Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) is one of the most violent and revolutionary works in the American canon. Controversial and compelling, its account of crime and racism remain the source of profound disagreement both within African-American culture and throughout the world.
This guide to Wright's provocative novel offers:
- an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of Native Son
- a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
- a selection of reprinted critical essays on Native Son, by James Baldwin, Hazel Rowley, Antony Dawahare, Claire Eby and James Smethurst, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key critical approaches identified in the survey section
- a chronology to help place the novel in its historical context
- suggestions for further reading.
Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of Native Son and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Wright's text.
Introduction Part 1: Texts and Contexts Richard Wright: A Brief Biography. The Voices of Native Son. The Dostoevskian Voice. The Transplantation of the Blues. Bigger’s Vernacular Voice. Social Determinism: An Anti-American Accent? Bigger: Silenced by Whiteness? Chronology Part 2: Critical History First Responses: James Baldwin. First Responses: Ralph Ellison and Irving Howe. Feminist Readings. The Black Atlantic and Beyond Part 3: Critical Readings Many Thousands Gone James Baldwin (1951) The Shadow of the White Woman: Richard Wright and the Book-of-the-Month Club Hazel Rowley(1999) From No Man's Land to Mother-Land: Emasculation and Nationalism in Richard Wright's Depression Era Urban Novels Anthony Dawahare (1999) Slouching toward Beastliness: Richard Wright's Anatomy of Thomas Dixon Clare Eby (2001) Invented by Horror: The Gothic and African American Literary Ideology in Native Son James Smethurst (2001) Part 4: Web Resources and Further Reading
Biography
Andrew Warnes is a lecturer in American literature at the University of Leeds. He has published on the novels of Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison.
'What emerges clearly... is the extent to which the Routledge guides demonstrate the value of historicised readings, without burdening the first-time reader with too great an emphasis on the material reality with which the featured authors engage.' - Rod Mengham, The Times Higher Educational Supplement
