Native Son (1940)

My first exposure to Richard Wright, years ago, was an excerpt in a college class from his autobiography Black Boy, and I later followed up to read Black Boy in its entirety, which I thought was incredible. I’ve only just gotten around to Native Son, though, the work he’s probably best-known for. While I’m still digesting it, the novel is undeniably fascinating (premise spoilers.)

Bigger Thomas, a young Black man living in Chicago during the Great Depression, is a combustion waiting to happen. Inside, he roils with the injustices he faces at the hands of white folks, both personal and systemic. When he gets a job working as a driver for a wealthy white family in the city, his sudden proximity to that world ignites a firestorm, and a moment of panic in the dark soon has the entire city swept up in a shocking crime, one the perpetrator can barely articulate why he committed.

Reading the book, you can tell that Wright is in it more for the ideas than the story. Plenty of time is spent, not just telling you what Bigger is thinking, but explaining why he thinks that, all the societal forces that shape him and spur him on toward his fate. It can border on treatise at times, and while it’s a gripping commentary, it’s the sort of writing that comes across much better in nonfiction, and as such, while I loved its use in Black Boy, it feels a little clunkier here. To use a modern-day comparison, you see a number of progressive-leaning TV shows trying to thread this needle – you can tell a great story along the themes of social justice, but depending on how you tell it, the effect can come across as just preachy instead of compelling, even among people who agree with the ideas being espoused.

However, I don’t want to get too down on the book for this aspect. It reminds me of an old post I did comparing The Normal Heart to Rent. I noted how The Normal Heart is much more overt and in-your-face about the ravages of the HIV epidemic, with characters regularly delivering soapbox speeches to the audience, but I also noted that Larry Kramer wrote that play during the height of the crisis at a time when the majority of people weren’t listening or caring. As he watched friends and loved ones die around him, he didn’t feel the luxury of packaging his message nicely. I get some of the same vibe with Wright here. When he wrote the book (and sadly, it’s still true for a lot of people now,) a huge chunk of the American public probably figured they knew exactly what “a Bigger Thomas” was like: good-for-nothing, criminal, dangerous, overpowered by lust for white women. When they saw Bigger Thomases in the newspaper who were arrested, who were convicted, who were jailed or executed, they thought, “Good!”, and they slept more easily at night.

But Wright sets out, not so much to show you who Bigger Thomas is, but why he is the way he is. That’s why he spells it out, why he drives home his points multiple times and explains them thoroughly, because he knows he’s addressing people who have never looked at the bigger picture. They’ve never given a Bigger Thomas the benefit of wondering why he makes the choices he does, what drives him. They see black and white, guilty and innocent, but they don’t see the layers of systemic inequality that mold the world around Bigger until he feels trapped in it. Wright never justifies Bigger’s actions or absolves him of them, but he contextualizes Bigger in that hopes that, just maybe, he’ll get someone to think twice the next time they read about a Bigger Thomas in the paper.

Warnings

Violence, sexual content, language (including racial slurs,) disturbing images, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.