Customer Reviews

Native Son (Abridged)

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This is one of Wright's most important novels. It tells the story of the short life of Bigger Thomas, perhaps as an allegorical prototype of the typical life of a Black Chicagoan, or indeed maybe the archetype for all young black men in America, where the forces of society press upon them to live fast and die young, or live long and end up in prison or be ignored and live a social death on the outer margins of American life.

Bigger seemed to have had no redeeming qualities, and never showed any remorse, for anything he did. He had absolutely nothing going for him but bottomless hatred and bitterness towards whites and an innate ability to observe and size them up. A great deal of his life and thoughts were spent playing a double game: pretending to befriend them at the same time that he was watching their every move and stalking them as if they were prey.

One of Wright's gifts is that he allows the reader to be "ear witness" to Bigger's innermost thoughts. The dialogue is told from the point of view of what is going on in Bigger's head. He is constantly muttering his hatred and distrust of whites, both of which border on the pathological and continue increasing until they reach a crescendo, when an explosion seems imminent even when there were no obvious reasons for one. This passion for hatred and distrust eventually does spill over and comes to an ignominious climax, when Bigger rapes a white girl who has befriended him and as he is about to be caught in a her bedroom, he spares himself the need to explain or be caught red-handed, by killing her.

The story then switches to his trial and the relationship between Bigger and his Socialist lawyer, who himself tries to use the trial to make a point about the injustice in American society, remaining totally unaware that Bigger's hatred for whites also extends to him as well.

Native Son is obviously as much an ideological as a literary work, and while Wright's prose gets heavy-handed at times, and often gets in the way, he does eventually make his points well. All the issues are finally resolved, however cumbersomely done so.

The resonance in the subtext is that: unbridled and mindless hatred and bitterness always leads to ignominious and diminished ends, and to an overall diminishment of humanity. American society in the 1940s, as is still true today, is a constant theater where hatred is always being played out on stage, and not necessarily by the "Bigger Thomases" of our nation. Hatred is still a cottage industry and our nation's most sacred and most religious product.

Five Stars.

This is what I would call the perfect package literature. Profound, and daring message, incredible eloquence, the protagonist that embodies complexities of life, and yet so real and believable, and the fast paced story developement. what a brilliant mind and talent!