Donald B. Gibson lecture, "The Politics of Richard Wright's Fiction part one," at the University of Iowa, July 27, 1971

Speaker 1: The following is a lecture by Donald B. Gibson, recorded at the Third Annual Institute for Afro-American Culture on July 27, 1971. Mr. Gibson speaks on the Politics of Richard Wright's Fiction. Introducing Mr. Gibson is Charles T. Davis, Chairman on the Committee of Afro-American Studies at the University of Iowa and co-director of the Institute. Charles T Davis: Donald Gibson is an old friend. He has been with us here at the University of Iowa as a research professor in American Studies, attached to our program in Afro-American Studies, and we parted with him in regret in June when he returned to the University of Connecticut. We should like to think that the attractions of the University of Iowa are such that he can stay away from us no longer than the month or so, separating his departure and his return. Charles T Davis: His preference for the University of Connecticut sis the only defect in taste that I have been able to discover in him. And I must admit in the very rare moment of objectivity that there are universities other than the University of Iowa. That University is, of course, fortunate that profits by his contributions and knowledge, wit, and humanity. Donald Gibson's academic qualifications are impressive. He has two degrees from the University of Kansas City and his doctorate from Brown. He's taught at Brown, Wayne State University and at the University of Connecticut where he is now professor. He spent two years at Krakow in Poland as a full-blight lecturer in American Literature, and he shares memories with Professor Daniel Aaron of Smith of academic life there. Charles T Davis: He's the author of The Fiction of Stephen Crane, Five Black Writers; Essays on Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Hughes and Jones, and a number of important articles on Afro-American topics. According to Professor Kinnaman of the University of Illinois, who's bibliographical survey has been a valuable addition to this institute. Professor Gibson's articles on Wright represent Wright criticism at its very best. He's at work now on the study of the relationship between literature and society. For reasons, then, both public and private, academic and personal, I am delighted to introduce our favorite prodigal son, Donald Gibson, who will lecture on the politics of Richard Wright's fiction. Donald Gibson: Thank you very much. I must say... [inaudible] Can't get it off. Well, I must say that I feel relatively comfortable now. I have been thinking about the talk all week and giving it, and finally, I decided if I could survive my dear friend's introduction that I could get through the rest of it. I wanted to say that there are probably some things here, I hope not too many, I don't think so terribly many, some things here that I probably wouldn't have put in the paper if I had written it yesterday, but I didn't write it yesterday, and consequently, there are some things here that we've said during the course of our talks together and so forth and so on. Donald Gibson: So I call this The Politics of Richard Wright's Novels. Originally, it was called The Politics of Richard Wright's Fiction, but for various reasons, which I'll explain very preemptively in the paper, I changed the title somewhat. It is particularly of significance to consider the fiction of Richard Wright from a political perspective, for Wright is among the most consistently and consciously political American writer, perhaps the most consistently and consciously political. Donald Gibson: In his 1937 Blueprint for Negro Writing, he describes what he feels should be the nature and function of literature, indicating here his belief that literature by Black writers and, by implication, all writers, should have quite definite and specific ends beyond itself. "They (Black writers) are being called upon to do no less than create values by which their race is to struggle, live and die. They are called upon to furnish moral sanctions for action to give a meaning to blighted lives and to supply motives for mass movement of millions of people." The essay begins by elaborating the necessity of the Black writer standing "shoulder to shoulder with negro workers in mood an outlook." Donald Gibson: Without question, then, Richard Wright, in 1937, felt that literature should have social and political ends of a particular character. At the same time, however, Wright and his careful attempt to avoid oversimplification, to avoid the narrowness of other critics and writers of similar persuasion, found it necessary to admit and deal with certain problematical aspects of his position. He had, for example, to deal with aesthetic consideration with writing as craft, with the problem of literature as propaganda. He admits, in short, the relevance of the position of those who see literature as an end in itself, who agree with Wellek and Warren in Theory of Literature, that the function of literature is to be true to the claims of its own nature. Donald Gibson: In discussing the role of nationalism in the work of Black writers, Wright admits at once the necessity and the limitations of nationalism, saying that the Black writer must accept nationalism only to transcend it. In regard to Marxism as a frame of reference from which to write, he says that though it has the capacity to "unify the writer's personality, organize his emotions and buttress him with a tense and obdurate will to change the world, it is yet for the writer but the starting point." This quality of mind, which allowed Wright to deal, as he does, with elements antithetical to his primary position, is to be seen operative in his novels. Donald Gibson: He