Racism and class discrimination in Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Native Son

Abstract

In most of his writings, Richard Write addresses issues such as racism, discrimination, and oppression. Black Boy and Native Son are two of his canonical books that focus on the plight of black Americans in the face of racism and class discrimination. In Black Boy, Wright’s real-life experience from childhood to adulthood is presented. In this autobiographical narrative, he discusses how he faced racism throughout his life. Wright’s novel Native Son is about Bigger Thomas, a young black man whose accumulated rage explodes in violent ways, leading him to his downfall. In these two books, Wright exposes the hypocrisy of whites, portrays the effects of deterministic social realities on black people, and shows how racism and class discrimination works in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. This thesis aims to analyze Black Boy and Native Son through the lens of postcolonial and Marxist theories.