VI-l THE ORIGINS
An understanding of his existentialism begins with an
examination of the peculiar hardship that confronted him. in his youth and
followed him throughout his life. Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on a
plantation near Natchez, Mississippi in 1908. His father was a black peasant
who very soon ran off with another woman, leaving to survive an indigent
family. Then Richard Wright's childhood
1 The Oxford Advanced Leamers Dictionary defines ambivalent
as follows : "adj. having or showing mixed feelings about a certain
object, person or situation. "
consisted of a series moves from one southem town to the next,
living on various relatives, of part time jobs and sporadic schooling. His
youth was marked by
poverty, hunger, repression, violence and fear. He managed to go
to Memphis and later to Chicago and to New York, for a new life; he worked at a
succession of odd jobs but found little dignity in Negro life. He was then
associated with the Communist Party. ln 1946, Wright settled in France, in a
self-imposed exile from his native land, travelling periodically to other
countries and continents. He died
unexpectedly of illness, in Paris in 1960.
Wright's racial status, his poverty, the description of his
family left ineradicable scars on his psyche and deeply influenced his thought.
He was totally obsessed by the traumas of his youth and the possibilities of
Freudian
interpretation are tempting. Actions and behaviour reveal the
repressed intentions, desires and complex hidden to the conscience. Wright does
not have to create the emotional state of his characters, it was the very
substance of his childhood, his youth and manhood. The theme of initiation into
violence and escape from it is one Wright is obsessed with; it is to recur in
his novels. The fear and alienation that characterised the life of Richard
Wright are not untypical of the flight of his
heroes. The heroes are not imaginary, they live within him; but
that does not mean that aIl his thoughts and whims, their murderous rebellion
are also Wright's.
Violence is to be found in his autobiography Black Boy
but violence of a much less bloody nature. As a young boy, Richard Wright
displays a character which is quite similar to Bigger Thomas's. But Wright is
compelled to resort to violence not for the purpose of doing harm, but as a
kind of survival. Richard Wright's first use of violence occurs' when his
mother sends him out shopping in
town. The boy goes his way mindless of what might happen to him
when suddenly he is surrounded by some bad-natured boys who after wildly
beating him have left
"
him half-fainted in the street. Recovering his consciousness, the
young Richard sadly and painfully retums home to tell his mother about his
ordeal. But she at
once sends him back to the store; the expected battle takes
place again. At this time the situation reverses to be in favour of the young
boy who leams to defend himself superbly.
Richard Wright inclination to violence, reinforced by his
sulky temper, results from the atmosphere of violence created by his parents
and relatives. For example, one opportunity which incites his outbreak of
violence cornes when Aunt
"
Addie suspects him of having scattered walnuts on the floor. Then
later he is
beaten for what he recognises to be undeserved punishment.
Consequently, his reaction is violent: he mns to the kitchen, takes a knife and
threatens to kill Aunt Addie if she does not stop bothering him :
"F or a month after that 1 took a kitchen knife to bed with me
each night hiding under my pillow
so that when Aunt Addie came 1 could protect myself but she never
came 1.
Another opportunity is the desertion of his father which
conserves the atmosphere of tension and understanding prevailing in the family.
As a matter of fact, Richard Wright in his violent words describes the
rougbness, the fear and hatred his father inspires in him and he confesses
bitterly:
" If someone had suggested that my father be killed, 1 would
perhaps have become interested. ,,2.
1 Richard Wright, Black Boy, p, 149. 2 Ibidem, p, 36.
Then Wright's attitudes consist of immediate and reflexive
reactions to a
world that is devouring him. ln spite all bad habits, he is never
really a lost child.
"
Although he lives in a wretched condition, he never adopts the
ethics of his companions in the streets.
Richard Wright's parents especially his mother lead a fanatical
religious life fraught with fear and the worship of God. The young Richard is
taught to follow scrupulously the religious discipline. We remember his
mother's admonishment to ask forgiveness when he deliberately kills the
kitten:
" Dear God our father,
forgive me " for I knew not what I was doing and spare my poor
life, even though I didn't spare the life of the kitten,,1
But if Richard Wright's relatives and parents find their
existence and hope upon religion, Richard on his part resents it strongly.
