Book excerpt: Racial oppression, the quest for freedom and the struggle for survival are the major aspects of African-American history. From the advent of the seventeenth century up to the twentieth century, African-Americans were exposed to various forms of oppression and discrimination that devastated their psyches and forced them to resort to escape mechanisms necessary for survival. Therefore, African-American writers, among whom Richard Wright (1908 - 1960) is a leading figure, have always been concerned with pinpointing the African-American predicament within the socio-political context of that history. The main objective of this book is to explore Wright's portrayal of the African-American predicament in the first half of the twentieth century and to psychoanalytically examine the impact of racial oppression on African-Americans, especially in Native Son (1940) and The Long Dream (1958).