The Long Dream (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Wright
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Naturalism
- Time of Work: The 1940’s and 1950’s
- Setting: Clintonville, Mississippi
- Principal Characters: Rex “Fishbelly” Tucker, Tyree Tucker, Emma Tucker, Tony Jenkins, Zeke Jordan, Sam Davis, Gloria Mason, Gerald Cantley, Harvey McWilliams
- Genres: Long fiction, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: African Americans, Racism, Murder or homicide, Police, 1940’s, 1930’s, Fear, Mississippi, Business or business people, Corruption, Dancing or dancers
- Locales: Mississippi
The Novel
The Long Dream is a combination of naturalistic writing and the Bildungsroman, or novel of initiation, concerned with the childhood and adolescence of Rex “Fishbelly” Tucker. Fishbelly is born into a life of comparative privilege and respectability but soon discovers that his father’s cooperation with the white authorities cannot protect him from the realities of the Jim Crow, or segregated, South. In a series of dramatic and psychologically revealing episodes, Wright illustrates, through Tyree Tucker and Fishbelly, his thesis that the life of a...
[The entire page is 2804 words long]
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