Social Circumstance and Aesthetic Achievement: Contextual Studies in Richard Wright’s Native Son Page: 79
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CHAPTER VI
Psychologically Rather than
Physically Dismembered:
Reconsideration of Self-
conception in Native Son
and Moby-Dick
Yacine Ndiaye
ABSTRACT
What can possibly link Melville's Moby-Dick and
Richard Wright's Native Son in ways that go beyond
the insights of existing scholarship on that topic?
This paper explores correspondences between
these novels through the characters of Captain
Ahab and Bigger Thomas. I concentrate on simi-
larities in the areas of race and revenge. As they
pursue their nemeses, Bigger and Ahab seek power,
regrettably as the key to life's meaning. Still, Bigger's
death is meaningful; Ahab's, less so. I also suggest
that Melville's nineteenth-century masterpiece may
have inspired vital dimensions of Native Son, and79
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Duban, James. Social Circumstance and Aesthetic Achievement: Contextual Studies in Richard Wright’s Native Son, book, June 2016; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc854116/m1/91/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .