A Critical Review of Native Son essays

A Critical Review of Native Son essays 1. Born on September 4th, 1908, Richard Wright was born in Roxie, Mississippi (outside of Natchez) on a plantation where his illiterate father was a sharecropper. Wright was raised by his relatives at by the age of 17, he was ready to get out into the world. He headed into Memphis, Tennessee (his relatives lived right outside the city) where he worked odd jobs and educated himself. He read array of novels as he grew up and his education helped him realize the unjust ways of segregation. In 1927, Wright moved to Chicago after the peak of the Harlem Renaissance (a pivotal time for African Americans to express themselves through music, writings, and art). In Chicago, he worked as a postal worker, but was laid off with the depression. Wright then joined the Federal Writers Project, a state sponsored guild for authors, in which Wright composed his first novel, Uncle Toms Children. During this time, Wright joined the Communist party, which was often carried out into his writings. By 1939, Wright had moved to New York City and kept ties with the party for only a few more years. He married in 1941, and had left the communist party by 1944. During World War II, Wright lectured around New York. With the end of the War, Wright moved to France in 1947 where he continued to write his novels, which often contained themes of racism, poverty, and political matters. His books were often partly based on his life and what he had observed in his lifetime. Wright was the first African American author to be featured in the Book of the Month Club for his novel Native Son. In 1995, all of Wrights books were reissued in 1995 in their original context after being censored by publishers for the explicit nature of his novels (which contained themes of sexual, Communist, and racial content). However, Wright was unable to see the reissued books, for Wright was laid to rest in 1960. 2. Written in 1940, Native Son was composed as...