“I Don’t Own Any Property”: Richard Wright’s Native Son and the Rhetoric of Possession

Abstract:This essay explores Richard Wright’s Native Son in light of the rhetoric of possession deployed in it. I begin by revisiting Wright’s political ideas with a focus on the theme of possession, thereby opening up the possibility to read the novel as Wright’s critique of what C. B. Macpherson calls “possessive individualism,” a conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person and capacities, for which he owes nothing to society. Clarifying how the novel—including its naturalist narrative form—is structured by the theme of dis/possession, I demonstrate that even Bigger’s seemingly existentialist selfhood is also informed by his sense of possession. From this perspective, I argue that the novel’s controversial ending bespeaks Wright’s aspiration to an alternative to capitalist property relations.