The Outsider (Richard Wright)

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The Outsider

Author	Richard Wright
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	African American literature, Novel
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	1953
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	NA & ISBN 0-06-053925-9 (1993 re-print)

The Outsider is a novel by Richard Wright, first published in 1953. The Outsider is Richard Wright's second installment in a story of epic proportions, a complex master narrative to show American racism in raw and ugly terms. The kind of racism that Wright knew and experienced, a racism from which most black people of his own time could not escape, remained the central element in his fiction. The Outsider appeared during the height of McCarthyism in the United States and the advent of the Cold War in Europe, two events which had a significant bearing on its initial reception.

1 Plot summary
2 Literary Significance and Criticism
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

This novel presents ideas which examines life in the light of modern philosophies. The hero of The Outsider, named with symbolism, Cross Damon, represents the 20th century man in frenzied pursuit of freedom. Cross is an intellectual Negro, the product of a culture which rejects him. He is further alienated by his "habit of incessant reflection", his feeling that the experiences and actions of his life have so far taken place without his free assent, and a profound conviction that there must be more to life, some meaning and justification which have hitherto eluded him.

When Cross is introduced in the first book of this novel (Book One: Dread) he is drinking too much, partly in an effort to forget his problems (of which he has many) but mostly to deaden the pain caused by his urgent and frustrated sense of life. There is an accident in which he is reported dead and so he sets out to create his own identity, and thus, he hopes, to discover truth.

This search for the absolute compels him to four murders and ends in his despair and violent death. En route, he encounters totalitarianism in its most-likely-to-succeed form, Communism. Though he agrees with these other "outsiders" that power is the central reality of society and that "man is nothing in particular", he is outraged by their acceptance and cynical exploitation of these "facts". "That’s enough", he screams before he kills a Communist who has just told him that there is no more to life. And in the same conversation he asks, "What’s suffering?

Having rejected religion, the past and present organization of society, the proposed totalitarianism alternative and the kindred uncontrollable violence of his own behavior as a "free" man, Cross abandons ideas and pins his last hope on love. But his mistress commits suicide when she sees him as he is.

There follows a fascinating chapter in which the law, personified by a hunchbacked district attorney who understands Cross Damon, convicts him of crime and condemns him. But is powerless to give his life significance by punishment. After this Cross is murdered. The district attorney comes to his death bed and asks how was life and Cross dies murmuring, "It was horrible."

[edit] Literary Significance and Criticism

The Outsider was the first of Wright’s books to receive predominantly negative reviews. Reviewers were primarily critical of its characterization, particularly the absence of sufficient motivation for Damon’s violence. The novel’s mix of melodramatic action and lengthy rhetorical exposition seemed disruptive. Black reviewers believed that Wright’s interest in existentialism indicated a separation from his roots. Also, most reviewers found the unrelieved pessimism of the novel unattractive.

The novel is clearly the result of Wright’s involvement with existential thinkers following his break from Marxism in the 1940’s. The novel seems to mark the low point of Wright’s despair, for it lacks Camus’s humanitarian hope or Jean-Paul Sartre’s belief in social change. Later critics, however, have suggested that The Outsider is a rejection of existentialism or is even a Christian existentialist novel.

existential or not, The Outsider is a logical extension of Wright’s earlier fiction and thought. In Native Son (1940), Bigger expresses in a less articulate manner the same sort of rage and dread felt by Damon. In “The Man Who Lived Underground,” Fred Daniels, like Damon, wants to share his hard-earned knowledge with others. In “Art and Fiction,” Wright maintained that personal freedom was conditioned on the freedom of others. Thus, in The Outsider Wright addressed familiar themes but consciously tried to move beyond the racial limitations of his earlier work. ^[1]