begins in Lawd Today and Native Son to put forth a political vision. In each case, elements antithetical to his apparent intention of truth. After these two novels, Wright vacillates, leaning more and more toward the expression of values primarily private and subjective in nature, as opposed to social and political until finally his emphasis is the opposite from that with which he began, truly opposite in view of the fact that in his most private, subjective expression, he never loses sight of the social and the political. Donald Gibson: We may say, in consequence, that there are certain ways in which Wright remained true to the conception of writing set forth in Blueprint for Negro Writers. In certain ways, he did not. Now, I don't wish to go specifically into that subject here except by implication. That is, I don't want to narrow my frame of reference to Blueprint for Negro Writing, but Wright is always careful in his novels to set a social framework and to indicate the relation between the situation of the individual and the social context in which he functions. The social dimension is always present, and its impingement clear. However, within this framework, Wright becomes, during the course of his career, increasingly subjective. Donald Gibson: Early in his career and before he left the party, this subjective aspect is in part responsible for the doubts which the party had about Wright's reliability. The party was right in that there were, from the beginning, elements of Wright's fiction, antithetical to its political aims. If Blueprint for Negro Writing was not suspect in the same way that Native Son was among party members, then it should have been, for even there, in that early piece, Wright's resistance to any definitive, all-inclusive system, his skepticism and unwillingness ever to give himself over entirely to any system of values outside his own should have been apparent. Donald Gibson: It is certainly apparent in the first work, Lawd Today. Lawd Today describes two worlds; the world as it appears to the central character, Jake, and the world as it is from the perspective of the writer. The novel's framework describes the system of institutions responsible for the character and situation of Jake. It contains a perspective considerably broader than James, a perspective of which he is only dimly aware and of which he has to understanding. The broader view is the author's, and the interplay between the two views produces a not overly subtle irony. Donald Gibson: The novel takes place during the course of a single day, if you will recall, February 12th, Abraham Lincoln's birthday. It is intended that the reader see the disparity between the ideals associated with the national holiday and the actuality of the lives of Jake and his associates. They did not live in squalor. Jake eats well, dresses well, is personally clean and has a good job, but the quality of their lives, as described, gives the impression of swarthiness and poverty. His friend, Slim, for example, suffers from tuberculosis, and Job has a venereal disease, and both go untreated. Jake is shown in the novel to be victimized by the government, by others in the ghetto and by his own ignorance and naïve notions about life in the world. Donald Gibson: He also suffers from his own irascible temper, irresponsibility and immaturity. The implication is, of course, that all these things are related, that Jake's character and temperament are as they are as a result in part of the impingement on him of forces beyond his control. Despite this, however, Wright lacks sympathy almost entirely with him, to the extent of despising him. The only time Wright seemed not to judge him harshly is during the times Jake is victimized by racism or thinks consciously of racial oppression. At such times, Wright seems to view Jake as a Black victim, his case representative of all Black victimization. Donald Gibson: But for the most part, as when he wife slashed him in self defense at the end of the book or when he was robbed at the speakeasy, I call it, but I'm not sure that's technically true. I think that's a blind pig. We're likely to feel... A house party. Okay. We're likely to feel that he merely gets his just desserts. The element of the novel, its tone contrasts sharply with the ostensible intention of the novel. Had Lawd Today been written by a white writer, it would be seen at once as the most blatantly racist of novel. I cite, for example, the description of Jake dressing his hair and dressing to go out on that day. Donald Gibson: At the same time, the reader seems intended to recognize the rampant racism encountered by Black people, the inequities of capitalism and its relation to racism, the effects of these forces on the lives of particular individuals and the disparity between American ideals and actuality. Hence, Lawd Today is radical in its attack on American social institutions, but conservative in its rather traditional sense of manners and morality, the standard by which its characters are judged. The same paradox or dichotomy seems present in most of Wright's subsequent fiction though it takes different forms. Wright, the social and the political man, and Wright, the person, the discreet, particular, human individual were often not the same persons. Donald Gibson: His second novel, Native Son, is more explicitly political than Lawd Today in its direct and open attack on the shortcomings of the institutions of the society. It attacks and exploited its economic system, a judicial system geared to support the bigotry of the society at large, a communication system interested in expressing and sustaining bigoted attitude, a system of religion so other-worldly in its orientation as to be unrelated to facts of existence, a system of law