve been putting off writing a review of this for two reasons:

1.) I'm busy.
2.) I wanted to cool off a bit, not let any of that nebulous white guilt creep into my thinking.

*****

This book has heft, both physical and otherwise. The paper stock, the binding, the subject matter --- they combine for one weighty tome. I came to terms with the material dimensions quickly. The other dimensions? Not so much. I mean, I'm an ethnic Jew, but I identify (and pass, thankfully) as your run-of-the-mill white ...more

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Jan 30, 2010 Nathan Paul rated it did not like it · review of another edition

While I realize some of the things that Wright is trying to say in this book, I could not bring myself to enjoy it at all. One of the main reasons was because I simply detested the main character, Bigger Thomas. The reason I disliked him so much was not because he is amoral; no, there are characters in books I like who are quite evil. The reason I disliked him is because he did things that were completely pointless and he was also not a very deep or interesting character. This book also dragged ...more

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Jan 28, 2011 ij rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1001, fiction, african-american, 1001-read, undergraduate-assignment

Note:

This book was included in “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.”

I own the 2006 edition of “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.” Peter Boxall is the general editor and the preface was written by Peter Ackroyd. This book has compiled 1001 recommended books, primarily novels which were selected by over 100 contributors (literary critics, professors of literature, etc.). For each recommended book there is information on the author and a short blurb about the book.

I use "1001 Books Yo ...more

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Feb 15, 2017 Clif Hostetler rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

As a reader going through the book, I was aghast at the brutal descriptions of murder and coverup contained within the first two-thirds of the book. I don't normally read this sort to stuff. Nevertheless, I recognize the book as a realistic depiction of the ravaged world of urban African Americans of the 1930s (published 1940) with repercussions remaining today.

The story is told with the highly charged consciousness of an uneducated and embittered black man who has been radically cut off from t As a reader going through the book, I was aghast at the brutal descriptions of murder and coverup contained within the first two-thirds of the book. I don't normally read this sort to stuff. Nevertheless, I recognize the book as a realistic depiction of the ravaged world of urban African Americans of the 1930s (published 1940) with repercussions remaining today.

The story is told with the highly charged consciousness of an uneducated and embittered black man who has been radically cut off from the mainstream of American life. It's a view of the ghetto from the standpoint of one of it victims. Feelings of anger and hate are described with visceral realism. It attacks the old taboo of mentioning the relationships between sex, race, and violence.

Then in the final third of the book the intermingling of the powers and promises of religion, capitalism, racism, and communism is explored with explicit thoroughness. The summary arguments of the defense counsel at the trial near the book's end is long and passionate in which the argument is made that the violent criminal acts of this defendant are products of our unfairly segregated society which predictably has led to anger and resentment. The countering summary arguments by the prosecution are equally passionate maintaining the position of the blind justice in a nation of laws. (view spoiler)

There are two conversations between Bigger Thomas, the book's protagonist, and his defense attorney in which Bigger discovers for the first time a glimpse of what perhaps may be purpose and meaning in life. Ironically, this life changing experience occurs shortly before his life is to be ended by execution.

The first conversation occurs before the trial when the attorney asks Bigger, "Tell me about yourself." The subsequent recounting of his life's dreams and disappointments creates feelings that are new and have not previously been experienced by Bigger.

After the trial is over there is a second conversation between the two in which Bigger strives to revisit these new feelings and insights. There's something about these conversations I find particularly poignant, but it's difficult to explain why.

Could the tragedy of this story have been avoided if these sorts of conversations have occurred earlier? Or is it the message of this book that these conversations cannot take place when needed because of society's structural flaws?

Considering the year that this book was published in 1940, the ideas explored in this book were particularly prophetic in light of the civil rights movement that appeared in the second half of the twentieth century. ...more

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May 21, 2017 LATOYA JOVENA rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The suspense made my heart race even though I knew what was going to happen. I found myself holding my breath and clenching my fist; the description about how Bigger was feeling was so vivid. The subject matter was a lot to swallow but I see why this novel is a classic; the description of racism was enough to change the world.

