An autobirography of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Him Crow South.

Based on a scene from Wright's autobiography, "Black Boy", in which the seventeen-year-old African-American borrows a white man's library card and devours every book as a ticket to freedom.

The author relates his life as an African American growing up in the South during the Jim Crow years.

"Native Son and Black Boy are classics of twentieth-century American literature -- and yet the novel and memoir known to millions of readers are in fact revised and abbreviated versions of the books Richard Wright wrote. This two-volume Library of America edition presents for the first time Wright's major works in the form in which he intended them to be read. The authoritative new texts, based on Wright's original typescripts and proofs, reveal the...

This title examines the role and theme of the antihero archetype in Macbeth, Wuthering Heights, Notes from Underground, and Native Son. It features four analysis papers that consider the antihero theme, each using different critical lenses, writing techniques, or aspects of the theme. Critical thinking questions, sidebars highlighting and explaining each thesis and argument, and other possible approaches for analysis help students understand the mechanics...