enforcement who's primary task is to protect other currently existing institutions. Each of these works hand-in-glove with the others in sustaining the oppressiveness of the society. It is, of course, intended that readers will see that oppressiveness in operation and will, therefore, put forth effort to correct it. Donald Gibson: Just as we see Jake in Lawd Today functioning within a social framework inimical to his ends and aspirations, we see Bigger Thomas in a similar situation. Neither, of course, fully understands his relations to his environment. The difference between them, aside from minor considerations such as age, economic class and so forth, is the different in Wright's attitude toward them rather than in their essential characters. Whereas, Wright's attitude towards Jake is fairly consistent in the novel from beginning to end, his attitude toward Bigger undergoes a change, and that change is a barometer indicating the extent and limitations of the socio-political aspect of the novel. Donald Gibson: The beginning of Native Son differs markedly from the end in relation to tone, the attitude, which Wright expresses toward Bigger. During the first section of the novel, Wright deals with Bigger rather objectively. During the section section, less objectively, and during the third section, he deals with him subjectively from the inside rather than from the outside. To put this in another way, when Wright deals with Bigger as a sociological entity and describes through him the plight of the Black man in America, he sees Bigger as from a great distance. The more, specifically, human he becomes, the closer Wright identifies with him and the less objective the tone. Donald Gibson: Eventually, the prevailing tone of the first section is taken over by Max, who continues the socio-political level of discourse, especially during the courtroom scenes, and the voice of the writer tells us about the most significant thing going on in the novel, Bigger Thomas's increasing awareness of who and what he is and how he stands in relation to the forces operative around him. Now, the distinction I just made between Max and the author is not an entirely satisfactory distinction, for Max is just as much the voice of the writer inasmuch as he is controlled by the writer as any other perspective. Donald Gibson: The significant point is this, Max represents attitudes inseparable from the attitudes of the author. Indeed, Max is Wright's spokesman, but Wright is a complex man. Max does not say all Wright has to say. He says what Wright has to say on an ideological level, not what he has to say as an existential human entity, a distinction which Wright constantly maintains. The distinction was easily apprehended by those critics who read Native Son from a Marxist perspective when it was published and who are not entirely satisfied with what the book said. It has not been so complexly apprehended by those critics who have naively see Native Son, very naively after this conference. I don't think there's a single person at this conference who would say this. Those critics who have naively seen Native Son as a dramatization of Marxist values. Donald Gibson: The novel is not finally Marxist in perspective, even if we grant the truth and significance of Max's various orations. The things he says are indeed from a person identified as a Marxist, but many of the things he says might just as well have been from any liberal thinking person of a variety of different persuasions. A liberal of any kind might have thought, in most ways, as Max thought, but even this is not the most salient point. Even if we grant that Max's perspective is in essence Marxist, there still remains the fact that his perspective is in competition and conflict with that of Bigger Thomas. Max sees things, in large, social perspective. Bigger sees things in personal, private perspective. Which perspective is right? Donald Gibson: Of course, I'm touching on something here that I've talked about publicly before, but I don't mind doing it because it's in a somewhat different context. So I don't think I'm saying the same thing, precisely, that I've said before. Both perspectives are truly his, but given the two, Wright indicates in a number of ways that one is of greater ultimate significance than the other. The two are not mutually exclusive, thought they may not be entirely compatible logically. Each represents a different perspective, but the important thing is that Wright's greater weight of feeling is with one point at the end of the novel rather than the other. Donald Gibson: Specifically, if weight the perspectives at the end of the novel, if we assess the tone during the last pages, it is true that they are nearly balanced, but not quite. Bigger's voice is the weightier one. His perspective is the perspective of greater significance. It does not exclude the other entirely, but it looks at the world in quite other terms than the political, than the ideological. In support of my position here, I point to the author's simile describing one of the Max's actions during that final scene, "Max groped for his hat like a blind man." Donald Gibson: Black Boy may need justification for being included in a consideration of Wright's novels. This is neither the time nor place for that justification. Let me say simply that there are ample reasons, a number of things about the novel which invite its reading as fiction, despite its ostensibly autobiographical intention. Its form, its obvious shaping, its obvious kind of manipulation of Wright's past for the sake of putting forth a clearly conceived theme, these things suggest novelistic techniques, but I don't want to go further into that. In other words, I'm going to treat it as a novel. I'm not going to