![]() ![]() The Thomases are forced to live in a rat-infested kitchenette in the South Side of Chicago, where many buildings are owned by Mr. ![]() As readers of the novel already know by this point, the relationship between the Thomases and the Daltons is one of renter and owner. Indeed, during the 1930s, homeownership assumed a new importance, to such an extent that it “increasingly replaced ownership of productive property as an economic measure of freedom” ( Foner 209). Secondly, it is noteworthy that in addressing the issue of “public ownership,” the newspapermen refer specifically to houses. The passage thus serves as a reminder that Native Son was initially applauded as the culmination of “American social realism” or “American proletarian literature” ( Gold 40) together with John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. To begin with, Bigger’s reply that “I don’t own any property” leads readers to recognize that this twenty-year-old African-American man from Chicago is, by definition, a proletarian, namely, a working-class man with no property other than his own labor power. This conversation foregrounds three significant issues at the core of the novel. ![]()
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