A Struggle For Self-realization

Richard Wright is a great African-American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Though Richard Wright was not the first African—American to publish in the United States, he was the first to attain broad popular and critical attention. The first of his works to win him this success was his novel of1940, Native Son. The publication of Richard Wright’s Native Son, in1940, created praise, disgust, awe, fascination, anger and caution in the United States, for it allowed the American literary and reading public to overtly know, perhaps for the first time, the anger, shame, frustration, bitterness, and potential violence lodged in the African American psyche. Irving Howe argues "the day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever"This thesis explores the distinctive manifestations of existential thoughts in the fiction of Richard Wright’s Native Son. It applies existentialist thoughts to analyze the cultural and psychological views of Native Son so as to reveal the causes of Bigger’s tragedy through his desire of achieving self-identity as an existential human being.This thesis consists of five parts. In Introduction, it gives a brief introduction of Richard Wright’s life experience and his novel Native Son, as well as a detailed account of the essentials of existentialism and those reflected in Richard Wright’s fiction.The first chapter of the thesis analyzes the absurdity—the basic aspect of Existentialism—in the novel Native Son. It contains the Absurdity of the world and the Hostile environment.The second chapter narrates Bigger Thomas’s Choice and Emancipation reflected in Native Son. Choice is also an important aspect of Existentialism. Through violence—Bigger’s choice of no choice, he finds himself and achieves self-realization.The third chapter analyzes Bigger’s acceptance of his responsibility based on his choice. Bigger Thomas feels no regret of his murder, and accepts his trial. In the end, he reveals his inner epiphany through the discussion with Max.The forth chapter is the conclusion. Throughout the whole novel, Bigger Thomas is seeking for the way of achieving self-identity as a human being, even as a murderer. He is not born a violent criminal. He is a "native son":a product of American culture and the violence and racism that he suffers.