Wright and Dostoevsky essays

Wright and Dostoevsky essays Both Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in Crime and Punishment and Richard Wright, in Native Son look to men who have been pushed beyond reason into murder, and both authors ask us what justice means in such a context. The answers that the authors provide are quite different - which should hardly be surprising since both authors suggest that ideas of justice must reflect the local realities of life in a given place and time and the settings for each of the novels is dramatically different. But the answers that each provides are also strikingly open-ended: We must ourselves decide in the end what justice was granted and what denied to Both novels ask us to decide for ourselves what moral action is possible in a society in which justice is scarce, and our answer to that question in large measure will reflect our own experiences of how justice A Man With No Place To Go Wright's novel - arguably one of the most influential American books of the 20th century - relates the story of Bigger Thomas, a man who had never had a fair chance in life because of the racism he faces as an African-American. We see him traveling downward through society and we can predict that his actions will lead him (as in fact they do) to crime and punishment. As a young black man in a decade (the 1930s) and a place (Chicago) that sees him as only being of possible use as a slightly more intelligent than average beast of burden) he is trapped and made desperate by a future in which the walls will continue to close in on him. His desperation, and his anger (as well as his underlying personality) lead him to the edge of violence and then push him over and he murders a young white woman. From this moment on he cannot hope to find any help, any hope, in a society that already had very little use He is abandon...