His most famous works are his 1945 memoir Black Boy and 1940 novel Native Son.
Black Boy recalls Wright's youth growing up impoverished in the South. His confusion with life is shown when he kills a cat after his dad suggests someone kill the cat as a joke.
Native Son was written around the time of Wright's flirtation with communism, and it shows. Bigger is a poor black hired as a chauffer for a rich, white family. After his first day on the job, Bigger accidentally kills the family's young, flagrant teenage daughter. Bigger believes (probably correctly) that he will be mistaken as a murder, and so he attempts to evade the police at all costs, leading him down a trail where he does become a real killer, actually perpetrating a brutal murder. Eventually, he is caught and Jan, the young communist who was dating the rich girl, does what he can to help him and provides him with a lawyer. Unfortunately, society has doomed Bigger from the start.
For something by Wright a little further from the mainstream of those two books, his first book, Uncle Tom's Children, is a strong collection of short stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment