The Real Richard Wright:
Born on a plantation just outside Natchez, Mississippi in 1908, Richard Wright’s poverty-stricken and racial-tension childhood, set the tone for the rest of his life. Armed with only a partial high-school education, Wright took on the world, doing odd job after odd job, which included working for the Negro Burial Society. Perhaps second to only James Baldwin, Richard Wright has been the most inspirational African American writer to emerge from the post Harlem Renaissance.
Native Son is what made Richard Wright famous. As Ira Wells (2010) states, “Many of Wright’s contemporaries were plainly shocked by Native Son (1940)…and offended by the suggestion that American society was to blame for the pathological nihilism bodied forth in Bigger Thomas” (874). According to Spartacus.com, “Marxists also criticised the book for placing too much emphasis on individual rebellion, and not enough on class consciousness and group action” (10). Unlike many African American writers at the time, Wright suppressed neither his philosophies nor his emotions, which made him (and even to this day) an erratic writer, prone to fits of radical but sensible ideologies that Black America nor White America could comprehend. As writer Anthony Dawahare (1999) says, “Remarkably, Wright's literary treatment of nationalism remains avant-garde since he reveals what many contemporary theorists have yet to disclose: a complex insight into the deep psychology of nationalism” (4).
Though he had his differences among his contemporaries like Zora Neale Hurston, whom he said, “[Could] write, but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality” (Hurston Homepage), and James Baldwin whose disagreement with Wright on what literature was and what it was not, which resulted in a dissolved friendship, Wright continues to influence a new generation.
Here is an excerpt (some of which was read by Douran) from the Native Son's (1940) first chapter:
"Goddamn!" Bigger whispered fiercely, whirling and kicking out his leg with all the strength of his body. The force of his movement shook the rat loose and it sailed through the air and struck a wall. Instantly, it rolled over and leaped again. Bigger dodged and the rat landed against a table leg. With clenched teeth, Bigger held the skillet; he was afraid to hurl it, fearing that he might miss. The rat squeaked and turned and ran in a narrow circle, looking for a place to hide; it leaped again past Bigger and scurried on dry rasping feet to one side of the box and then to the other, searching for the hole. Then it turned and reared upon its hind legs.(41)
Why Does This Excerpt Define Richard Wright?
The Native Son (1940) is what created the Richard Wright that people read in history books. Not only that, Native Son propelled Wright to produce more work. Looking closely at the passage one can assume that the rat is society in which Wright is desperately trying to change. Interestingly enough, one can also view it as Wright being the rat, misunderstood, yet willing to fight for his right to live, to survive. Though Wright abandoned his communist beliefs, he clung tightly to Marxism and existentialism all the way to the grave. Regardless of whether or not the aforementioned is his best art, it certainly moved a nation and forever changed how African Americans approach racial issues in literature.
Wright's Bibliographic Timeline, Themes, and Oeuvre:
Timeline:
1908: Richard Wright is born September 4 in Roxie on a plantation outside of Natchez
Mississippi.
1913: Because of poverty, the Wright’s (Richard, Ella [mother], Nathan[father], and
Alan[brother]) move to Memphis, Tennessee.
1914: Richard’s father leaves family for a lover.
1915: Enrolls in Howe Institute.
1916: Ella becomes ill. Family moves to Elain, Arkansas to live with Ella’s sister(Maggie) and
her sister’s husband(Silas).
1917: For having a successful business, Silas is killed by White racists. Aunt Maggie and the rest
of the Wright family flee to West Helena.
1922: Richard makes enough money to buy food, books, and other things to live a bit better.
1933: Joining the Chicago John Reed Club inspires Wright to produce radical poetry for Left Front. The Communist Party hires Wright to oversee a youth club dedicated to preventing African-American juvenile delinquency on the South Side.
1934: Wright joins the Communist Party.
1935: His first novel, Lawd Today!, does not sell.
1937: Wright moves to New York to write for the Daily Worker. He still works on the Writer's
Project. He wins first prize in Story magazine sponsored contest, for his short story, "Fire and Cloud."
1938: Wright’s short story collection, Uncle Tom's Children, receives favorable reviews. An
event that revolves around an 18–year-old African American male accused of murdering a Caucasian woman inspires Wright’s Native Son.
