Native Son (1940) is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year old Bigger Thomas, an African-American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s. Bigger was always getting into trouble as a youth, but upon receiving a job working in the Dalton's Home, he experienced a realization of his identity. He accidentally killed a white woman, runs from the police, kills his girlfriend and is then caught and tried. "I didn't want to kill", Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill." Wright gets inside the head of "brute Negro" Bigger, revealing his feelings, thoughts and point of view as he commits crimes, is confronted with racism, violence and debasement?the name "Bigger" both is a play of the word "nigger", and a nod to the bigger social forces behind his actions. The name also suggests a "bigger" version of Harriet B

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