Native Son Research Paper

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“Native of Hell: The Conditions in Richard Wright’s Native Son” Native Son by Richard Wright was written in 1940, a time where African Americans were for the most part disenfranchised and economically suffocated. There had been no civil rights law passed since Reconstruction, and because of this African Americans endured some truly appalling conditions. Richard Wright knew this, because he lived it. He grew up in the American South, a hotbed of racism and intolerance. Because of what he had to endure, he wrote a book that is a powerful examination of the grossly unequal conditions in a country “with liberty and justice for all”. Unfortunately, Wright died in 1960, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, so he was unable to see the freedom that had been promised to his people for decades finally arrive. The novel Native Son explains the terrible conditions that African Americans were subjected to through Max’s testimony at Bigger’s trial, Bigger’s words and actions, and the way that Bigger is treated by the white …show more content…

In the beginning, Bigger spoke of how “I was with some boys and the police picked us up”, speaking of how he and some of his friends were arrested for a crime that they did not commit. (Wright 41) Later, Bigger was again falsely accused of a crime. This time the charge was rape on three separate occasions. The police refused to accept the possibility that Bigger was not some sort of serial rapist or criminal with numerous crimes, because he was black, he must have been a criminal. (260) There was a mob with burning crosses outside of the jail. The burning cross has historically been a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan, which terrified Bigger, with good reason. (272) He was afraid of the “individual white brutality” that was so characteristic of the time period. (Wideman

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