Noah Arbesfeld Professor Hobson EL6530: Multicultural Literature Oral Research Report March 6, 2024 Contrasting Wright and Baldwin through Damage and Culture Richard Wright and James Baldwin, both of whom are considered to be accomplished authors and civil rights icons, offer starkly different perspectives on the African American protest novel. Specifically, Wright’s landmark novel, Native Son, received wide recognition and critical acclaim, primarily due to his portrayal of the character Bigger Thomas as the product of systemic and generational damage that he views as stripping the African American community of the decency that allows for humanity to prosper. Furthermore, Wright’s novel focuses on Bigger’s loss of humanity as a direct result …show more content…
The lingering question Baldwin asks at the end of his statement is a direct criticism of Native Son and Wright’s reliance on imagery to unearth a subconscious guilt of the oppressor in an attempt to create a national discussion that would result in actionable change. It’s in this goal that Baldwin finds his issue with Wright, as he believes Bigger was never meant to be an authentic figure of the Black experience in America, but rather a personification of social issues and the persistence of anti-Black racism. Baldwin concludes this essay by directly criticizing Native Son, expressing his viewpoint that Bigger suffers as a character due to his self-denial of humanity, an active decision separate from the wider social denial of his humanity. Baldwin is less focused on the conditions that created Bigger, but on the character himself, explaining that: For Bigger’s tragedy is not that he is cold or black or hungry, not even that he is American, black; but that he has accepted a theology that denies him life, that he admits the possibility of his being sub-human and feels constrained, therefore, to battle for his humanity according to those brutal criteria bequeathed him at his