The Outsider is Richard Wright's second installment in a story of epic proportions, a complex master narrative to show American racism in raw and ugly terms.

The Outsider appeared during the height of McCarthyism in the United States and the advent of the Cold War in Europe, two events that had a significant bearing on its initial reception.

When Cross is introduced (in "Book One: Dread") he is drinking too much, partly in an effort to forget his problems (of which he has many) but mostly to deaden the pain caused by his urgent and frustrated sense of life.

That rests in the senses... You might argue that you could snatch a life, blot out a consciousness and get away with it because you're strong and free enough to do it; but why turn a consciousness into a flame of suffering and let it lie, squirming...?Having rejected religion, the past and present organization of society, the proposed totalitarian alternative and the kindred uncontrollable violence of his own behavior as a "free" man, Cross abandons ideas and pins his last hope on love.

There follows a chapter in which the Law, personified by a hunchbacked district attorney who understands Cross Damon, convicts him of a crime and condemns him, but is powerless to give his life significance by punishment.

Wright, influenced primarily by German nihilism and his earlier involvement in the Communist party, condemns Marxism for its repression of individuality inherent in the structure of such group ideologies.

In essence, Wright describes the African American struggle as one inherently in opposition to society's constructs and violence and anger as a direct result of an upbringing rooted in racial oppression.

of early criticism aimed at The Outsider falsely regarded it as a form of existential propaganda and failed to effectively analyze the connection between Wright's life and experiences before the train accident and his subsequent violence.