Rating: 
Summary: Inspiring Novel
Review: > NATIVE SON > > I am an 8th grader from San Francisco and I selected Native Son, Richard Wright, off of an independent reading list. We are currently interpreting To Kill a Mockingbird, and by reading Native Son, I was trying to compare the points of views expressed in these novels. Native Son took place in Chicago, Illinois. A black man who is constantly tormented with racial poverty, murders his employer's daughter and rapes and kills his girlfriend. He subsequently goes to prison and is convicted of these murders. > Native Son is a compelling novel which successfully describes the racism and hatred during the 1930's and 40's. Unlike, To Kill a Mockingbird which took place in a rural southern town, Native Son shows how racial poverty was a serious issue in Chicago, a major city in the United States. The author, Richard Wright, adds suspense to what is already a complicated plot. Bigger Thomas, although fictional, is an adequate example of a typical black man in the United States during that time. He avenges the racism subjected to him by becoming involved in crime. He murders his employer's daughter and rapes and kills his former girlfriend. Native Son has many similarities to To Kill a Mockingbird. Both novels have plots in which a black man was accused of crime against a white woman. In each of these stories, racism is the key issue. Both stories center around the struggle of racism in the 1930's and how blacks were easier to accuse of crime because of discrimination. However, these stories differ in many ways. The point of view of To Kill a Mockingbird is that of a white woman, telling the story of racism while expressing her feelings of hope for the black man which she cares about. Native Son was written by a black author who expressed his feelings of hopelessness in his world of poverty and racism and he used Bigger Thomas, the main character as a symbol of this hopelessness. Overall, Native Son was a powerful, suspenseful novel, which shows the troubles faced by Black Americans in the 20th century, a book well worth reading. >
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring Novel
Review: > NATIVE SON > > Native Son was written in the 1940's by Richard Wright, a black author. I am an 8th grader from San Francisco and I selected Native Son off of an independent reading list. We are currently interpreting To Kill a Mockingbird, and by reading Native Son, I was trying to compare the points of views expressed in these novels. Native Son took place in Chicago, Illinois. A black man who is constantly tormented with racial poverty, murders his employer's daughter and rapes and kills his girlfriend. He subsequently goes to prison and is convicted of these murders. > Native Son was a compelling novel which successfully exemplified the racism and hatred during the 1930's and 40's. Unlike, To Kill a Mockingbird which took place in a rural southern town, Native Son showed how racial poverty was a major issue in Chicago, a major city in the United States. The author, Richard Wright, adds suspense to what is already a complicated plot. Bigger Thomas, although fictional, is an adequate example of a typical black man in the United States. He avenges the racism subjected to him by becoming involved in crime. He murders his employer's daughter and rapes and kills his former girlfriend. Native Son had many similarities to To Kill a Mockingbird. Both novels had plots in which a black man was accused of crime against a white woman. In each of these stories, racism is the key issue. Both stories center around the struggle of racism in the 1930's and how blacks were easier to accuse of crime because of discrimination. However, these stories differed in many ways. The point of view of To Kill a Mockingbird is that of a white woman, telling the story of racism while expressing her feelings of hope for the black man which she cares about. Native Son was written by a black author who expressed his feelings of hopelessness in his world of poverty and racism and he used Bigger Thomas, the main character as a symbol of this hopelessness. The characters also differ in these two stories. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the black characters are all obedient to the white characters. They don't seek revenge and do not resort to violence. On the contrary, Native Son showed that if someone is subject to racism and poverty on the unforgiving city streets, he will resort to violence as a method for revenge. African-Americans all over the US were faced with anger which translated into crime. Bigger is used by the author as a symbol of black hopelessness living in America in the mid-20th century US. This was well articulated in the novel. Overall, Native Son was a powerful, suspenseful novel, which shows the troubles of Black Americans in the 20th century, a book well worth reading. >
Rating:
Summary: Native hypocrisy
Review: The book I read was called Native Son. The author is Richard Wright. The year the book was published was 1940. This book is available in Valley High School's library. This book would be classified under the historical African American fiction. The story begins with a young man named Bigger Thomas. He is a poor, black boy of 20 years who lives in the Chicago projects in the year 1932. The story starts out when the young man is caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Bigger attempts to evade the authorities that are persecuting him for his devious crime. This novel serves as a model for an aspiring novelist or the everyday writer. Wright's ability to capture the realism described through the experiences that Bigger views within his poverty stricken life is captivating and easily distinguishable from the mundane description of a John Grisham "thriller." This passage portrays realism and feeling within Bigger Thomas's perceptions. "He stretched his arms above his head and yawned; his eyes moistened. The sharp precision of steel and stone dissolved into blurred waves. He blinked and the world grew hard again, mechanical, distinct. A weaving motion in the sky made him turn his eyes upward; he say a slender streak of billowing white blooming against the deep blue. A plane was writing high up in the air." This is only one of many paragraph long excerpts of visual imagery and figurative language. Native Son is so strong and transfixing, that the reader can honestly see Bigger's world through their eyes. Every situation that falls upon Bigger's story is thoroughly analyzed from a psychological point of view. Wright accomplishes this feat through a wonderful description of a certain conflict or situation then analyzes the predicament within the complex analytical personality contained within Bigger. This novel is so deep and psychological that a psychology class could easily study it. Wright's powerful novel is an unsparingly reflection of the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the county and what it means to be black in America. The powerful novel can bring a consciousness of sympathy and anger to all readers of any ethnic background. The reader can honestly empathize and feel the complexity and confusion between Bigger and the white society that dominates and controls his actions and reactions to the events that unfold. The novel is a true realization of the causes of hypocrisy and ignorance breeding hopelessness and desperate measures such as murder in Bigger Thomas's case. Every sentence in this book is in relation to Bigger Thomas. There are no side plots and no other main characters that deviate from the central path of the plot and themes. I have never read a book like this and I don't think I probably ever will. I have never felt such a catharsis, purging of feelings and emotions while reading. The description and syntax create a presentation of ideas and thoughts that the reader cannot help in reacting mentally and emotionally. I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to not only think openly but also feel openly in regards to the experiences of others in any social class or race.