Young Richard finds it hard to cope with the religious atmosphere at home.
Early in the moming, he is forced to say his prayer and to eat he must implore
the blessing of God. Wright grows
more and more aware of the depersonification the formaI religion
exerts upon his people. Faithful to his belief about th~ uselessness of
religion, he creates characters in his novels which embody his position.
Indeed, Wright's attitude toward religion is a negative one. He says that man's
environment can be altered through united and determined efforts with no
assistance from the Divine source.
However, it is not religion as such which Wright condemns, but
the hypocrisy accompanying Christianity. Considered as a mode of living rather
than an institution, religion is not condemned by Wright. Although the
Church
preachers talk about the goodness of God, his justice and his
love, Wright corne to doubt the existence of God :
"1 had not settl~.d in my mind whether l believe in God or
not. Ris existence or his non existence never worried me l reasoned that if
there did exist an aH-wise,
aH powerful God who knew the beginning powerful God who knew
the beginning and the end, whomelted out justice to aH, who controHed the
destiny of man this would surely know that l doubted his existence and he would
laugh at my foolish denial ofhim,,2
Re once stated that he read the Bible for its literary and
humanistic content,
not because of religious devotion.
It cannot be stressed enough that Wright was only discovering
how close he had been to existentialism aH his life, how he had lived with
dread and despair, and how the circumstances of Black life in America was so
bleak and tragic, and fraught with bitter, unrelieved suffering, and absurdity
that only existentialist philosophy could give meaning to it. AH his prior life
and experiences have prepared him to sympathise with the ideas promulgated by
the post-war philosophy of man's terrible independence, existential agony, and
social isolation. Ris great achievement in the novel is his application of
modem psychology and philosophy to black and white racial patterns and human
personality, particularly the inner
turmoil of black personality, and to the black male, who is seen
as an outcast, criminal, or marginal man.
~ . - -- .c
1, Richard Wright, Black Boy, p.20 2jbidem p.127
VI2 THE CHARACTERISTICS
From a general point of view, it may be asserted that Wright
shaped his characters out of himself. He identifies with his heroes only in so
far as they have been influenced and affected by external social forces. ln the
progression of the stories in the novels, each protagonist is committed to the
social struggle; he acts
both for purely personal motives and social determinism. For
example, in Bigger are combined two types of characters : the murderer who
kills as an act of personal
creation and the one who kills in response to a social
determinism.
As for crimes, despite his violence, Wright does not go so far
as to commit murders! The killing of white people remains only in his
imagination and subconscience. But equally, he fled out of his free will for a
better life. He was not hunted like Bigger Thomas or Cross Damon. At the very
most, it seems that he often resorts to escape to show thatit is the only means
left to Negroes to solve their problems. Contrary to Bigger who becomes a
criminal, Wright emerged from the racial prejudice, poverty, family
disorganisation, and inadequate education that afflicted his early years.
Inspite of his belief in environmental determinism, Wright himself fulfils his
dreams of success against environmental determinism. But
Bigger Thomas becomes a victim of it.
As far as existentialism is concerned, Richard Wright adopts
an original attitude. He has never indicated in his novels that it can be an
acceptable solution for Black problem. Wright surprises his audience by
depicting terror and irrationality. ln his novels, existentialism emerges as
his own victim. The other
feels that he should focus his writing upon what he thought to
be weak and repugnant in existentialism. He attacks the existentialist way that
have given birth to people su ch as Bigger Thomas and Cross Damon. His desire
is to change and
...
improve the human condition and to create a more rational
world. He is seeking to explain human suffering outside communism and beyond
Christianity. He takes the philosophical side of the atheistic or secular
existentialist and moves to the religious position of the agnostic. "1 don't
know whether God exists or whether he has anything to do with human suffering
", he said. Wright's answer to the problem of suffering is that aIl life is
full of suffering-suffering is part of life. It exists
because we exist, not because of being, but because of the nature
of existence.
