Native Son

The trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, in 1924, was known as the crime of the century. Two Jewish boys, whom lived in Chicago, kidnapped and murdered local neighborhood boy Bobby Franks. This case exploded in the media and went all over the country. Down in Mississippi, Richard Wright came upon the story and decided to incorporate it in the novel that he was currently writing. Throughout his life, "Wright 's fascination with rebellious lawbreakers would catalyze some of his most important work"(Butler 1). In Wright 's novel, Native Son, Bigger Thomas was created from five young black men from Wright 's childhood. These men were rebellious criminals who Wright looked up to and feared. Wright believed they acted the way they did because of how society had treated them. "Wright dramatized the parasitic nature of the class system by telling the story of the wealthy Daltons ' participation in the systematic exploitation and destruction of Bigger Thomas"(Guttman 170). Wright did not just point this toward Bigger, but the black society as a whole. Richard Wright 's novel is very similar to the Loeb and Leopold case with numerous differences that show how society treats different races for committing the same crime. Bigger Thomas compared to Loeb and Leopold came from completely different backgrounds. In the novel, Bigger was a poor young African American boy. People would describe him as "about five feet, nine inches tall and his skin was exceedingly black"(Tuhkanen 6). He had lived in a run down apartment with his mother and younger siblings. When Bigger 's mother woke up in the morning she would tell the boys to, "turn your heads so I can dress"(Wright 3). This was because their home consisted of one room that was not even large enough to dress themselves in privacy. His life had been defined by his fear and hatred towards whites for as long as he could remember. Bigger had only attended school up to the eighth grade, and that had limited his

Bibliography: Ebscohost. William Rainey Harper College, IL. 10 December 2007. <http://search.epnet.com> Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998. 3-430.