Richard Wright의 Native Son연구

Abstract

Critics tend to read Richard Wright's Native Son either as a naturalistic novel or as an existential one. This article is an attempt to analyze the novel not in such a traditional either/or way but in a both/and perspective. To do this, this article is first examining both naturalistic and existential elements of the novel respectively, and then relating both elements as part of the organic whole which brings the structural unity to the novel. In relating those two elements I put the emphasis on the traditional context not only of the Afro-American novel in particular but also of the American fiction in general. Finally this article is exploring the organic relation between these two elements in the light of 'violence', which as the leitmotif of this novel gives it the thematic as well as the structural unity.