Native Son by Richard Wright

Published 1940 · 406 pages · 159,113 words · about 12 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Naturalism

How hard is Native Son to read?

Native Son scores 58 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 52 out of 100
Richard Wright employs a direct and accessible vocabulary, using strong, descriptive words to convey Bigger's raw experiences and emotions without resorting to archaic terms or specialized jargon. While incorporating some colloquialisms like "yessuh" and "ain't" for authenticity, the language remains generally within common usage for an adult reader, making it more straightforward than works like Moby-Dick but more evocative than typical contemporary fiction.
Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
The prose in Native Son is characterized by generally moderate sentence lengths and a direct, often declarative style that propels the narrative forward. While some sentences extend to capture Bigger's internal monologues, they largely avoid deep subordination or convoluted clauses, presenting a more accessible structure than the intricate hypotaxis of The Golden Bowl or even The Great Gatsby.
Abstraction: 40 out of 100
The narrative of Native Son is intensely concrete, focusing on Bigger Thomas's immediate actions, sensory experiences, and raw emotional responses to his environment. While profound themes of racial injustice and existential dread underpin the story, they are consistently presented through Bigger's limited, visceral perspective rather than through explicit philosophical or theoretical exposition, placing it closer to grounded social observation than pure abstraction like The Waste Land.
Information density: 60 out of 100
Information density in Native Son stems primarily from the relentless psychological intensity and rapid succession of Bigger's internal conflicts and external events. The text demands sustained attention to his evolving emotional state and moral dilemmas, creating a demanding read focused on subjective experience rather than a broad array of historical details or multiple complex plotlines found in works like War and Peace.
Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
The narrative provides direct access to Bigger's internal thoughts, fears, and motivations, explicitly stating his plans and rationalizations after the murder. However, readers must infer the deeper societal forces shaping Bigger's actions and his often-limited understanding of the white world, particularly the Daltons' complex and often contradictory motivations. This requires more inference than direct exposition like in '1984' (35), but less than the fragmented memories of 'Beloved' (50).
Symbolic density: 82 out of 100
The excerpt is rich with potent symbols that carry significant meaning beyond their literal presence. The rat Bigger kills symbolizes his trapped existence and violent impulses, while the soaring plane represents unattainable freedom and white privilege. Mrs. Dalton's blindness serves as a pervasive allegory for the white community's willful ignorance of Black suffering, and the furnace becomes a crucible for Bigger's desperate acts and a symbol of erasure. This density is higher than 'The Great Gatsby' (75) but not as all-encompassing as 'Moby-Dick' (90).
Ironic distance: 70 out of 100
Wright maintains a notable ironic distance, particularly in portraying the Daltons' well-meaning but ultimately condescending and ineffective liberalism, which Bigger perceives with a mix of confusion and resentment. While the narrative largely aligns with Bigger's internal experience, the reader understands the tragic irony of his newfound 'freedom' and 'power' after the murder, recognizing it as a desperate, self-destructive response to systemic oppression. This is comparable to 'The Great Gatsby' (70) where sympathy and critique operate simultaneously.
Resolution withholding: 72 out of 100
The excerpt concludes with Bigger having successfully, for the moment, covered up Mary's murder and framed Jan, feeling a temporary surge of power and control. However, the narrative clearly foreshadows impending discovery and dire consequences through Bigger's own anxieties and a vivid, nightmarish dream of his own decapitation. This leaves the ultimate resolution of his fate and the broader implications of his actions profoundly open and uncertain, more so than 'The Great Gatsby' (60) but less than 'The Crying of Lot 49' (75).
Structural complexity: 38 out of 100
The narrative unfolds in a largely linear and chronological fashion, primarily adhering to Bigger's third-person limited perspective without significant shifts in point of view or fragmented timelines. While Bigger's internal monologues offer psychological depth, the overall structure remains straightforward. A brief, impactful dream sequence momentarily breaks the realism but does not fundamentally disrupt the temporal flow, making it less complex than 'The Great Gatsby' (55) but more than 'Beach Read' (28).

How Native Son is regarded

Native Son holds a literary regard score of 82 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where Native Son sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (284 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Native Son scores 75 out of 100. A second mythos, tragedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.25. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic (shading Ironic)
He hated his family because he knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them.
Symbol: Formal (Mythical secondary)
Like an enraged beast, the furnace throbbed with heat, suffusing a red glare over everything.
Mythos: Irony 4 (Tragic Pathos) (irony iv)
I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em
Genre: Novel + Anatomy
Obsessed with guilt, we have sought to thrust a corpse from before our eyes.

Where the story of Native Son takes place

  • Chicago Black Belt and Hyde Park, winter 1938-1939 (1938 to 1939), the main setting

6 things that are true of Native Son, with the passage for each

  1. Wright says the first draft was written in four months and ran to 576 pages.

    The first draft of the novel was written in four months, straight through, and ran to some 576 pages.

  2. Mr. Dalton offers Bigger $25 a week, $5 more than the job pays.

    The pay calls for $20 a week, but I'm going to give you $25.

  3. The Thomas family pays eight dollars a week for a single room.

    Eight dollars a week.

  4. Bigger cuts off Mary Dalton's head with a hatchet in the Dalton basement.

    The head rolled off.

  5. The ransom note Bigger writes demands ten thousand dollars in a shoe box.

    Get ten thousand in 5 and 10 bills and put it in a shoe box

  6. The judge sets Bigger's execution date as the third of March.

    shall die on or before midnight of Friday, March third

Scenes in Native Son that Frye would name

34 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Sparagmos, untitled
The head rolled off. The dismemberment and burning of Mary's body is the book's central tearing-apart.
Pathos, untitled
Then suddenly her fingernails did not bite into his wrists. Mary's death is the book's central pathos, enacted under Mrs. Dalton's blind gaze.
Pathos, untitled
Then he took a deep breath and his hand gripped the brick and shot upward The killing of the sleeping Bessie is a second sacrificial death, performed deliberately.
Hamartia, untitled
Frantically, he caught a corner of the pillow and brought it to her lips. The panicked silencing of Mary is the fatal misstep from which the plot follows.
Anagnorisis, untitled
She was dead and he had killed her. Bigger's first recognition of what he has done pivots the story from accident into flight.
Demonic imagery, untitled
Like an enraged beast, the furnace throbbed with heat, suffusing a red glare over everything. The furnace is a recurring demonic image that burns, hides and later betrays.

Books that share these scenes with Native Son

About the author

Richard Wright