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Apr 19, 2012 Keertana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-that-linger, classics

Even after thinking about this book for days, I still don’t know what to write. I think we’ve all learned about 1930s/1940s black America, but none of us have truly experienced it. We sympathize with the black people, we cheer on stories of people such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., and we are grateful that our world is not the same way today. Yet, how many of us have truly had to put ourselves in the shoes of those people? How many of us have really known what it’s like to be treated Even after thinking about this book for days, I still don’t know what to write. I think we’ve all learned about 1930s/1940s black America, but none of us have truly experienced it. We sympathize with the black people, we cheer on stories of people such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., and we are grateful that our world is not the same way today. Yet, how many of us have truly had to put ourselves in the shoes of those people? How many of us have really known what it’s like to be treated as if you’re not even human, to be denied your basic rights at freedom, and to be stripped of all your free will? In Native Son, Richard Wright takes you into the mind of one black man, Bigger Thomas. Yet, Bigger stands for something bigger; he represents all of black America. So truly, Wright isn’t just taking you into Bigger’s mind, he’s taking you into the heart of racial crisis.

Bigger has been recognized in life as a troubled boy, one who lashes out. He has been raised in a small apartment that isn’t fit to hold two people, let alone four. His education is scarce and limited, his fear overwhelms him, and he constantly feels as if white people control his every move, his every action, his every thought. Thus, these feelings and instincts have bubbled over to such an extent where he lashes out. He accidently smothers a white woman, chops off her head and throws her body in a furnace to burn. He takes a brick and hits his girlfriend with it, throwing her down an air shaft to freeze to death – all after he has raped her. He blames his actions on a Communist, one of the few people helping him – the same Communist who ultimately finds him a lawyer. Max, the lawyer who sees Bigger as an equal and exposes in a biased courtroom not what Bigger has done, but what America and society has created and will unfortunately continue to create, long after Bigger’s untimely demise.

In the writing of Native Son, Wright walks a fine line. Bigger, despite being the main character of the novel is so hard to feel any sympathy for. Wright has created a character who is black, who is oppressed, who is quite literally a victim of the society in which he lives, yet Bigger acts like a sociopath with animalistic instincts and no regret for the inhumane acts he commits. However, Wright takes this view of Bigger, this interpretation of him, and turns it into something different: understanding. In a world where you can only hope and pray to have skin that is lighter than what you already have, in which you can only stand and dream about flying planes because of your skin color, who wouldn’t lash out and kill? Who wouldn’t seize that first glimpse of power and authority when they find it? Wright describes the ongoing power struggles within this novel, mixed with the rising fear so perfectly, that you cannot help but be in awe of his skill. Although most readers will find Bigger to be a sociopath or cruel and unyielding at first, reading on we can see that he is truly a man being treated just like a caged animal.

In so many ways Native Son is such a difficult book to read. It took me nearly a month to finish it because of the time I took reading each chapter and more importantly, the reflection it caused me to have. I’ve tried and found it impossible to find any situation in our present-day life that is similar to that of Bigger. I’ve never felt the way he does, I’ve never been treated the way he has since I’ve always been seen as a human. I’m not white, so in that aspect I never felt guilt of my skin color while reading this story, because truly, being white means you have it all. However, I did feel an immense amount of sympathy towards Bigger and I still can’t quite wrap my mind around what it must feel like to never have been treated as a human, as an equal to all other people in the world. It breaks my heart.

Wright once said that, "'I must write this novel, not only for others to read, but to free myself of this scene of shame and fear.' In fact, the novel, as time passed, grew upon me to the extent that I became a necessity to write it; the writing of it turned into a way of living for me." In many ways, the reading of this novel too became a necessity. It became something I had to do, I felt obliged to do. I felt as if I owed it to Bigger, to history, and to the suffering black people of the past and present to read and understand Bigger’s story. I cannot recommend this book enough, but just know that once you pick it up, you won’t be able to look at the world the same way again.
...more

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Dec 08, 2015 Thomas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, adult-fiction, read-for-college

A powerful book about a young black man named Bigger Thomas who kills a white woman out of fear for his own life. Richard Wright takes us to Chicago in the 1930s, where Bigger just obtained a new job working as a chauffeur under the wealthy Dalton family. Mary Dalton, the family's luxurious daughter, and Jan, her communist boyfriend, treat Bigger well - a suspicious feat because Bigger has suffered tragedy all his life. That night ends in tragedy when Bigger kills Mary in a claustrophobic space, ...more

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Apr 22, 2014 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Black men, white men, well-intentioned white girls, people who think America is post-racial

Shelves: poc-author, poc-protagonist, american-literature, 1930s, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, race-relations, modern-classic, chicago, anti-heroes

Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of Native Son, is a shiftless, bullying, vulgar young man who begins the book tormenting his poor mother, goes to a billiards club to plan a robbery with his equally ne'er-do-well friends, then he and one of his friends goes to a movie theater to masturbate in the seats.

