Native Son by Richard Wright
race, class, COMMUNISM
Today I’m reviewing/talking about/telling you to read Richard Wright’s “Native Son”. It was published in 1940, and remains a classic due to its analysis of race and class in America. Over 80 years later, it feels as relevant as ever. I read this in February, but I needed to let it sit in the back of my mind for a while before writing about it.
In Native Son, we follow Bigger Thomas, a young Black man living in poverty in Chicago during the 1930s. The book is separated into three sections:
Fear.
Flight.
Fate.
In the first section (Fear), we follow Bigger through a single day of his life. It starts as he wakes up in the morning, in a tiny rat-infested apartment where he lives with his mother and siblings. Then we move to the streets of the city, where he hangs around with his friends, contemplating stickups and getting into fights (and masturbating in movie theaters).
We see his fears as they transmute to hate…
He hated his family because he knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them. He knew that the moment he allowed himself to feel to its fulness how they lived, the shame and misery of their lives, he would be swept out of himself with fear and despair…He knew that the moment he allowed what his life meant to enter fully into his consciousness, he would either kill himself or someone else.
Next, he heads to a job interview with one of the wealthiest men in Chicago, Mr. Dalton (who owns a real estate company that overcharges Black families for the only apartments they’re allowed to live in, including Bigger’s; but the Daltons are “big supporters” of the NAACP). All seems well, and he gets the chauffer job. He is to move into the room above the garage and start work immediately. This job means he’ll finally be able to help support his family financially, exactly what his mother has been nagging him to do.
You got a chance now. You always said you never had a chance. Now, you got one.
His first night on the job, he is tasked with driving the family’s rebellious daughter, Mary, to the university, but she changes plans and goes somewhere else instead. She’s been hanging around with the communists against her father’s wishes, dating a guy called Jan. Bigger drives them around for the night as they attempt to bridge a connection with him by babbling on about race and class, but he has no interest in their talk. He just wants to do his job.
After all of that, the day ends with an incident that changes the trajectory of Bigger’s life…
Or does it?
His crime seemed natural; he felt that all of his life has been leading to something like this. It was no longer a matter of dumb wonder as to what would happen to him and his black skin; he knew now. The hidden meaning of his life—a meaning which others did not see and which he had always tried to hide—had spilled out.
This book is concerned with the ill-fated plight of the Black man in America. In the first part of the book, Bigger spends a lot of time thinking about how he just has this feeling…
Sometimes I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me…I don’t know. I just feel that way. Every time I get to thinking about me being black and they being white, me being here and they being there, I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me…
He feels it every day, and he’s always on the lookout for what that awful something is, or when it’s going to take control of his life. When you are born an outcast, a criminal in the eyes of the society that bore you—someone to be stepped on, thrown away, or overlooked—it doesn’t really matter what you do.
Sometimes it seems that he loses the connection in his mind, but really he knows it: he knows this something is because he’s Black and they’re White.
And so, on the one day that Bigger seemed to be headed in the right direction, putting distance between himself and the awful something, that something happened, and he became what they already thought he was. He became the criminal. No matter how hard he tried to run from it, his fate was already sealed.
Everything above happens in the first section of the book, so I promise these are not “spoilers”.
There is so much about race and class packed into this book. Bigger knows he’s at a disadvantage because he’s Black, and he knows that “rich people don’t like Communists,” but he has never put the two together. His encounter with Mary and Jan is his first introduction to this intersection, but he has no real interest in what they’re saying. As far as he knows, Communism doesn’t concern him.
Bigger knew the things that white folks hated to hear Negroes ask for; and he knew that these were the things the Reds were always asking for. And he knew that white folks did not like to hear these things asked for even by whites who fought for Negroes.
As an aside, the characterization of Jan and Mary is just perfect for this novel. While their intentions are…well-meaning…within their communistic politics, there is a voyeuristic vibe in their approach to Bigger; especially with Mary. She is the typical rich white girl, who playfully fights with her father about being a “big capitalist,” but still benefits from his wealth and their whiteness. Her venture into communism feels like nothing but a rebellious phase, whereas Jan seems to at least be dedicated to the cause. But the racial divide cannot be removed so easily, simply because they want to “help” Bigger. They chose him as their target because he is, quite simply, the only Black person within their orbit.
For Bigger, there was no connection between race and class, no potential solidarity between poor Black people and Communists, even though these thoughts occasionally entered his mind.
Bigger, don’t you know they hate others, too?…They hate trade unions. They hate folks who try to organize. They hate Jan… They hate me because I’m trying to help you.
Bigger is a character that you can’t root for after a certain point, but you don’t quite want to condemn him either. You’re meant to have complicated feelings that are hard to untangle. This is not about saving someone who is “innocent”; it’s about analyzing and understanding how societal structures shape individual lives.
And this is where the communist lawyer comes in (Max)! The last section of the book requires a bit of slogging (a lot of discussions and monologues to the court), but the race and class analysis is so important to this book. It is the POINT of this book.
If you find yourself struggling with the last section, just take your time with it. It doesn’t flow narratively as well as the first two sections of the book, but this is where all that analysis comes together. You’ll get so much from this book if you slow down to process.
This book may be 80 years old, but it is still relevant today, a true classic.
Bigger, the people who hate you feel just as you feel, only they’re on the other side of the fence. You’re black, but that’s only a part of it. Your being black, as I told you before, makes it easy for them to single you out. Why do they do that? They want the things of life, just as you did, and they’re not particular about how they get them. They hire people and they don’t pay them enough; they take what people own and build up power. They rule and regulate life. They have things arranged so that they can do those things and the people can’t fight back. They do that to black people more than others because they say that black people are inferior. But, Bigger, they say that all people who work are inferior. And the rich people don’t want to change things; they’ll lose too much. But deep down in them they feel like you feel, Bigger, and in order to keep what they’ve got, they make themselves believe that men who work are not quite human. They do like you did, Bigger, when you refused to feel sorry for Mary. But on both sides men want to live; men are fighting for life. Who will win? Well, the side that feels life most, the side with the most humanity and the most men.
Thanks for reading my review/essay/whatever this is about Native Son. I hope you’ll read the book if you haven’t yet. You can buy a copy from Bookshop.org here, or get it from a local bookstore or the library!
Keep an eye out for more book reviews and essays in the future. In the mean time, follow me on Instagram for regular updates and all the other things I’m reading.