Notes of a Native Son Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

Notes of a Native Son Plot Summary

Preview of Notes of a Native Son Summary:

Autobiographical Notes

Baldwin begins his Notes of a Native Son with a brief description of his childhood and the beginning of his professional career as a writer. He also introduces some of the themes that will be expanded upon in the essays contained in this volume. Some of these themes include the role of the African- American writer, self-identity of African Americans, and an observation and analysis of American society.

Everybody's Protest Novel

In this first essay, Baldwin launches into literary criticism, specifically focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Richard Wright's Native Son. Baldwin finds both works too political and, to his mind, thinly disguised political propaganda as a novel is not a serious literary activity. He also believes that, as literary works, both Stowe's and Wright's work lack merit. They are "both badly written and wildly improbable." As analyses of social problems, they lack strength. "Whatever unsettling questions are raised...
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