He ends the book accused of the capital rape and murder of a white girl, whom he did murder (but did not in fact rape), but by his own words to his lawyer, makes clear that raping her was something ...more

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Jun 11, 2020 Vince Will Iam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: african-american-slave-narrative, to-read-in-2020

Infuriatingly brilliant! Outrageously gripping! This is my second book by Wright. His Black Boy was already one of my all-time favourites, but I think it fair to say that this novel at least equals it in scope and suspense.

The writing is flawless and keeps you on edge from the very first page. Few novelists build tension like Richard Wright. Against the backdrop of a crowded, racially-segregated Chicago, it's no wonder terrible things happen sometimes. So when there is one brash young white fema ...more

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Aug 19, 2013 Chrissie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, usa, 2014-read, race, hf, downpour

Are you a White? Do you want to understand how it was for Blacks, particularly those who are poor, in the States, in the 30s and 40s and of course before that too? This book is set in Chicago. You read it to climb into the skin of a Black. It is not pleasant, but it is revealing. Do you dare?

The book description just does not get across the most important aspect of the book: you will be in Bigger's skin, and this is scary. As I noted below, for much of the book you will be sitting on the edge o Are you a White? Do you want to understand how it was for Blacks, particularly those who are poor, in the States, in the 30s and 40s and of course before that too? This book is set in Chicago. You read it to climb into the skin of a Black. It is not pleasant, but it is revealing. Do you dare?

The book description just does not get across the most important aspect of the book: you will be in Bigger's skin, and this is scary. As I noted below, for much of the book you will be sitting on the edge of your seat. You will need to stop, pause, get a breath of air to go on.

I was totally thrilled with the book and its message.... until the end, until the court proceedings. The closing speeches of both the defense lawyer and the state attorney were both long-winded and not believable. The defense lawyer's was too theoretical, not to the point; the author should have been able to do better. The state attorney's speech would have to have been interrupted by the judge! No way could he have said what he said. Nope, here the writing could have been improved. The author was almost lecturing the reader, hammering in his message all too clearly. This book was really amazing, until almost the very end. It is still very good though.

The narration of the audiobook by Peter Francis James was f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c!! Superb. Outstanding. He can imitate Black women singing, newspaper reporters, radio announcements; he did everybody perfectly.

DO read this book!!! Or listen to it.

***********************************

After Book One, so still just at the very beginning:

I have begun. What a book!!! Do you want a book with suspense, one that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat from the start AND one that has/had an important message AND one that is perfectly executed? Every word is simple but perfect. I am scared with every move. I understand that Bigger is dangerous. Dangerous, not with evil intent, but from fear. And the white girl's total incomprehension makes me hate her more than even Bigger could hate her. What happens is NOT Bigger's fault; it is Mary's, the daughter of Bigger's new white employer. See the book description; this is not a spoiler. Did I say this was suspenseful? It is also heartrending. I DO understand that Mary is young and naive. She too has only good intentions.

*******************************

I will reread this too. Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man) and Richard Wright were friends. This time I will listen. Narration by Peter Francis James is available at Audible and Downpour, and it is supposed to be good.

Will I still give this four stars on my second reading? ...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Evan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: _lfpl-library, 2016-reads, __in-my-collection, ebook-special-coll, african-american

Richard Wright's Native Son is the story of a crime, though not so much the story of the crimes of the book's protagonist, Bigger Thomas, the directionless, impoverished amoral black youth eking out an existence in a cold and dark Chicago in the late 1930s. The crime, it goes without saying, is the subjugation of black people and the differing set of disadvantageous rules proscribed for them in the United States.

A book review on this topic could, with great ease, spill over the boundaries of Goo ...more

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May 17, 2013 Leonard rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite, literature-english

From time to time, a voice from the desert would call and awaken us and Native Son was and still is such a voice.

Bigger Thomas in a panic suffocated Mary Dalton and then burned her body to hide the crime and to avoid capture he smashed Bessie Mears with a brick and let her freeze to death. There is no question of the brutality of the crimes. An even Bigger, when in jail, believes he deserves to die for them.

Chicago

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog

But through the story of Bigger From time to time, a voice from the desert would call and awaken us and Native Son was and still is such a voice.

Bigger Thomas in a panic suffocated Mary Dalton and then burned her body to hide the crime and to avoid capture he smashed Bessie Mears with a brick and let her freeze to death. There is no question of the brutality of the crimes. An even Bigger, when in jail, believes he deserves to die for them.

