Native Son: Analysis of Setting
"Native Son: Analysis of Setting" delves into the significance of the physical and social landscapes in Richard Wright's novel "Native Son." Set primarily in Chicago, particularly in the South Side, the novel reflects the oppressive environment faced by its protagonist, Bigger Thomas, a young Black man. The city is portrayed as a confining space, characterized by brick walls and narrow streets that symbolize the limited opportunities available to Black individuals in a racially divided society. Key locations, such as Bigger's cramped family home and Mary Dalton's house, illustrate the barriers and tensions that define his existence.
Wright uses these settings to explore themes of dehumanization and entrapment, as Bigger navigates his world filled with fear and violence. His interactions within these spaces—ranging from the violence against a rat to the tragic events involving Mary Dalton and Bessie—highlight his internal struggles and societal pressures. The imagery of the South Side, with its decaying buildings and pervasive darkness, serves as a reflection of Bigger’s chaotic mental state. Ultimately, the prison setting at the end of the narrative represents a space for potential transformation, where Bigger confronts the consequences of his actions and begins to understand his humanity amidst the turmoil of his life.
Native Son: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1940
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: 1930’s
Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Places Discussed
*Chicago
*Chicago. Illinois’s largest city and the industrial center of the Midwest. Richard Wright’s family was one of thousands of southern black families that migrated to Chicago between 1916 and 1920 and eventually settled in the South Side ghetto, where Wright grew up. His protagonist, Bigger Thomas, has the same Chicago background. Wright’s novel depicts the city as a virtual prison of brick and concrete walls and narrow streets that shut out the light in his corner of the world. The physical limits of Bigger’s world reflect the limited opportunities for black men in the white-controlled world. Bigger feels constricted by his limited space, as though he is on “the outside of the world peeping through a knot-hole in the fence.”
Three major scenes of violence show Bigger’s progressive dehumanization: his killing of a huge rat, his attack on Gus in a poolroom, and his accidental killing of Mary Dalton in her bedroom. Denied space and privacy by being forced to live in one room, Bigger’s entire family is dehumanized. There, the young Bigger corners and kills the huge rat that terrorizes the family. The room is a death trap for both Bigger and the rat, with whom he identifies. He admires the rat’s strength and defiance even as he beats it to death.
After Bigger kills Mary, his view of the city mirrors his inner chaos. Avoiding the police, he heads for his mistress, Bessie’s, place along streets that are but “paths through a dense jungle” of black, empty buildings with “black windows like blind eyes”—a surrealistic landscape over which street lamps cast a ghostly sheen. In Bigger’s eyes, the city is filled with rotting, tumble-down buildings that symbolize his own disintegration into guilt and fear. After involving Bessie in a plot to extort money from the Daltons, he and Bessie drive through a howling blizzard that symbolizes Bigger’s inner tumult. When he realizes that Bessie’s knowledge could send him to prison, he rapes and kills her. Now on the run, he experiences the city as a labyrinth in which the police are closing all means of exit. When the police find him in the ghetto, he is on a water tower on a rooftop, paralyzed by the cold jets of water that the police use to immobilize him.
Chicago’s South Side
Chicago’s South Side. Even when the family moves from its one-room apartment to the larger world of Chicago’s South Side, Bigger still feels trapped in his environment. As he struggles to fit in with his black cohorts, he finds himself trapped by fear again. He is afraid to join his street gang in robbing the white-owned grocery but is also afraid to confess his fears to his companions. To cover his fear, he fights with Gus in a poolroom and terrifies him with a knife.
Dalton home
Dalton home. Mary Dalton’s family home, located at 4605 Drexel Boulevard. Her home symbolizes the white man’s world that Bigger covets and fears. Her house is surrounded by a black iron picket fence that both constricts and excludes Bigger after he becomes the Daltons’ family chauffeur. When he drives Mary and a friend to Ernie’s Chicken Shack, he is invited to join them. Inebriated by heavy drinking at Ernie’s, Bigger loses his grip on reality. As he drives the girls back home through Washington Park, he becomes increasingly excited and follows Mary through the “dark and silent” house to her bedroom. When Mrs. Dalton enters the room as Bigger is about to make love to Mary, he accidentally smothers Mary while trying to keep her silent. Faced with his fear that he has killed Mary, Bigger loses his grip on reality. He sees the house as haunted, the room filled with hazy blue light, and the whole scene dissolving into a “vast city” of angry whites seeking vengeance.
