Critics read Native Son oppositely as racial protest or universal statement

Evidence

Addison Gayle, echoing many of his critical predecessors, argues that Wright created the archetypal stereotype of the Black man, thus releasing American consciousness from that particular beast of burden. Elsewhere one finds Native Son understood as “a complement of that monstrous legend it was written to destroy. Bigger is Uncle Tom’s descendant, flesh of his flesh, exactly opposite a portrait”; as a study in the psychology of the outcast; and as a statement of the human predicament. In other words, Wright’s early work has been characterized by a variety of critics along a continuum ranging between a racially specific protest to a universal declaration. It might be useful, however, to add another and quite different dimension to Native Son—a dimension found in Wright’s own consciousness of the work. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1349