SOURCE: Joyce, Joyce Ann. “The Critical Background and a New Perspective.” In Richard Wright's Art of Tragedy, pp. 1-28. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1986.

In the following essay, Joyce surveys the critical reception to Wright's work, focusing on interpretations of his novel Native Son.

In his essay aptly titled “The ‘Fate’ Section of Native Son,” Edward Kearns, in a discussion of courses in Afro-American literature, summarizes the “fate” of criticism written on the works of Black literary artists: “… black American writers have been nearly excluded from serious critical attention, and when attention has been paid, the black American writer has generally been treated as an author of social documents rather than works of art” (149). No criticism on the works of a Black writer demonstrates the validity of Kearns's statement more than that written on Richard Wright's Native Son. The immediate impact of Native Son elevated Wright to...