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Literary Criticism Project—English 10A, Brown

You have read one article of Literary Criticism—“How Bigger was Born” where the author described how he created the main character of his novel. You have studied Aristotle’s characteristics of what makes a good Tragedy and what makes a Tragic Hero as explained in his work Poetics.

Literary Criticism is written by university English professors. Harold Bloom is one of the most famous critics of our time. We have an entire database on the library website of Harold Bloom’s criticism. The articles are difficult to read because these brilliant professors have sophisticated vocabularies and ideas. We do this assignment so that as you begin to read scholarly writing, you will know how to make sense of it as you read these articles in higher grades and in college.

Your assignment is to read 10 pages (minimum—can be more) of literary criticism and summarize it IN YOUR OWN WORDS without quoting entire sentences or too much of the critic’s words (You cannot commit plagiarism). You will print out your scholarly articles. You will figure out the critic’s thesis and star it on your copy of the article. You will annotate your articles. Highlight or bracket important information. Then, in the margins, you write notes as to what the concepts mean to you. This is annotation. After you annotate, you will go back over the article and study it—read it multiple times. Then you take notes on the article in your own words (either by hand or typed). Your notes should be 1/5 of the length of the article. Your finished typed article will be 1/5 of the length of the article. Finally, you will cite the sources on a Works Cited page.

Buy a 2-pocket folder to hold 1) your annotated articles, 2) your notes on the articles, 3) your typed summaries, and 4) your Works Cited. Take notes in the library on our days there as there will be a quiz Thursday on the information from Tuesday and Wednesday. The power point and other helpful materials will all be in the LIT CRIT folder in Schoology.

On Reading Native Son
https://online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/12?articleId=533412&q=native%20son https://www.thesaurus.com/

- Double spaced - Must be 1-page - You are the critic, you're writing from the critic's point of view, you don't mention the critic at all
 * Guidelines

The Bradely article, Biographical approach

Everybody's Healing Novel Native Son and Its Contemporary Critical Context

 * Native Sons fate began to change when literature critics, James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, believed that Native Sons Bigger lost his humanity due to his extreme conditions. The only way the novel could be good was if Wright proved Native Son wasn't a social novel by Bigger playing the role as an "inarticulate victim" of his conditions. Instead, he played the role of a hero. This allows us to dive into Wright's development of Bigger as a character in the story.
 * Bigger is perceived as a "hero" because, according to critic Valerie Smith, he is able to psychologically comprehend his fate and circumstance. Due to this realization, he is "tranquil" and "pensive". Above all, he has reached "freedom".
 * Bigger goes against the typical humanistic hero as his development is unique and is limited by the shackles he is trapped under.
 * Though, I disagree with Mrs. Smith, as true "freedom" must allow a human being to be free in the physical world. This is something Bigger is not able to achieve, unlike Invisible Man's Frederick Douglass.
 * Douglass is only truly free after he overcomes his master, Covey, and leaves the shackles of slavery. Douglass' freedom is true freedom as to Bigger's supposed "freedom". Bigger's "articulation" and "self-knowledge" are meaningless if they do not contain the physical aspect of "freedom".
 * Native American arts of literature have trained our readers to set aside the tough times and pay attention to the improved times of a character in a behavior-changing book. Therefore, the readers of Native Son term Bigger as a "hero" while paying attention to his self-realization rather than his ultimate fate.
 * Native American stories have matched self-realization with peace in the real world (for the time-being). Examples range from Abel of House Made of Dawn and Tayo of Ceremony. Abel and Tayo both develop the psychological strength of accepting their circumstances. The difference between them and Bigger is that they realize that they are not truly free from their fates.
 * Bigger has a striking resemblance to Tim Loney in Welch's The Death of Tim Loney, where his accidental killing of his partner leads to his death by police. Though, Loney, unlike Bigger, chooses his death by police (by dying alike a "Sioux warrior").
 * Another example brought up is Fools Crow, where Fools Crow realized that the personal healing by the Indians was meaningless in the face of white invasion and diseases. In Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the main character is finally free of slavery. She realizes, though, that this is only because of a friend that she is able to attain freedom. She also takes into consideration the ongoing slavery and racism that prevails throughout the country. Therefore, she isn't truly free.
 * This provides something to really ponder about: If Bigger was excused by the governor and free from prison, would he be able to live a truly happy life in Chicago?
 * In Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God showcases Janie's tragic end of sexual happiness by killing her husband, Tea Cake, in self-defense after he went insane and tried to bite her. Both books should get rid of their negative endings and replace it with something more positive so the whole mood of the book is not drastically altered.
 * In Their Eyes, erotic love is compared to havoc (a swamp), which perhaps is Janie and Tea Cake's sexual relationship (chaotic, erotic love). By Janie's killing of her husband, she is forced to live a life without sex, which is a big loss for her. She is likened to Bigger as sexual gratification is only available in her mind, like Bigger's freedom is only present in his mind.
 * Claims of Bigger's "mastery of language" stems from the ransom note and his discussions with Max moments before his death. The ransom note, as Joyce writes, allows Bigger to separate from the world of fear, as he is no longer afraid of the consequences and, instead, stays with the Daltons through the whole police investigation.
 * Though, this fearless characteristic of Bigger did not last long. In addition, Bigger's note is not truly from him but is off of what stereotypes he has heard about the Communists. His reputation is also squashed of any understanding as the whites' stereotyping is being enforced upon him. He isn't truly free.
 * Bigger's linguistics meet the whites' stereotype of a Communist, indicating that he is still under control of the whites' stereotypes.
 * Bigger's freedom ultimately ends when he gets caught by the police, while Douglass achieves true freedom when he escapes to the North, free from slavery.
 * Bigger's vision is also seemingly worse than before his capture, as he seems to say "sort of" quite a number of times under police custody. He doesn't seem to know what he really wants. Bigger's "I'm all right" is simply him trying to convince himself that he was actually all right (which he wasn't). He isn't, actually, "tranquil" at all, but he is rather in constant suffering.
 * Bigger's mental vision is not improving as he is oppressed by the whites' stereotypes on him, which has caused himself to be divided as shown by his statments, such as "I'm all right... Sounds funny".