treat it as a novel, in a way, but I'm going to treat it as a novel only insofar as I include it in this treatment of novels. Donald Gibson: Black Boy is an extremely subtle blending of the subjective and the objective, the internal and external, the ideological and personal. The book obviously has a social purpose of a particular kind, and for that reason, is intended to be, I think quite clearly, a political instrument. The reader is intended to come away from the book with a deep knowledge of the effects of racism on personality, of the ways in which racism deeply effects personal and familial relations, of the pervasiveness of racism and of racism's total [inaudible]. Black Boy lays bare the bones of racism, revealing the extent to which its influence pervades the home, the church, the school, business, law enforcement agencies, indeed all facets of life, whether institutionalized or not. Donald Gibson: I believe it is difficult for the reader, sympathetic to any degree to the author's perspective, to come away from the book with less than this. The title of the book seems intended to suggest that the experience recounted there are representative of experiences encountered by all Black boys and, by implication, all Black people. Hence we are led to believe that the central character is intended to be represented here. We find that to be in large measure true, but in some very significant ways, it is not true, for the narrator of the life makes it quite clear that he is exceptional in his environment, that his case is indeed unique. This is the personal element of the book, and it, in effect, runs counter to the book's ostensible intention. Donald Gibson: The implication that Wright was the only person in his environment to resist the influence on him of oppression leads to some rather untrue, unpleasant and ahistorical conclusions, conclusions which Wright probably would not have intended to suggest. I'm sure that Black Boy was not intended to be a primmer, explaining why they are as they are, thought there are elements of the book which indeed imply this. The famous passage which Ellison quotes in his exchange with Irving Howell, for example, expressing the notion that Black people have missed the essential spirit of Western civilization. That passage stems from a mood and is contradicted by the narrator's description of the family who owned the rooming house he lives in when he goes as a young man to Memphis, but this also is consistent with that facet of the book which sees Black lives as entirely warped and without redeeming virtues. Again, I do not think that this was intended. Donald Gibson: The implication of the uniqueness of the narrator's life is only necessary because it describes a certain depth of character which would otherwise have been omitted. That is, had Wright written a life only from a socio-political vantage point, we would not have known, necessarily, the personality described so well. Every life, of course, is ultimately unique, but insistence on uniqueness minimizes the significance of representativeness. It is out of the book's revelation of the narrator's deepest personal reaction that we are given an extremely important clue about Richard Wright, for in its description of the narrator's inner life, the book reveals, first of all, a probable biographical analog to the element of personalism, of subjectivity found in so much of Wright's ostensibly political fiction. Donald Gibson: Black Boy reveals the roots of Wright's existentialism. If I read the earlier book, Native Son, correctly and from conversations with many of you during the week, whether it's correct or not, I think most people here would agree with it, and I think Black Boy makes that reading more credible, then the existential element of that book is as natural as air and right out of Wright's experience. The narrator learns to distrust everything and everybody, as he says, to rely upon his own sense of how things are, to believe only those things acceptable to his own sensibilities, his attitude toward religion, as expressed in the book, for example. Donald Gibson: For him, existence without doubt precedes essays. This further implies, as I've said elsewhere, that Wright's existentialism does not derive from his association with intellectuals and as Michele [inaudible] said, as well, but was instead homegrown right out of the American South. Since Marxism and existentialism are in so many ways incompatible, it is no wonder that Wright was never a very good convinced Marxist, but so much of his work should have been suspect by the party and that the personal apolitical element I've been discussing should have been so frequently in his most political fiction. Donald Gibson: The Outsider, the book generally recognized as being an existential novel, is an exploration of some of the implications of Native Son and Black Boy. In a narrow sense of the word, the novel is not so much political as anti-political, a repudiation, despite Wright's denial, of Marxism and Fascism as well. Viewed from the perspective suggested in this context, however, The Outsider is anarchistic in its implications, though the anarchic perspective seems to be rejected at the end in favor of a kind of humanism. The book has a number of racial implications, though it is less the book about race than any of Wright's books proceeding it. Donald Gibson: The novel relates to Native Son and Black Boy in its posting of a character, a Black man, who has rejected traditional systems of ethics and morality and who then explores through thought and action the implications of living beyond law and moral restraint. The impulse to reject pre-existent systems of value is perennial in what then Wright's psychology. In the past, if my line of argument