Richard Wright's Native son

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Notes and references

Introduction

1. Texts and contexts

Richard Wright: a brief biography

The voices of Native Son

The Dostoevskian voice

The transplantation of the blues

Bigger's vernacular voice

Social determinism: an anti-American accent?

Bigger: silenced by whiteness?

Chronology

2. Critical history

First responses: James Baldwin

First responses: Ralph Ellison and Irving Howe

Feminist readings

The Black Atlantic and beyond

3. Critical readings

'Many Thousands Gone'

'The Shadow of the White Woman: Richard Wright and the Book-of-the-Month Club'

'From No Man's Land to Mother-Land: Emasculation and Nationalism in Richard Wright's Depression Era Urban Novels'

'Slouching Toward Beastliness: Richard Wright's Anatomy of Thomas Dixon'

'Invented by Horror: The Gothic and African-American Literary Ideology in Native Son'

4. Further reading and Web resources

Index