Richard Wright's 'The Long Dream' as racial and sexual discourse

African American Review, Summer, 1996 by Yoshinobu Hakutani

Yet the lack of depth some critics deplored was appreciated as socially authentic by others. Such reviewers as Redding and Ford considered the novel merely repetitious of what Wright had shown before, whereas others deemed Wright's racial discourse as developing and continuing in relevance. Roi Ottley argued that the novel presents "a social document of unusual worth," depicting lynching, police brutality, and a race riot in a Southern town (327). Writing in Best Sellers, another reviewer found value in Wright's depiction of black characters as amoral and as "interested in practically nothing but irregular but frequent sexual relations," although this reviewer cautioned that Wright blames this idiosyncrasy of black people "on the white people" (Kiniery 332). Still another reader compared The Long Dream with Native Son for its direct treatment of race problems, as well as with well-established social novels like An American Tragedy and The Grapes of Wrath (Shapiro 334).

What is implicit in much of the criticism The Long Dream has received is the perception that, even though the novel thrives on authentic details, its structure and characterization lack artistic merit. Most critics have accepted Wright's racial views in the novel as realistic and convincing, but found the ending of the book abrupt, because Wright allows Fishbelly, despite his emerging manhood, to remove himself from the African-American world, go to jail, and then flee to France in search of freedom and equality. What seems lacking at the crucial point in Fishbelly's development is his mental and physical toughness in battling against racism and achieving the independence of other Wright heroes such as Bigger Thomas and Cross Damon.(1)

To reassess The Long Dream would require a new approach - not to its social and cultural backgrounds, which are history and legend, but to Wright's construction of a unique discourse. It was especially important for Wright to express what he actually felt as a black youth growing up in the deep South. This subjectivity, which early critics of the novel overlooked, enabled Wright to develop the theme of miscegenation as personally felt experience for Fishbelly, rather than as the background for character development, as is the case in Native Son. For The Long Dream, Wright would construct a twofold discourse racial reality and self-portrait - unified on the strength of the sexual theme, for the taboo of interracial sex is the product of socio-historical environment and personal desire.

Although the title The Long Dream suggests that the novel is concerned with an unrealistic quality which Wright finds in Fishbelly's life, the book is based on solid facts and believable events. In fact, many of its episodes draw upon the young Wright as he is portrayed in Black Boy. Fishbelly does not come from a poor family, as Wright did, but both at an early age discover that their fathers are having extramarital affairs. Rejecting their home environments at a crucial point in their development, both seek an entirely new environment: For Fishbelly, it is another country, and Wright would go north. Although Fishbelly and Wright do not actually see lynching and castration, both hear about events that give their sexual initiation a traumatic impact. Fishbelly, in fact, witnesses the castrated body of his friend in his father's undertaking parlor.

In some aspects The Long Dream differs from Black Boy: Fishbelly tries to become a rich businessman like his father but gives up such an ambition in favor of seeking his own dreams, whereas Wright, a talented, precocious youth, tries to survive the racial oppression in the South but leaves there with an ambition to become a writer. The most important difference between the two books involves Wright's treatment of miscegenation, and this issue underlies Fishbelly's initiation into manhood. In Black Boy Wright's chief interest lies in the self-creation of an intellectual, and the discourse closely reflects the workings of a mind focused on the cultural, social, and political issues of the period. The Long Dream, on the other hand, deals with the self-creation of manhood by an adolescent, and much of its content is controlled by Fishbelly's sexual instincts. Fishbelly is determined to cross "the line that the white world had dared him to cross under the threat of death" (165). Because the prerequisite to his manhood constitutes his freedom of sexual relationship with the white woman, this white-imposed taboo emerges as the central problem in his life. The Long Dream thus becomes a discourse of miscegenation in which the white woman is used as a sign. At crucial moments in the discourse, the narrative voice conveys the angers, fears, and frustrations Fishbelly and other black boys feel, as well as the psychological wounds they suffer because of the taboo.

Thematically, The Long Dream focuses on Fishbelly's creation of himself through sexual initiation. Not only does the initiation mold his character, but the confrontation between the forces that buttress the sexual taboo and those that try to destroy it governs the structure of the novel. As the story begins, Fishbelly and his pals are enjoying pastoral scenes in the warm South, as they are in Black BOY and "Big Black Boy Leaves Home." In contrast to these works, however, The Long Dream features a protagonist who is not overjoyed with such an environment, for behind the tranquil surface of a Southern town lurks an unwritten law that prohibits black men from consorting with white women. Since this novel is replete with social and political details, some of which are swiftly provided, Wright's concentration on the psychological and overtly sexual implications of the taboo unifies the story. The unity is far more important to the effect of the story than to the racial views expressed by the characters, for the contentions of the protagonist and those of the white world are not only in direct opposition but irreconcilable. On the one hand, Fishbelly's achievement of manhood is expressed in terms of a long dream; on the other, his violation of the taboo means his death, a penalty meted out through the most inhuman means.