Prison
Prison. Place where Bigger awaits execution after being convicted of his crimes. The prison becomes his place of transformation. Only when he faces the truth that he has built his own traps by his violent acts can he discover his innate sense of humanity and displace his killer instinct with acts of friendship and concern for others.
Bibliography
Emanuel, James. “Fever and Feeling: Notes on the Imagery in Native Son.” Negro Digest 18, no. 2 (December, 1968): 16-24. Identifies and examines clusters of images and symbols present in the novel. Concludes that Wright uses this sprawling network of images to deepen the reader’s understanding of Bigger and Bigger’s feelings about himself and his environment.
Felgar, Robert. “The Kingdom of the Beast: The Landscape of Native Son.” CLA Journal 17 (March, 1974): 333-337. Enlightening, important discussion of the novel’s depiction of society as a jungle. Convincingly contends that animal imagery pervades the novel and posits that the book’s many beast images objectify white society’s stereotypical conception of the African American world.
Kinnamon, Keneth, ed. New Essays on “Native Son.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Presents a thorough examination of the genesis and background of Native Son. Kinnamon analyzes Wright’s own essay “How ‘Bigger’ Was Born” along with letters, notes, manuscripts, and galley and page proofs to show how external forces influenced the writing of the novel.
Magistrale, Tony. “From St. Petersburg to Chicago: Wright’s Crime and Punishment.” Comparative Literature Studies 23, no. 1 (Spring, 1986): 59-70. Argues that, in composing Native Son, Wright was greatly influenced by Fyodor Dostoevski’s novel Crime and Punishment (1966). Pinpoints and analyzes in detail a number of significant similarities between the two novels. Convincing and informative in its treatment of the novel’s debt to the Dostoevski classic.
Nagel, James. “Images of Vision in Native Son.” University Review 35 (December, 1969): 109-115. Perceptive, highly instructive analysis of Wright’s use of sight and blindness in the novel. Argues that blindness is the novel’s controlling image and that it functions throughout the book as a metaphor for white America’s racial myopia. Remains, even after its initial publication in 1969, one of the most insightful articles ever written on the novel.
Siegel, Paul N. “The Conclusion of Richard Wright’s Native Son.” PMLA 89, no. 3 (May, 1974): 517-523. Detailed, illuminating interpretation of book 3 of the novel. Sets out to refute the frequently advanced criticism that book 3 is the novel’s weakest section. Maintains that the lengthy trial that concludes the novel, far from being repetitious and anticlimactic as many critics have claimed, is an integral part of the book’s artistry and message.
Skerrett, Joseph T., Jr. “Composing Bigger: Wright and the Making of Native Son.” In Modern Critical Interpretations: Richard Wright’s “Native Son,” edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Offers an illuminating analysis of the biographical aspects of Native Son. Skerrett argues convincingly that Richard Wright and Bigger Thomas share many attributes.
Williams, John A. The Most Native of Sons: A Biography of Richard Wright. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970. Provides a solid biography for the general reader. Williams places Wright in his historical context both at home and abroad, giving a sense of the man and his times.
Wright, Richard. Early Novels: Lawd Today! Uncle Tom’s Children, Native Son. Vol. 2 in Works. Edited by Arnold Rampersad. New York: Library of America, 1991. Reinstates significant cuts that were made in Lawd Today! and Native Son. The volume, however, also deserves attention for its detailed chronology, which reads like an excellent biography.
Wright, Richard. “How ‘Bigger’ Was Born.” In Native Son, by Richard Wright. Reprint. New York: Perennial Library, 1987. Details the genesis of Native Son. The author describes five Bigger Thomases, dating back to his childhood. Wright is his own best critic.