is correct, that impulse has manifested itself as the expression of subject and private realities in opposition to codes or systematized beliefs. Donald Gibson: In this novel, no such opposition exists. The extent to which Wright is at one with his subject can be seen by assessing his attitude toward his hero. He is at one with him throughout the novel. As a matter of fact, the prior element of contradiction, Wright's personalism and individualism, as opposed to systematic belief, becomes part and parcel of the novel. The subject indeed with which it deals, Cross Damon, before he becomes an outsider, is of course an insider. He follows, generally, the codes of conduct, but... I'm having problems. Oh, this is terrible. I see a terrible error of diction here. When I write, I think of the world looking over my shoulder, and here I stand before you talking, I see this terrible, gross error of diction here. Well, at least you know you're listening to an honest man. Donald Gibson: He follows the codes of ... of conduct indicated by social institutions. Oh, goodness. And is thereby trapped within the confines of a difficult, unbearable life, imaginative and intelligent. He takes the opportunity to escape to throw off the burdens of institutional life. He changes his identity, as you will of course remember, murders a man who could betray him, escapes to another city and eventually becomes relatively free, an outsider. And bludging to that, both the fascist and the communist, he expresses his freedom from political ideology and morality. He is also an outsider because of the nature of the vision. Being Black and intellectual, he has special insights into the society because he at once a part of it, not a part of it and able because he is an intellectual to see the ramification of the situation. Donald Gibson: Though Wright intended the outsider to be non-political, that is, he said that he didn't intend it to be a political novel. The novel could not help but be political in that it is an about-face from a previous political commitment, however tenuous and incomplete that commitment was. The novel turns out to be very political in that it advocates, up to its final scene, a more [inaudible] repudiation of social organization than ever before. It puts forth a visionary element in that it projects, in Nietzschean fashion, the rise of a group of super-conscious men of such vision as to allow them to see things truly and straightforward. Donald Gibson: Theoretically, this would be, again up to the final scene of the novel, a good thing, for these men of vision could run things better than the myopic currently existing rulers, but this perspective pushes Wright toward fascism, and untenable position for him, yet the direction he moves in, in reacting against Marxism. The implications of this thesis are finally intolerable and, that is Wright's thesis not mine. Cross Damon's, world as sympathetic as Wright has been to him, begins to crumble. Damon's anarchy becomes terrible and terrifying in its consequences. Wright himself discovers, I think, that he's not so free as he thought he might be. He kills off Cross Damon and has him to repudiate his direction, as you will recall, "I wanted to be free to feel what living meant to me. I loved life too much." Houston asked, "What did you find?" "Nothing. The search can't be done alone. Never alone. Alone, a man is nothing. Man is a promise that he must never make." Donald Gibson: Now, consider what this means. Since early in life, Wright had recognized that institutions are not, in earnest nature, necessarily sustaining to the individual, to human life. By the time he was 16, he was fairly certain the the individual was likely not merely unsustained by institutions, but that they may indeed be arrayed against him. When he goes to Chicago and discovers Marxism, he discovers the possibility that institutions might be rearranged in such a way as not to be destructive of his particular life and personality and the lives and personalities of other people like him. He discovers, however, that the matter has essentially to do with rearranging institutions, not doing away with them, and his awareness of the racism of many of his Marxist cohorts causes him to hold back from any kind of total commitment to another institutional scheme. Donald Gibson: His faith and belief in himself allowed him to hold back, to believe that truth lies within its own awareness and sensibility, this, exclusive entirely, of institutional claims. The Outsider becomes, then, Wright's exploration of this very, very basic assumption. He exploration of the ramifications of that assumption led him not only to repudiate it but to fall back on humanism in response. Savage Holiday, then, becomes the logical extension of Wright's thought. It is not an anomaly, not a pot-boiler written simply to make money, or not only that in any case, if it were that at all. That novel takes Wright's thinking a step further into the last possible extension of subjectivism into the unconscious. Donald Gibson: It is not surprising that this novel should be raceless, but the socio-political implication should be minimized, for this level of experience, race, class, economic situation have no meaning or not distinguishing factors. Savage Holiday is, then, in a sense, and inversion of Native Son. Erskine Fowler, an inversion of Bigger Thomas. Erskine Fowler has everything. Bigger Thomas, nothing. Fowler, outside the realm of his safe, secure life, operates the motives entirely unconscious. Bigger is far more cerebral in comparison. The earlier book has a Marxist orientation. The latter, Freudian. Donald Gibson: My point here is that the two books are related, simply. Savage Holiday should be seen within the context of the