Native Son: True Story or Not?

The play adaption of Richard Wright's novel Native Son is widely regarded as a fantastic and engaging story. The characters are three dimensional and dynamic, while the non-chronological order continually gives the audience fresh insights on Bigger Thomas, the protagonist, and his past. However, few, if any, have analysed the story to determine whether it is a "true" story, specifically using the criteria Tim O'Brien gives in his novel The Things They Carried. When compared to O'Brien's idea of a true story, Native Son meets the requirements due to its brutal emotional honesty and shocking elements.

Native Son doesn't sugar coat it. At every corner, it illuminates the human suffering that black people in the 1930's were, and often still are, forced to endure. The play doesn't stop at the physical or social repercussions of this inequality, but also the affect it had on how black people saw themselves. Throughout the play, Bigger often refers to himself as a "black rat". This self image is personified by an actual character on stage, who is, ironically, actually Bigger's higher self. Unfortunately, Bigger's self image is too damaged by a racist world for him to recognize this. The relationship between Bigger and the Black Rat makes the play feel much more truthful at an emotional level than it could ever be without it. Native Son also has no shortage of shocking, terrible moments, even more so in the uncensored version. This includes beatings, use of awful racist rhetoric, and rape scenes. O'Brien writes that these moments are crucial to a true war story. However, they are also important to other true stories, as they provide a feeling of reality. This kind of truth makes the audience want to look away, just like people do in terrible situations in the real world. Unquestionably, Native Son's honest depiction of the subjugation of black people and the many shocking scenes make it fully live up to O'Brien's true story ideals.