Examples Of Blindness In Native Son

Blindness is the loss of sight, and it can be temporary or permanent, but can it be more complex than we know. Native Son was written by Richard Wright. It tells a story about a twenty-year-old man named Bigger Thomas, who is uneducated and black. He and his family lived in a one-room apartment on Chicago’s South Side during the 20th century. When given the opportunity to work for a wealthy, white family called the Daltons, he ended up murdering their only daughter, Mary. This murder was a result of blindness. Throughout Native Son, Wright revealed that blindness affects everyone who used stereotypes to view the people that is not the same race as them which usually leads to an unfortunate outcome. The three characters that display blindness

Dalton. After Bigger encounter with Jan, he went to the store and bought some writing materials. While walking to Bessie’s home, he saw a sign on a building where he decided that it will be the drop-off spot. Standing there alone, he thought to himself “Even though Mr. Dalton gave millions of dollars for Negro education, he would rent houses to Negros only in this prescribed area, this corner of the city tumbling down from rot.”(Wright 174) This quote reveals the irony in the way Mr. Dalton act. He thought he did the most he can do like donating millions. Mr. Dalton does not know that he only really helping the selected few instead of the whole community. His blindness was a result of thinking that he contribute greatly toward the black community instead his donation did not help the overall situation. It makes his contribution seem meaningless since he gets back more from the rental money of the blacks. Unknowingly, it was his actions that anger the blacks and many African Americans might consider him fake for acting all nice when he really is not. It was the stereotypes within society that created this blindfold and made Mr. Dalton blind forever making it a factor for the death of his own