Dennis D. Muhumuza
14 November 2009
column
The American culture is arguably the most profound on the globe because of its diversity. The intensity of this culture is ironically rooted in the history of slavery and subjugation of African-Americans until they were forced to fight back using all means necessary.
For Richard Wright (1908-1960), it was with the pen that he voiced his distaste toward racial prejudice and its devastating effects on young African-Americans. Nowhere in all his fiction and non-fiction does the restlessness of oppressed blacks come out more strongly than in his famous novel Native Son (1940).
Set in the America of 1930s with racial discrimination at its peak, Native Son is about a black boy who unintentionally murders a white lady and in desperation to cover his tracks does things that make the heart stop. The very image of Bigger Thomas chopping off Mary Dalton's head and burning it in a furnace in the home of his wealthy white employers will never be extinguished from my mind. It reminds me of Albert Camus', The Outsider in which the protagonist, Meursault, impulsively pulls the trigger on a man on the beach killing him instantly. And the ability to implant in the mind of a reader an unforgettable image or series of actions that drive the plot, is to me the very essence of great writing. And Wright seems to do it effortlessly in this existentialist novel especially in his exploration of the psychological forces that drive Thomas to act the way he does. The strangeness of it is that Thomas finds meaning and fulfilment in his actions.
In fact, he seems over the moon in the knowledge that his white employers can hardly suspect that their timid and ignorant black chauffeur is capable of such diabolical deed, until they get a rude awakening.
Such is the force with which Wright writes that his depiction of the suffering of blacks; "the frequent lynchings and floggings of Negroes" -generally the overexploitation, and the disillusionment, the fears and the struggles they have to contend with everyday, had me clenching my fists and gnashing my teeth in fury along with them.
Although Native Son is a masterpiece of protest literature that played its part in stirring the black race in America to stand up and fight for their rights, its author has been criticised for personifying blacks as unparalleled brutes through Thomas's character. But literary critic, Irving Howe comes to the defence of Wright by observing in his 1963 essay: "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever...it [the book] made impossible a repetition of the old lies and brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear, and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."
That says much about the influence of the book which sold 215,000 copies within three weeks of its release and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. It established Wright not only as the best African-American writer of his time, but as an American author of enviable distinction who is credited for increasing white's understanding of the black experience, and therefore changing the way they treated them.
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