Throughout the novel, Native Son, Richard Wright illustrates the ways in which white racism forces blacks into a pressured, dangerous state of mind. Blacks are beset with the hardship of economic oppression and forced to act subserviently before their oppressors. Given such conditions, it becomes inevitable that blacks such as Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of the novel, will react with violence and hatred. Wright's development of Bigger's view of whites as an overwhelming force that sweeps him toward his fate can be seen in the context of naturalism. Wright uses the conventions of naturalism in Native Son, in order to force his readers to enter into Bigger's mind and to understand the devastating effects of the social conditions in which he was raised. Bigger was not born a violent criminal. He is a "native son": a product of American culture and the violence and racism that suffuse it. Wright uses the conventions of naturalism to portray the effect racism have on the oppressed and the hypocrisy of justice.
             Naturalism is a literary movement developed in late 20th century by Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser. The movement was tied to scientific determination and the idea of nature. Crane and Dreiser viewed humans as beings in nature that were subject to natural forces, internal drives and stresses over which they had no control of, which they were unaware. One of the features of the movement was the idea of determinism. Determinism is the belief that one's destiny is not decided by God or by an individual's assertion of free will but by social or natural forces. Naturalism depicted human beings as victims of social, economic, and natural forces that determined their destiny.
             The characters of literary naturalism are defined by their environment which determines the outcome of their lives. The characters of this movement are portrayed as having strong animal drives and victims of soci...