1939: Wright and Dhima Rose Meadman (a white ballet dancer) marry.
1940: Native Son does well, outselling John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
1941: After divorcing Meadman, Wright marries Ellen Poplar, a white Communist organizer.
The Native Son is turned into a Broadway play.
1942: Wright’s wife gives birth to Julia. Feeling that the Communist Party is restricting his
writing, Wright leaves it.
1945: Black Boy is a best-seller. Mississippi senator, Theodore Bilbo calls it obscene. Wright
helps James Baldwin obtain a fellowship.
1946: The French government invite Wright to speak about his work.
1947: Wright and his family become expatriates in Paris.
1950: Wright writes and acts in the film version of the Native Son.
1953: The Outsider receives mixed reviews. Wright ventures through Africa's Gold Coast.
1955: Wright travels throughout Spain then attends the Bandung Conference in Indonesia.
1956: The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference is published.
1960: On November 28, Wright dies of a heart attack in Paris.
Common Thematic Topics Addressed in Wright's Work:
-Communism: "Native Son" (1940)
-Marxism: "Uncle Tom's Children" (1938)
-Existentialism: "The Outsider" (1953)
-Black Nationalism: "12 Million Black Voices" (1941)
-Socialism: "Haiku: This Other World" (1998)
-Racism & Poverty: "Black Boy" (1945)
Drama:
Native Son (The Biography of a Young American): A Play in Ten Scenes, with Paul Green. New York: Harper, 1941.
Fiction:
Uncle Tom’s Children: Four Novellas. New York: Harper, 1938.
Uncle Tom’s Children: Five Long Stories. New York: Harper, 1938.
Bright and Morning Star (story). New York: International Publishers, 1938.
Native Son. New York: Harper, 1940.
The Outsider. New York: Harper, 1953.
Savage Holiday. New York: Avon, 1954.
The Long Dream. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1958.
Eight Men (stories). Cleveland and New York: World, 1961.
Lawd Today. New York: Walker, 1963.
Nonfiction:
How “Bigger” Was Born; the Story of Native Son. New York: Harper, 1940.
12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States. New York: Viking, 1941.
Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth. New York: Harper, 1945.
Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos. New York: Harper, 1954.
The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference. Cleveland and New York: World, 1956.
Pagan Spain. New York: Harper, 1957.
White Man, Listen! Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957.
Letters to Joe C. Brown. Edited by Thomas Knipp. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Libraries, 1968.
American Hunger. (Continuation of Black Boy.) New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Poetry:
Haiku: This Other World. Eds. Yoshinobu Hakatuni and Robert L. Tener. Arcade, 1998.
Bibliography
Dawahare, Anthony. From No Man's Land to Mother-land: Emasculation and Nationalism in
Richard Wright's Depression Era Urban Novels - Critical Essay. African American
Review. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_3_33/ai_58056040/
Gaster, Snally. A Wright Native Son. Retrieved from
http://www.nsm.buffalo.edu/~sww/wright/wright_bio.html
Hurston Homepage. [from "Between Laughter and Tears," the review Richard Wright wrote
of Their Eyes Were Watching God for New Masses, 5 October 1937:]. Retrieved from
http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/znhhp.html
Moskowitz, Milton. The Enduring Importance of Richard Wright. Retrieved from
http://www.jbhe.com/features/59_richardwright.html
PencenterUSA. (2008). Gary Douran Reads from Native Son. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSHzcv5FoHU
Rayson, Ann. Richard Wright’s Life. Retrieved from
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/wright_life.htm
Royal Books. Photograph of Richard Wright, inscribed in Paris in 1948.
http://www.royalbooks.com/pages/books/123571/richard-wright/photograph-of-richard-wright-inscribed-in-paris-in-1948
Spartacus Educational. Richard Wright. Retrieved from
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAwrightR.htm
The Mississippi Writers Page. Retrieved from http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/wright_richard/
Quarterly 62.4 (2010): 873,895,1015. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 7 Jan. 2012.
Wright, Richard. Native Son. Retrieved http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/native-son-richard-
wright/1100554472
