Alienation in Richard Wright's The Outsider

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Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: African American Literature and Cold War Civil Rights, language: English, abstract: Critics such as Cedric Robinson, Paul Gilroy, and Sarah Relyea have commented on the didactic function of Richard Wright's The Outsider. But what are the determining factors that shape an individual like Cross Damon? Gilroy believes Wright is routinely misunderstood, and the depth of his philosophical interest is underestimated particularly by African American critics who see the book as a pseudo-European desire to escape from the restrictions of racial writing. In agreement with Relyea, who sees The Outsider as an endeavor to analyse Cross' consciousness as a technique for exploring social problems, I will discuss the roles of anxiety and alienation as determining factors for Cross' identity. In the tradition of naturalist writing, is Cross to be considered a victim of circumstance?

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