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Loading... Native Sonby Richard Wright
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. It is a very hard book to read - at times entirely disheartening - but begs the reader to not only think about the issues presented, but work to change them. Worth all the praise it receives. (  ) ascgrrl | Oct 19, 2009 |  The long, drawn out leccture of Bigger Thomas's attorney in the third section of the novel ("Fate") ruined what up to then had been a cohesive and well-paced novel. Interestingly, when I first read this in 1971 at FAMU in Tallahassee, I remember empathizing with BGigger's hate and fear. However, some 38 years later, all I can feel for him is a faint disgust, probably because I have met ,since I first read the book, quite a few individuals who had it as rough as Bigger and much rougher, actually, who havent killed anyone and who function (although narrowly in some cases) within socierty. (  ) andyray | Aug 18, 2009 | I loved this in high school, but can't remember much now! ( ) ahooper04 | Apr 1, 2009 | The book that was banned by some libraries in 1940s U.S. for its manner of handling the racial questions. The story is quite harsh, and Wright was criticised even by his later followers and companion writers from writing the book with political intentions. Also, it may be that his clear connections with the communist party were found endangering in the times of books publication. (  ) hepsodus | Jan 22, 2009 | This novel successfully forces the reader to question the difference between right and wrong. Immediately, Wright gives the reader the portrait of a person (and his family) in horrible living conditions with no hope for a better life or an attempt at the American Dream. It is not long into the novel that Bigger is quickly confronted with an opportunity at upward mobility and his reaction is, naturally, distrust and rejection at those offers. Although we, as readers, are likely to question (and condemn) Bigger's actions, as the novel unfolds we find that all of these actions are part of a large problem. Wright does a masterful job of stopping short of telling us that Bigger's actions are justified in any way; instead, he focuses on why these things happen and how Bigger has been set up by a social structure that needs serious adjustment. One of the strongest political/social statements comes in the novels final 20-30 pages as Max gives his testimony in defense of Bigger. On top of all of the political and social messages that this novel has to offer, Wright has also created a character who is dealing with questions of his own existence and a strong desire to break out of that existence. ( )1  CardiffGiant | Oct 26, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 006083756X, Paperback)Bigger Thomas is doomed, trapped in a downward spiral that will lead to arrest, prison, or death, driven by despair, frustration, poverty, and incomprehension. As a young black man in the Chicago of the '30s, he has no way out of the walls of poverty and racism that surround him, and after he murders a young white woman in a moment of panic, these walls begin to close in. There is no help for him--not from his hapless family; not from liberal do-gooders or from his well-meaning yet naive friend Jan; certainly not from the police, prosecutors, or judges. Bigger is debased, aggressive, dangerous, and a violent criminal. As such, he has no claim upon our compassion or sympathy. And yet...A more compelling story than Native Son has not been written in the 20th century by an American writer. That is not to say that Richard Wright created a novel free of flaws, but that he wrote the first novel that successfully told the most painful and unvarnished truth about American social and class relations. As Irving Howe asserted in 1963, "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. It made impossible a repetition 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." Other books had focused on the experience of growing up black in America--including Wright's own highly successful Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of five stories that focused on the victimization of blacks who transgressed the code of racial segregation. But they suffered from what he saw as a kind of lyrical idealism, setting up sympathetic black characters in oppressive situations and evoking the reader's pity. In Native Son, Wright was aiming at something more. In Bigger, he created a character so damaged by racism and poverty, with dreams so perverted, and with human sensibilities so eroded, that he has no claim on the reader's compassion: "I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill! I must have felt it awful hard to murder.... What I killed for must've been good!" Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something... I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. It's the truth..."Wright's genius was that, in preventing us from feeling pity for Bigger, he forced us to confront the hopelessness, misery, and injustice of the society that gave birth to him. --Andrew Himes (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:02 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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