A dissertation submetted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree "Licence en Langue et Littérature Anglaises".

This work aims at portraying and discussing Richard Wright's characters in Native son. It attemps toshed light on how cahracters of the novel under study cope with the racial segregation that characterized teir society. It uses characterization to explore the effects of racial segregation in the post depression era in the United sates. the wOrk Is based on the presise that both the protagonist are victims of the consequences of the segregated society in wich they live. Bigger Thomas, the protagonist, is discribed as a prototye of many blacks living a life of alienation in tha United Sates. His family members and his girlfriend bessie are victims of racial oppression. Moreover, the white community is also subject to consequences of racism as it is demonstrated through the Dalton's alert after the loss of their lone dauhhter Mary Dalton. New Historicism approach centers the discussion in this work in the sense that the production of a text is invariably connected to the economic, political, and cultural interest of the people involved in producing it. In brief, there is trust to know why people who oppress others fail to guess the consequences of teir acts on both the oppressor and opprssed.