Monday, January 20, 2020
Native Son Essay: Analysis of Setting, Major, and Minor Themes
Analysis of Setting, Major, and Minor Themes of Native Son                        The major themes of Native Son are environment, racism,  black rage, religion, Communism, determinism and freedom.  A minor theme is the relationship between men and women.    One of the major themes of Native Son is the effect of environment on behavior and personality. Thus, setting is           especially important in the novel. The story takes place in Chicago in     the late 1930s, when the United States had still not recovered from        the Great Depression. Jobs are scarce, and Bigger and his pool-hall        friends are among the many unemployed. Richard Wright was influenced       by the literary school of naturalism, whose adherents tried to observe     and record their world, and especially its more unpleasant parts, with     scientific accuracy. Wright knew Depression-era Chicago well and           drew heavily on his first-hand knowledge. In many respects, the            Chicago of Native Son is an accurate representation even in its            details. For example, Ernie's Kitchen Shack at Forty-seventh Street        and Indiana Avenue was modeled on a real restaurant called The Chicken     Shack, located at 4647 Indiana Avenue and owned by a man named Ernie.        Two aspects of Bigger's environment influence him especially             strongly- his confinement to Chicago's black South Side ghetto and his     glimpses of the dazzling white world, of which he feels he can never       be part. Bigger's family shares a rat-infested room, but, when he sees     an airplane flying overhead or views the glamorous life portrayed in a... ...eds. Conversations with Richard Wright. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993. Kinnamon, Keneth. The Emergence of Richard Wright: A Study Literature and Society. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1973. Kinnamon, Keneth, ed. New Essays on Native Son. New York: Cambridge UP, 1990. Macksey, Richard and Frank E. Moorer, eds. Richard Wright: A Collection of Critical 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.                                                                                                    Â
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