The Outsider (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Wright
- First Published: 1953
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: 1950
- Setting: Chicago, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Freedom, Communism or communists, Suicide, Murder or homicide, Escapes, 1940’s, Argentina or Argentineans, Existentialism
- Locales: New York, NY, Chicago, IL, Newark, NJ
Characters Discussed
Cross Damon, a black, intellectual postal worker in Chicago. Stifled by the middle-class restraints of his family responsibilities and his routine job, Damon, who has developed his ideas by reading existential philosophy, yearns to create an independent and more authentic existence for himself. A subway accident in which he is believed to have died provides him with the opportunity to abandon his job, girlfriend, and family. After murdering an innocent man to protect his secret, Damon travels to New York, assumes a new identity, and begins a life marked by...
[The entire page is 1400 words long]
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