50 Fun Facts About Native Son

Which intruder does Bigger Thomas kill with an iron skillet in the opening scene of Native Son?

A rat is his first kill of the day, and he then dangles the body in front of his sister until she faints.

On the South Side of which city does Richard Wright's Native Son take place during the 1930s?

Chicago's Black Belt is the setting, where the four members of the Thomas family share a single rented room through a hard winter.

Which trait of Mrs. Dalton doubles as Native Son's symbol of white attitudes to Black suffering?

Her blindness is literal and symbolic: she walks into the bedroom while her daughter is dying and leaves without knowing anyone else was there.

How does Mary Dalton die in Native Son after Bigger Thomas carries her, drunk, up to her bedroom?

Smothered with a pillow, Mary dies by accident: Bigger only meant to keep her quiet while her mother stood in the room.

Where does Bigger Thomas put Mary Dalton's body in Native Son, hoping no trace will remain?

He burns it in the furnace in the Daltons' basement, piling on extra coal before going home to bed.

Which position does the wealthy Dalton family hire Bigger Thomas to fill at the start of Native Son?

Chauffeur is the title, and on his very first shift Bigger is sent out to drive the daughter of the house to a university lecture.

Richard Wright split Native Son into three books titled Fear, Flight and which third word?

Fate is the title of Book Three, which follows the trial and the long wait in a prison cell.

Which famous filmmaker directed the Broadway version of Native Son a year after the novel?

Orson Welles directed and co-produced it, and it was the last time he worked with John Houseman, his partner in founding the Mercury Theatre.

In which country was the 1951 film of Native Son shot, with Richard Wright himself as Bigger?

Argentina took the production in after other countries refused permits, and the slums of Buenos Aires stood in for the South Side.

Which younger author dismissed Native Son as protest fiction in Everybody's Protest Novel?

James Baldwin had been Wright's friend, and the essay, later collected in Notes of a Native Son, ended the friendship in acrimony.

In Native Son, which career does Bigger Thomas tell Gus he would choose if white society let him?

Aviator is the dream, voiced as the two friends lean on a wall and watch a plane write an advertisement across the sky.

Which white-owned business do Bigger Thomas and his friends plan to rob in Book One of Native Son?

Blum's delicatessen would be the gang's first white target; every earlier theft had been a smaller one inside their own neighbourhood.

Why does Bigger Thomas attack Gus at the poolroom just before the planned robbery in Native Son?

To hide his cowardice, Bigger forces his friend to lick a knife blade, and the brawl conveniently makes the robbery impossible.

Where does Bigger Thomas first see Mary Dalton in Native Son, hours before working for her father?

In a cinema newsreel: the film shows the heiress on a Florida holiday with a known radical, which makes Bigger warm to the idea of working for her family.

Which hidden tie between the charitable Mr. Dalton and Bigger's family does Native Son expose?

He is their landlord: his company owns the one-room flat the family rents, and it refuses to rent to Black tenants outside the ghetto.

What does Mary Dalton ask Bigger Thomas about within moments of meeting him in Native Son?

Whether he is in a union is her opening question, and she goes on to call her own father a capitalist in front of the new employee.

What do Jan and Mary Dalton insist Bigger Thomas do at a South Side diner in Native Son?

Eat with them is the demand: the pair mean it kindly, but being watched by people he knows leaves Bigger burning with shame.

What does Mrs. Dalton suggest Bigger Thomas take up on his first day in her house in Native Son?

Evening classes are her idea of a kindness: the cook has already told Bigger that Mrs. Dalton made the last chauffeur go to night school.

Where had Bigger Thomas already been sent for theft before the events of Native Son begin?

Reform school is already on his record for stealing tires, and his mother has been telling the family that more trouble will mean prison.

What does Jan hand Bigger Thomas in Native Son that Bigger later plants as evidence against him?

Political pamphlets from Jan end up planted in Bigger's own dresser drawer, ready to make the family's detective suspect a Communist plot.

To which city was Mary Dalton due to travel by train the morning after she dies in Native Son?

Detroit was her destination, so Bigger gambles that the household will assume she simply left on the early train.

In what does Bigger Thomas carry Mary Dalton's body out of her bedroom in Book One of Native Son?

Her trunk was half packed for a trip, so Bigger uses it to get the body downstairs and later delivers it to the station as if nothing had happened.

Which threat pushes Bigger Thomas to accept work at the Dalton house at the start of Native Son?

A cut in relief payments is the threat: the welfare agency arranged the interview and will end the household's aid if he turns it down.

Who is Bessie Mears to Bigger Thomas in Native Son, before he drags her into his kidnap plot?

His girlfriend drinks to forget her hard life, and she suspects he has done something to the missing heiress before he admits it.

What does Bigger Thomas draw on his fake kidnap note in Native Son to implicate Jan's comrades?

A hammer and sickle sits under the signature Red; Mr. Dalton tells reporters it is the Communist Party's emblem, and the papers headline a kidnapping.

