Native Son Essay: Analysis of Setting, Major, and Minor Themes

Analysis of Setting, Major, and Minor Themesof Native Son The major themes of Native Son are environment, racism, black rage, religion, Communism, determinism and freedom. A minor theme is the relationship between men and women. One of the major themes of Native Son is the effect of environment on behavior and personality. Thus, setting is peculiarly important in the novel. The story takes place in Chicago in the late 1930s, when the United States had still not recovered from the Great Depression. Jobs are scarce, and larger and his pool-hall friends are among the many unemployed. Richard Wright was influenced by the literary school of naturalism, whose adherents tried to observe and record their world, and especially its more unpleasant parts, with scientific accuracy. Wright knew Depression-era Chicago well and move heavily on his first-hand knowledge. In many respects, the Chicago of Native Son is an accurate representation even in its details. For example, Ernies Kitchen Shac k at Forty-seventh lane and Indiana Avenue was modeled on a real restaurant called The Chicken Shack, located at 4647 Indiana Avenue and owned by a man named Ernie. Two aspects of Biggers environment influence him especially strongly- his confinement to Chicagos black South Side ghetto and his glimpses of the dazzling white world, of which he feels he can neer be part. Biggers family shares a rat-infested room, but, when he sees an airplane flying overhead or views the glamorous life portrayed in a... ...eds. Conversations with Richard Wright. Jackson University Press of Mississippi, 1993. Kinnamon, Keneth. The Emergence of Richard Wright A Study Literature and Society. Urbana U of Illinois P, 1973. Kinnamon, Keneth, ed. New Essays on Native Son. New York Cambridge UP, 1990. Macksey, Richard and Frank E. Moorer, eds. Richard Wright A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1984. Margolies, Edward. The Art of Richard Wright. Carbondale Southern Illin ois UP, 1969. Miller, Eugene E. section of a Native Son The Poetics of Richard Wright. Jackson University Press of Mississippi, 1990. Rampersad, Arnold, ed. Richard Wright A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice Hall, 1995.