Native Son Essay: The Tragedy -- Native Son Essays

Native give-and-take The Tragedy Richard Wrights Native watchword a in truth moving novel. Perhaps this is largely due to Wrights skillful merging of his biography voice with Biggers which allows the reader to feel he is also inside Biggers skin. on that point is no question that Bigger is a tragic figure, even an prototypical one, as he represents the African American experience of oppression in America. Wright states in the introduction, however, that there are Biggers among every oppressed nation end-to-end the instauration, arguing that many of the rapidly changing and uncertain conditions of the modern world, a modern world largely founded on imperialism and exploitation, have created people same Bigger, restless and adrift, searching for a place for themselves in a world that, for them, has lost many of its cultural and spiritual centers. Because Wright chose to deal with the experience he knew best, Native Son is an exploration of how the pressure and racism of t he American cultural environment affects black people, their feelings, thoughts, self-images, in fact, their entire lives, for one learns from Native Son that oppression permeates every aspect of life for both the oppressed and oppressor, though for one it is more overt than the other. Though this paper deals with Biggers character and how the pass scene of the novel reflects an evolution and realization in his character in terms of Arthur Millers definition of tragedy, the issue of mass oppression of one people by another embodies the dimensions of a larger tragedy that is painfully engraft within human history. Many of Native Sons earlier scenes serve Wrights purposes in showing how Americas white rascism affects Biggers behavior, his thinking and... ...rd Wrights Art of Tragedy. Iowa City U of Iowa Press, 1986. Kinnamon, Keneth and Michel Fabre, eds. Conversations with Richard Wright. capital of Mississippi University Press of Mississippi, 1993. Kinnamon, Keneth. The Emerg ence of Richard Wright A Study Literature and Society. Urbana U of Illinois P, 1973. Kinnamon, Keneth, ed. fresh Essays on Native Son. New York Cambridge UP, 1990. Macksey, Richard and Frank E. Moorer, eds. Richard Wright A Collection of unfavorable Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ prentice-Hall, 1984. Margolies, Edward. The Art of Richard Wright. Carbondale Southern Illinois UP, 1969. Miller, Eugene E. Voice of a Native Son The Poetics of Richard Wright. Jackson University Press of Mississippi, 1990. Rampersad, Arnold, ed. Richard Wright A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice Hall, 1995.