What do reporters uncover at the Dalton house in Native Son, sending Bigger Thomas running?

Bones and an earring come to light when a reporter snatches the shovel from Bigger, who has filled the room with smoke.

What does Bigger Thomas use to kill the sleeping Bessie in an abandoned building in Native Son?

A brick is the weapon, and only after pushing her body down an air shaft does he realise his stolen money was in her pocket.

Where do police finally trap Bigger Thomas at the end of Book Two of Native Son?

On a rooftop, after a chase across the tops of tenements: some five thousand police had been combing the Black Belt for him.

Who idolizes Bigger Thomas and quietly returns a roll of cash he loses at home in Native Son?

His kid brother, Buddy, keeps the stray bills out of their mother's sight, asks if Bigger is in trouble and is handed a bill to stay quiet.

Which Communist Party lawyer defends Bigger Thomas in court in Book Three of Native Son?

Boris Max takes the case for free and never claims his client is innocent; he argues that a society built on racial oppression produced the crime.

Which State's Attorney, campaigning for re-election, prosecutes Bigger Thomas in Native Son?

Buckley first appears as a face on a campaign billboard near the Thomas home, and later talks Bigger into a full confession in his cell.

What does Bigger Thomas tear from his neck in Native Son after passing a Ku Klux Klan gathering?

A wooden cross from his mother's preacher hangs there until Bigger sees the Klan burning the same symbol and decides it stands for his enemies.

How does Jan treat Bigger Thomas in his cell in Book Three of Native Son, despite being framed?

He offers to help, saying Bigger has taught him something about race in America, and brings in a lawyer who will work without a fee.

On his lawyer's advice, how does Bigger Thomas plead at his trial in Book Three of Native Son?

Guilty is the plea, so no jury hears the case, and the defense can argue only about the punishment.

Which sentence does the court hand Bigger Thomas at the end of his trial in Native Son?

Death in the electric chair is the sentence, even though his lawyer had begged the court for life in prison and goes on to appeal to the Governor.

In the final scene of Native Son, what does Bigger Thomas do for the first time on mentioning Jan?

Drops the Mister: sending a last greeting through his lawyer, Bigger calls a white man by his first name for the only time in the novel.

In Native Son, which gift from Mr. Dalton to a South Side youth club sums up his hollow charity?

Ping-pong tables are his answer, a dozen sent after his daughter's death, and Bigger's lawyer asks in disbelief whether a game will keep men from murder.

The way Native Son explains Bigger Thomas's motives makes it a classic of which literary movement?

Naturalism fits because the novel treats the killings as the product of the society that formed Bigger, which is the case made for him in court.

The epigraph to Richard Wright's Native Son is a verse of complaint from which book of the Bible?

Job supplies it, and the parallel is deliberate: like its hero, Bigger suffers under a force he cannot control and answers with defiance.

Bigger Thomas of Native Son and his creator Richard Wright were both born in which Southern state?

Mississippi is where Wright was born to a sharecropper in 1908, and Bigger tells Jan his own father was killed in a riot there.

Which 1945 memoir of a Southern childhood did Richard Wright publish five years after Native Son?

Black Boy became an instant bestseller, though its second half, on his years in the North, was held back and not published until 1977.

In which country did Native Son author Richard Wright settle after World War II and spend the rest of his life?

France kept him as a permanent expatriate: he befriended Sartre and Camus there and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Which 1938 story collection won Richard Wright national attention two years before Native Son?

Uncle Tom's Children followed a first prize in a Story magazine contest for one of its stories, and it brought Wright a measure of financial stability.

Which mail-order service made Native Son its first selection by an African-American author?

Book-of-the-Month Club had a scene it found too explicit removed before publication, and the uncut text was not published until 1991.

Which real defendant, executed in 1939, supplied press details Richard Wright reused in Native Son?

Robert Nixon was arrested while Wright was halfway through his first draft, and the novel borrows from press coverage of the case.

Which star of The Color Purple played Bigger Thomas's mother in the 1986 film version of Native Son?

Oprah Winfrey played Mrs. Thomas a year after her film debut, in a version that left out the second killing to keep audiences on the hero's side.

Which Moonlight actor played a green-haired Bigger Thomas in HBO's 2019 film of Native Son?

Ashton Sanders gave Bigger black nail polish and dyed hair in a modern-day retelling that leaves out the trial altogether.

Which former boxer played Bigger Thomas in the original 1941 Broadway production of Native Son?

Canada Lee, who had lost the sight of one eye in the ring, became a star overnight in the role and toured it for nineteen months.

Which Japanese verse form did Native Son author Richard Wright write by the thousand late in life?

Haiku filled his last years: he wrote more than 4,000, and 817 of his favourites were published in 1998.

How does Bigger Thomas deliver his fake kidnap note to the Dalton family in Book Two of Native Son?

Under the front door is where he slips it, before going back to his room in the same house to wait for it to be found.