Cross Damon obviously expresses the anticipated symbolism in
Wright's work and is both a spiritual counterpart of Wright and a descendant in
Wright's fiction. Wright has delved into the meaning of human existence and the
moral explanation for human suffering and senseless pain. But the stressing of
mind is more than philosophical, he is moving toward his own world view or
weltangschauung. His philosophical odyssey : from Mississippi and folk
religion to Chicago and Marxism, to New York and Paris and secular
existentialism. His fear and hatred are turned into a definite flight; he
becomes an expatriate because of his estrangement from American ways. Wright's
years of self-imposed exile in
France from 1947 till his death in 1960 are not years of total
withdrawal and isolation. However, Richard Wright could have stayed in his
native land to fight and not solve his dilemma by flight for survival. He seems
thus to discard and avoid the danger; ensure his own safety and then, from far
away to propose uprising for the others.
Speaking of Bigger, his rebel-victim symbol, he affirmed :
"...he left a marked impression on me; maybe it was because 1 longed secretly
to be like him and was afraid. 1 don't know"IUltimâtely he remained
Richard Wright and did not
become Bigger Thomas nor Cross Damon.
'Richard Wright, in "How Bigger was bom" see Native Son
There is still controversy over Wright's existentialism.
Questions about his existentialism and how his existentialism diverges from the
Sartrian line are still put for discussion. Native Son and The
Outsider are existential novels, not because Wright has adhered to that
particular philosophical system, but because he has found that life itself is
existential and man need to struggle to wring his destiny. As
a matler of fact, he wrote :
"If 1 were asked what is the one, over aIl symbol or image
gained from my living that most nearly represent what 1 feel to be the essence
of American life, l'd say that it was that of a man struggling mightily to free
his personality from the daily and
hourly encroachments of American life ,,1
It is not easy for us to understand Jean-Paul Sartre's
existentialism and we find him morephilosophical than Wright. We are convinced
that Wright's existentialism is mature, growing out of his painful childhood
and adolescence and having a 'philosophical basis in his Chicago reading of
Dostoïevsky's novels and the complete philosophy of Nietzsche. Wright is a
pragmatist, a realist. Writing for
him grows out of his experiences real and vicarious. The real
significance of Wright's existentialism is in the wofId of his ideas placed in
the context of his times and his human condition. ln his existentialism you
will find his personality, his genius, his political significance, his
intellectual attainment. There is no way to understand his existentialism,
without understanding the keys to his psyche: they are Anger, Ambivalence,
Alienation, and Aberration. Driven by anger, alienation, ambivalence and a
subsequent aberration, the existentialism of Richard Wright seeks . to remould
our violent, war tom, revolutionary world of the twentieth
century .
1 Richard Wright, in "How Bigger was bom" see Native
Son
Wright is neither an atheist nor a believer : he is an
agnostic. His early experiences with a black folk religion that is
anthropomorphic, fundamentalist, and full of superstitious beliefs and
practices do not move him in the least. As a matter of fact, he does not know
whether God exists or is immanent in the affairs of men. He is, therefore, a
secular existentialist doser to Camus and the religionist
Kierkegaard than to Sartre, the atheistic existentialist. Sartre
is also a nihilist reducing aIl existence to a meaningless nothingness; he
explains that if God does exists man can never be free, he would be for ever
condemned by a priory values already determined before his creation.
But Wright does not go that far, despite his
pessimism, tragic view, and negativism. He believe that life or
existence could have meaning and purpose if the individual so willed it by his
own reason and
"
determination. Wright develops a conviction that the meaning of
living cornes only when one is struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless
suffering.
