SOURCE: Saunders, James Robert. “The Social Significance of Wright's Bigger Thomas.” College Literature 14, no. 1 (winter 1987): 32-7.

In the following essay, Saunders traces the evolution of Bigger Thomas into a character of social significance.

In an article entitled “Richard Wright's Blues,” which is included in his volume of essays, Shadow and Act, Ralph Ellison describes what he regards as a “basic ambiguity” in Richard Wright's sensational Native Son. Ellison, a contemporary of Wright's who survived to evaluate new generations of black American writers, assessed it as a crucial flaw that “Wright had to force into Bigger's consciousness concepts and ideas which his intellect could not formulate.”¹ That complaint stems from Ellison's belief that Wright compromised too much of his own personality to achieve the fundamental theme of Bigger Thomas' frustrated existence.

To determine the validity of Ellison's complaint one must ask who is Bigger Thomas and why did the...