Educational Media Reviews Online

This installment in Discovery Channel School’s Great Books series explores Richard Wright’s 1940 novel Native Son. The program provides dramatizations of key scenes from the novel with expert commentary explaining its historical context and importance to American literature. Wright’s life story is also examined and connections drawn between Wright’s personal experience and novel’s themes.

Dramatizations bring to life pivotal scenes from the novel, including Bigger Thomas’s job interview with Mr. Dalton; his night out with Mary Dalton and her Communist boyfriend; Mary’s murder, and Bigger’s jailhouse conversations with his lawyer. Production values for these scenes are high; professional performances are enhanced by period costumes and settings, and dialogue is taken directly from the novel.

Wright biographers and scholars discuss Wright’s portrayals of racism and Communism in 1930s America, as well as violence in relationships between men and women. Commentators include professors Kenneth Kinnamon and Cedric Robinson, literary critic Maryemma Graham, Wright biographers Margaret Walker and Michel Fabre, novelist John Edgar Wideman, and Wright’s friend Remi Dreyfus.

Archival photographs and film are used to illustrate the story of Wright’s early life among Southern sharecroppers, his family’s move to Chicago’s South Side, his literary success, political activities and later life in Paris. Suspicions surrounding Wright’s death are briefly addressed.

Added features include a video index dividing the program into four sections; six “thematic units” addressing more specific topics; and a slide show of seven captioned images. A “teacher resources” option merely directs viewers to the teacher’s guide and to the Discovery School Web site.

The DVD contains material designed to assist classroom teachers, but could also be used by students for independent study. The program is highly recommended for middle school and high school libraries and instructors, and will also be useful in introductory college courses. Teachers should be aware that the program includes an archival photograph of a lynching and a dramatization of a rape and murder that some viewers may find disturbing.