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Analyzing Themes Of Richard Wright's Life And Work

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Richard Nathaniel Wright
Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4th, 1908 on Rucker’s Plantation between the bustling cities of Roxie and Natchez, Mississippi. Growing up Wright was always interested in writing novels, but it was not until after freshman year of highschool had he published his first short story titled “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre” in 1924. Wright did not become a serious author until after his collection of short stories titled “Uncle Tom’s Children” (1938) had won first prize in a contest. Not too long after, Wright had conjured up his most notable piece, “Native Son”.
Although Wright’s most distinguished work, Native Son, is a novel, he has written everything from short stories, to nonfiction books, to poems, you name it! Despite working with vastly different mediums of writing, his pieces share one thing in common: They all stem from a sole set of ideas that target the American society of yesterday. A few recurring themes that were present in a large amount of his works were “poverty, the stigma of unequal education, and the violence that poverty breeds” (Millner Gloria). Wright was born in 1908, a …show more content…

Wright and any other Black American living in such a time can tell tales of injustice, tales of mockery, tales of loss and so on. However, Wright did not allow his life experiences to collect dust in the attic of his mind, he decided to turn his pain from the past into something much more productive that could allow his audience to step into his shoes and to view the world from a different lense. Richard Wright turned to his personal experiences to fuel his love and passion for writing, it even became inspiration for writing his most prominent character yet, Bigger Thomas, which Wright has directly stated that the birth of Bigger Thomas goes back to his childhood (Wright

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