Wright's examination of the philosophy of existentialism from its
secular point of view is dearly the basis of his existentialism. He is destined
to move further and further away from religious faith and doser and doser to a
secular stance. Wright, the agnostic, cannot believe in western Christianity,
which preaches love but practises hate, which sends missionary abroad but
oppressed the hungry and unfortunate at home. Wright finds this diametrically
opposed in his
existentialism
ln reading Wright one does not quite reach the atheistic crux of
secular existentialism. What people fail to understand is not Wright's
existentialism, but his ambivalence. As a matter of fact, Wright seems almost
aIl as idealistic as he is materialistic in philosophy. His ideas are there
fore somewhat contradictory, ambivalent, and twisted. As a black man, he
searches more than a racial justice,
unity, freedom, and peace for his people; but he also searches a
common growing
of humanity where Blacks and Whites would come together in peace,
in racial understanding and human dignity. Mind and body he wanders over the
earth
seeking always a common growing for humanity. Somewhere
in Marxism, existentialism, he searches and finds an anchor or meaning for
his life, never roots. Re accounts for the important role played
by communists in Native Son, but he rejects party dogma in The
Outsider. Ironically, Wright suggests the need and necessity for
rebellion, but for himself, he finds flight imperative. ln France
he remains existentialist in his thinking, but he moves more into
Pan-Africanism. AlI this proves the ambivalence of the man and exposes his
political ambivalence paradox and his twisted existentialism. ln his ambivalent
existentialism he cannot avoid his own mistakes, notions, impulses, and human
problems, and he has
bequeathed to us his weird collection of grotesques heroes.
Among the existentialist writers, Richard Wright stands apart
because of the theme he develops in his works, his treatment of the characters
and the type of hero he creates. Violence in the form of rape and
murder appear in his fiction. The problem is that he is a very angry man and
aIl the violence and horror of his stories come out of that anger. Living in a
black and white world, hate within and fear without, rebel and victim, rebel
and victim, Black nationalist and Red
intemationalist, aIl these contrasts make ambivalence as a
natural feeling in Wright. Rence, he is driven by demons of anger, ambivalence,
alienation, and
aberration to become the maker of, violent dreams and
nightmares, mysterious monsters and grotesque horrors, the fabricator of Bigger
Thomas and Cross Damon. Puzzled and bewildered, he is kind of a revolutionary
rebelling against society, the Church, the State, and aIl conventional mode
ofbehaviour.
It is important to note that Richard Wright is a reservoir and an
encyclopaedia of Black humanism. He is a humanist of the deepest and purest
dye.
The humanist qualities are there in his search for freedom,
peace, human dignity, and for social justice. He stresses on the absurd meaning
or existentialist definition
of Black suffering. Like existentialists, he wants freedom but he
precises that personal freedom is conditioned on the freedom of the others.
Wright finds much
cogency in Cross Damon, but it is a fair assumption that he
deplores his moral weakness and irrational behaviour. That is why, we may even
suspect that The Outsider is a rejection of existentialism as an
adequate way to cope up with life problem.
Perhaps, the main difference between Wright and the other
existentialist writers lays in his weltangschauung or worldview and
his synthesis of the greatest ideas that have marked the twentieth-century.
Wright's weltanschauung is the one which challenges the modem mind. A
Marxist-humanist, Freudian and existentialist, an Eisteinian man
andPan-Africanist, Richard Wright syntheses in his works the principal ideas of
our century.
Recognition ofthis worldview as Wright's weltanschauung
is a prerequisite to understand the man' s existentialism. We then
understand that existentialism is
part and parcel of Wright's global weltanschauung,
and to assess his existentialism 1 we have to place it in that context.
Summarising himself his ambivalent existentialism, that we dare calI psychology
of lone man, he wrote :
" l'm a rootless man, but l'm neither psychologically
distraught nor in any wise particularly perturbed because of it. Personally, l
do not hanker after, and seem not to need, as many emotional
attachment, sustaining roots, or idealistic allegiances as most
people. l declare unabashedly that l like and even cherish the state of
abandonment, of aloneness; it does not bother me; indeed, to
me it seems the natural, inevitable condition of man, and l welcome it. l can
make myself at home almost everywhere on this earth and can, if l've a mind to
and when l'm attracted to
1 for Wright's existential statement, see White Man, Listen
(Garden City, New York, 1957)
a landscape or a mood of life, easily sink myself into the
most alien and widely differing environments. l must confess that this is no
personal achievement of mine; this attitude was never striven
for... !'ve been shaped to this mental stance by the kind of
experiences that l have fallen heir to ,, 1
1 Richard Wright, White Man. Listen, p.l?
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