whole corpus of Wright's fiction. Wright's last novel, The Long Dream, is not informed with any particular political ideology nor philosophical viewpoint. It is racial protest in that it shows in detail the corrupting influences of racism, the violence engendered by racism and the circumscription of Black lives by racism. Wright's primary concerns are two, to present the southern racial environment in such a way as to indicate its limitations and to reveal a character who grows up in that environment and has to deal with it. Donald Gibson: Hence, the novel is a character study focused on Fishbelly and showing his development from his earlier years. Because of this aspect of the book, Wright's interest in the character of Fishbelly, whom you will recall, he began to take into another novel and another environment, which for me, demonstrates his interest in the character as such. It seems that Wright was more interest in character as such than he had been since Black Boy. The two are, in many ways, quite similar. He shows in detail the relation between Fishbelly and his father, his relations with his friends, general experiences he had with both the racial and non-racial character. Donald Gibson: I get the sense from this novel that it's protesting edge is not as sharp as many of Wright's other works, and that might account for the response of the Black critics and reviewers when it was published who said that the book was not relevant in 1958. The protesting edge is not as sharp as in Native Son, for example, because of Wright's focus on character rather than on social environment. If this is true, then I think it might well be attributable to the differences in Wright's politics in 1940 and 1958. Native Son was intended to be a political weapon. The Long Dream seems considerably less so from a man still leftist in orientation but not as specifically involved politically. Donald Gibson: The question is such a difficult one because it is impossible to separate character and environment as they are delineated in the book. In any case, it seems clear that we may trace in Wright's novels and in his short fiction, as well, which for brevity sake, I have not dealt with here. This will only go on for two and half more hours. Trace in Wright's novels a line of development from a great concern of external reality to a lesser concern, from an objective concern to a considerably more subject interest. Donald Gibson: I use the qualifying terms more and less in order to suggest that Wright always, to some extent, saw things from both perspectives. His earliest novel begins with the Freudian image, you of course recall, of Jake dreaming of running up a never ending flight of stairs. And of course we discussed the interest in Native Son of the interest in the inner life of Bigger Thomas. The last novel, The Long Dream, has of course to do with a social environment, but Wright's great concern seems to be with the development of character, of a specific character within in that environment. Donald Gibson: The implications of this thesis are several. As Wright became less specifically political, his fiction became less political, as well. He of course did not lost his political interest. Rather, these are dealt with in his non-fictional work. The shift toward the subjective suggested in Native Son and developed thereafter, results in the implication that the most significant problems are ultimately those of a private, subject individual nature. No social or political system will save the individual. The individual must save himself. Donald Gibson: Needless to say, the non-fiction works suggest quite the opposite. More specifically, Wright's novels, as they become more subjective, become in that degree more politically conservative in their ramifications. We might ask, for example, what the meaning is of the shift in Wright's thinking indicated by the vision of traditional humanism at the end of The Outsider. What, then, conclusion should we come to when Wright disavows his feeling that man can act creatively outside the framework of social institutions? Is that not intended to suggest that man must indeed work within established institutions? Wright was unwilling and unable to accept that answer. So he's driven deeper and deeper into himself and climbed more and more towards the exploration of psychological problems. This is one of the reasons that Wright's later work has been so often seen as an indication of decline, as I suggested before. Donald Gibson: Critics did not want him... Some critics, I should say, did not want him to change from the social critic of Native Son. They read him as they had read the earlier Wright and concluded that he had failed. They were responding to something actually to be observed, Wright's diminished interest in the social, but their evaluations ostensibly aesthetic are political. One final observation. What I've said here should suggest that some modification needs to be made in the kind of comparison which Irving Howell and others have made between Wright and Ellison. The distinction between them is not as sharp as some suppose. Donald Gibson: Let me reiterate, in anticipation of questions, that Wright is a complex man, and I am speaking about him in relative terms. Wright, at his most subjective, never loses sight of the significance of the society. At his most objective, he rarely left out the subjective and the private element, but in terms of its major emphasis, I think it fair and accurate to say that his fiction, though not righted, moved to the right, a development not surprising if we consider the political dilemma Wright himself was in after his rejection of the communist party, and his inability and unwillingness to accept any other coherent political philosophy.