Rating:
Summary: A harrowing masterpiece...
Review: An astounding work!... For all the years of personal pain that went into it, Richard Wright wrote breathlessly, and I read the novel in one big gulp. Bigger's world was familiar and alien, captivated and shocked at the same time. There they were... the unchanging themes of American "civilization:" the hysterical press feasting on the sensationalism of an interracial murder, Mary Dalton's misguided liberalism, and her family's blind charity (substitute midnight basketball for ping-pong tables and you'll get the picture!), and above all... Bigger himself--a towering, lonely figure with complex emotional life we (but non one else in the book!) get to see as close as anyone could hope for. My invitation to the readers: take a front row seat in that courtroom; you won't enjoy it, but, hopefully, you'll come out with a bit more understanding and a lot more humility... I certainly did!
Rating:
Summary: What a shame!
Review: This is a fabulous work by a even more fabulous writer. However, it disturbs me that the same problems that the black man faced in the 1930s, when the book was set and even in 1945 when the book was written, he still faces today. The fact that less money is appropriated to black schools simply astounds me. People think that since public lynchings have been outlawed, that racism does not exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Regardless of all the injustice of the world, this is still an excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Native Son
Review: i want to learn more about bigger thamas
Rating:
Summary: good stuff for the serious reader!
Review: This book has so much more than meets the eye. If you like books like Conrad's Heart of Darkness, then you will really love this one. It actualy has a plot you can follow. Look for black and white symbolism, and red too, foreshadowing, and much more!
Rating:
Summary: A great American novel with a few minor flaws.
Review: Richard Wright's _Native Son_ is an engrossing and rewarding novel. It is not quite on the level of Ralph Ellison's _Invisible Man_, which I consider to be the greatest literary work ever on the subject of the African-American experience, due to some weak characterization of the minor figures in the work (with the exception of Mary Dalton, Jan and Max, there is not a white character in the book with a shred of decency, and most are portrayed as the epitome of evil). With that minor quibble set aside, though, I heartily recommend _Native Son_ to any reader of fiction interested in the plight of the American Negro, or in a masterfully drawn portrait of the criminal psyche and the latent and not-so-latent pressures and circumstances that lead to its development.The Modern Library's Top 100 list rated this book as the 20th-best English-language novel of the century, which I think overrates the book, but only very slightly. It's definitely somewhere in the top 100, and I would rank it behind only _Invisible Man_ and perhaps Baldwin's _Go Tell It on the Mountain_ as the greatest 20th-century work of fiction by an African-American. It is certainly not the "artless manifesto" that Baldwin once proclaimed it to be. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Jarretts Native Son reveiw.
Review: This book native son was a very suspensful book. Yeah that was about it, This book was writen by an author with some obviously serious race issues. I give this book two stars, one because it was well written, and the second because it kept me on the edge of my seat with suspense. Other than that this book was a total disgust to me, and I am half black, I do not recomend this book, Richard Wright is a pig racist, I do not understand why there has to be people like him in this world. I hope nobody takes offence to this articl but its just that I hate it when people choose to read a book, because of the constant race bashing in them. If people continue to read books like this there will never be peace among races, hell we might as well start killing eachother now.
Rating:
Summary: very compelling
Review: this book has stood the test of time for a reason.it was focused on it's subject.Richard Wright showcases his genius thru out this book.it is a real eye-opener.
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