Chicago

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog

But through the story of Bigger Thomas, Richard Wright depicts a people confined to the edge of existence. Their physical segregation, having to live in certain neighborhoods in the city, symbolizes their existential segregation. Mr. Dalton, the building’s owner and Bigger’s employer, donates to help the Black community, but still allows his landlords to only rent units in certain neighborhood to Blacks. Perhaps the social force overwhelms this man’s will to kindness.

To Bigger, white people aren’t flesh and blood but an impersonal force overwhelming him. “To Bigger and his kind white people were not really people; they were a sort of natural force, like a stormy sky looming overhead, or like a deep swirling river stretching suddenly at one's feet in the dark. As long as he and his black folks did not go beyond certain limits, there was no need to fear that white force. But whether they fear it or not, each and every day of their lives they lived with it.”

So when Mary and Jan try to befriend Bigger and treat him better than other whites had, Bigger feels that force upon him. They, perhaps unknowingly, exert their power on him and Bigger resents that, even if the power comes from their kindness and goodness. He doesn’t want to be told what to do; he wants to live. And so he hates Mary and Jan for forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to. He tells his attorney Max, “Mr. Max, a guy gets tired of being told what he can do and can’t do. You get a little job here and a little job there. You shine shoes, sweep streets; anything… You don’t make enough to live on. You don’t know when you going to get fired. Pretty soon you get so you can’t hope for nothing. You just keep moving all the time, doing what other folks say. You ain’t a man no more.”

Richard Wright

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog

“‘I always wanted to do something,’ he mumbled.” Bigger wants to fly a plane but he is Black and he is poor, so he can’t attend aviation school. And he expresses this confinement to his friend Gus as “They don’t let us do nothing.”

While he’s on the run, Bigger realizes that killing the two girls was his only true acts of living in his entire life. He has done something to assert his existence rather than follow the dictates of other. “In all of his life these two murders were the most meaningful things that had ever happened to him. He was living, truly and deeply, no matter what others might think, looking at him with their blind eyes. Never had he had the chance to live out the consequences of his actions; never had his will been so free as in this night and day of fear and murder and flight.” It is Bigger’s tragedy that only through killing the girls could he assert his existence, could he live.

I recommend Native Son for its depiction of a people living in the fringes, the despair and the sense of confinement, the longing to live fully. We need not agree with all of Richard Wright’s arguments to sense that despair and struggle, to appreciate the progress since the book’s publishing, to assess the road ahead. And realize our common humanity.
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Mar 22, 2017 Missy J rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: black-american, usa-related, classics, 2017-books

"Confidence could only come again now through action so violent that it would make him forget. These were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence; periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger - like water ebbing and flowing from the tug of a far-away, invisible force. Being this way was a need of his as deep as eating."

4.5*
Bigger Thomas might be the most difficult character I've come across in fiction. Never have a I felt so ...more

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May 20, 2013 Ted rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-20s, have, afro-american-connections, lit-american, classics, beach-mixed, americana

What with a second Like of a the previous blank review (to say nothing of the pathetically non-puissant comments I've made below regarding the desire to read it again), I have become aware that I must reread this in the coming year. Must. Must. Must!

The only thing to prevent it is my memory of the declaration I've just made. I still have the book after all these years. Shame on me.

Actually I've now done something at home that I think will make it a high-probability read in 2018.

. . . . . . . . ...more

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Nov 26, 2020 ☆Pelumi☆ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: made-me-cry, favorites

I remember reading this book a long time ago(it was recommended by our school)....a lot of people cried after reading this and I wasn't any different
This book is quite controversial and was received with mixed feeling but even reading it again I still feel Bigger's pain and suffering
The setting took place when racism against blacks was far more pronounced and celebrated....it was a horrible moment
I feel like there were some aspects where bigger would have made different choices but even then his ...more

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Jul 05, 2020 Tavan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Richard Wright is a great existential writer and this book has become one of my all time favorites. One which deserves to be ranked along side the works of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. It is probably one of the most insightful and heart rending explorations of the African American experience in literature. One could see why it received widespread condemnation at the time when it was written. It’s a story that frightened white and black Americans alike. Yet such a story needed to be told.

Wright show ...more

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About Richard Wright

Richard Wright

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Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of powerful, sometimes controversial novels, short stories and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerned racial themes. His work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. ...more

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“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” — 736 likes

“Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.” — 153 likes

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