Portrayal of the Father Figure in Reference to the Essence of an African Child’s Sense of Belonging in Richard Wright’s Native Son and Alice Walker’s the Colour Purple

Literature is a tool with which literary authors deliver an important lesson to the society. Therefore, his study sought the essence of an African Child’s sense of belonging in Richard Wright’s Native Son and Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple. The selected authors are contextualized in America but they are Africans through and through as far the essence of an African Child’s sense of belonging is concerned. This article captures: the portrayal of the father figure in reference to the essence of an African child’s sense of belonging in Richard Wright’s Native Son and Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple by starting with statement of the problem: literary works have endeavoured to demonstrate how humanity strives to belong somewhere or to some group but most especially to the human family in which they have been created. The literary authors suggest that belonging somewhere is the most prestigious thing that a human being can have in life. They equally declare that the worst gift that humanity could offer to membersof its community is to deny them and mistreat them. Psychoanalytic theory is justified by the fact that: the protagonists in the two texts suffered a lot in their family or society because of the lack of the essence of the sense of belonging. Due their suffering these characters were psychologically affected. The manner in which Richard Wright has portrayed Bigger Thomas enlightens the understanding of those who have been denied by the family members and societies. The study used this objective: To examinethe portrayal of the father figure in reference to the essence of an African child’s sense of belonging in Richard Wright’s Native Son and Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple: The father’s roles in African texts have an impact on the life of their children. The lack of the father in the family created several problems in the child’s life. All the problems encountered by the main characters were caused by the lack of the father figure in the family. Keywords: father figure,an African child, sense of belonging, Richard Wright’s Native Son and Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple