Richard Wright’s main character in Native Son, Bigger Thomas, was created by many different things, both inside the novel and in the real world. Throughout the novel Bigger’s actions reflect his many flaws that had resulted from his poor childhood. Bigger’s family, although they are around him a lot because of their small house, annoy him whenever they talk to him and he feels as though he does not have a close relationship with any of them, except his little brother Buddy who Bigger can tolerate. Bigger’s poor childhood and family background, poor education, and the many prejudices contributed to the main reason he became the man
Like Bigger, Adolf Hitler’s childhood seemed to lead to his need for power and his anger towards others at times. Unlike Bigger, Adolf had both his parents in his life, but where Bigger had little or no contact with his mother Adolf had both his parents, mainly his father’s, displeasure; which was usually followed by many harsh words and the occasional beatings. Although Adolf was the second oldest child in the Hitler household his brother “Alois had enough of this treatment and ran away from home, never to see his father again, putting young Adolf, age 7, next in line for the same treatment” (paragraph 11, Meier). After Hitler’s brother ran away from home his father’s anger and discontent seemed to fall onto little Hitler. Hitler’s father, after working as a civil service for 40 years, seemed to never truly leave his job, expected his children to obey everything that he said and if what he said had not happened, punishment soon followed. Hitler never liked his family in his youth, and everything they did pushed Hitler’s nerves. Hitler, like Bigger, did not like his family in childhood and seemed...
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...want to go through with robbing Blum’s store he tries his best to find a way out, and finds one by degrading Gus. Gus shows up late to their planned spot, Doc’s, and Bigger quickly attacks Gus. After kicking Gus in the back of the legs, Gus lowers his eyes and begins to walk away from Bigger; showing that Bigger already has power over Gus, yet not enough in Bigger’s eyes. Bigger suddenly grabs Gus and starts to choke Gus, not consciously thinking about it, then “Bigger’s hand moved so swiftly that nobody saw it; a gleaming blade flashed” (38, Wright). Soon after pulling the knife out Bigger begins to hear laughs from Doc and the others in the gang, so he decides to further humiliate Gus and make him lick the blade of the his knife. Bigger, like Stalin, uses fear in others to gain power and dominance, which shows that a Bigger could possibly live in today’s society.
In Richard Wright’s Native Son, Bigger Thomas attempts to gain power over his environment through violence whenever he is in a position to do so.
This week I read the short article on Alan Locke’s, “Enter the New Negro”. This article is discussing the Negro problem in depth. “By shedding the chrysalis of the Negro problem, we are achieving something like spiritual emancipation”. Locke believes that if we get rid of whatever is holding us back we would gain something renewing and beautiful.
This is evident by the impoverished living conditions Bigger, along with other African Americans in the 1930s, had to live in, the lack of opportunities offered to African Americans, and the racial oppression African Americans, including the ones mentioned in Native Son, had to endure for many years. One reason why Richard Wright proves that economic and societal hierarchies greatly affect those living at the bottom of those hierarchies is because the bottom class tends to take on the most damage for whatever unfortunate situation its country gets in. This is exhibited in the first book of Native Son, titled Fear. In the beginning of the book, the Thomas family lives in a one bedroom, rat infested apartment in Chicago. Bigger and his younger brother, Buddy, have to turn their backs every morning to not see their mother and young sister dress.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is the story of an African boy, Kek, who loses his father and a brother and flees, leaving his mother to secure his safety. Kek, now in Minnesota, is faced with difficulties of adapting to a new life and of finding his lost mother. He believes that his mother still lives and would soon join him in the new found family. Kek is taken from the airport by a caregiver who takes him to live with his aunt. It is here that Kek meets all that amazed him compared to his home in Sudan, Africa. Home of the brave shows conflicts that Kek faces. He is caught between two worlds, Africa and America. He feels guilty leaving behind his people to live in a distant land especially his mother, who he left in the midst of an attack.
The theme that Native Son author Richard Wright puts in this story is that the white community makes Bigger act the way he does, that through the communities actions, Bigger does all the things he is accused of doing. The theme that I present is that Bigger only acts the way that he did because of the influences that the white community has had on him accepted by everyone. When Bigger gets the acceptance and love he has always wanted, he acts like he does not know what to do, because really, he does not. In Native Son, Bigger uses his instincts and acts like the white people around him have formed him to act. They way that he has been formed to act is to not trust anyone. Bigger gets the acceptance and love he wanted from Mary and Jan, but he still hates them and when they try to really get to know him, he ends up hurting them. He is scared of them simply because he has never experienced these feelings before, and it brings attention to him from himself and others. Once Bigger accidentally kills Mary, he feels for the first time in his life that he is a person and that he has done something that somebody will recognize, but unfortunately it is murder. When Mrs. Dalton walks in and is about to tell Mary good night, Bigger becomes scared stiff with fear that he will be caught committing a crime, let alone rape. If Mrs. Dalton finds out he is in there he will be caught so he tries to cover it up and accidentally kills Mary. The police ask why he did not just tell Mrs. Dalton that he was in the room, Bigger replies and says he was filled with so much fear that he did not know what else to do and that he did not mean to kill Mary. He was so scared of getting caught or doing something wrong that he just tried to cover it up. This is one of the things that white people have been teaching him since he can remember. The white people have been teaching him to just cover things up by how the whites act to the blacks. If a white man does something bad to a black man the white man just covers it up a little and everything goes back to normal.
Born Sinner Aren’t we all sinners? We all have committed acts of violence at some points in our lives, and our answer we are human, we are wired that way or it is our instinct. People have a habit of hurting one another and it comes naturally to them. After reading Flight by Sherman Alexie, violence is a prominent theme throughout the novel. This idea of aggression is represented in many different ways, shapes, and forms.
“Blood Brothers” by Willy Russell Blood Brothers seems to have been set in the 1970s/80s around Liverpool. There is a lot about striking and major redundancies in it. Also about people moving "out of Liverpool" into the "country" ( Skelmersdale ), in order to provide better housing and better prospects for everyone. The social climate of the working class appears to highlight the differences between working and middle classes.
On April 20, 1889, Adolph Hitler was born to Alois and Klara Hitler in the city of Braunau on the border between Austria and Germany. By looking at Hitler’s early years, one is able to understand the events and conditions in his foundational years that developed both his personality and character. "His family epitomized the middle class in terms of income, assets, expenditures and standard of living."1 From the beginning Hitler’s parents feared that he would not survive his childhood because he was constantly sick. His mother gave him lots of love, to the extent of overprotection and indulgence. Hitler learned to take advantage of Klara’s concern for him. His father, on the other hand, took more of a distant role while Hitler was growin...
The book “A Long Way From Chicago” is an adventurous and funny story. The story takes place at Joey Dowdel’s Grandmothers farm house in the country. Joey and his sister Mary Alice were sent to their Grandma’s house during the summer because their parents had to go to Canada for their work. At first, Joey felt uncomfortable with his Grandmother because he had never met her before but eventually he got to know her and they became close friends.
Bigger is consumed with fear and anger for whites because racism has limited his options in life and has subjected him and his family into poverty-stricken communities with little hope for change. The protagonist is ashamed of his family’ dark situation and is afraid of the control whites have over his life. His lack of control over his life makes him violent and depressed, which makes Bigger further play into the negative stereotypes that put him into the box of his expected role in a racist society. Wright beautifully displays the struggle that blacks had for identity and the anger blacks have felt because of their exclusion from society. Richard Wright's Native Son displays the main character's struggle of being invisible and alienated in an ignorant and blatantly racist American society negatively influenced by the "white man".
Bigger Thomas as America’s Native Son. In the novel the Native Son, the author Richard Wright explores racism and oppression in American society. Wright skillfully merges his narrative voice into Bigger Thomas so that the reader can also feel how the pressure and racism affects the feelings, thoughts, self-image, and life of a Negro person. Bigger is a tragic product of American imperialism and exploitation in a modern world.
Hitler’s life was conflicted in so many ways, first his childhood , schooling, and political. hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Austria Hungary; his mother doted on him from the start, she already lost three children to disease and desperate for the fourth one to survive. Hitler would later boast that he was his mother’s darling (Price, 16). Adolf childhood was dominated by conflict with his father, Alois Hitler (Price, 17). At age 15 he was failing several subject in school. His teacher were fed up with him; he hated all his teacher except one, Dr. Leonard Poetsch was a fierce German nationalist (Price, 17). At age 16 Hitler dropped out of school (Price, 19). Hitler father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and work for the government (Price, 17).
In Native Son, Richard Wright introduces Bigger Thomas, a liar and a thief. Wright evokes sympathy for this man despite the fact that he commits two murders. Through the reactions of others to his actions and through his own reactions to what he has done, the author creates compassion in the reader towards Bigger to help convey the desperate state of Black Americans in the 1930’s.
The alienation of Bigger Thomas leads to his character development. He is primitive, fearful, and quick tempered because of the isolation and racism he faces. He is created by the society that he lives in; the environment surrounding him leads to his downfall. Bigger knows that he was dead from the day he was born, the “blind” people around him are either too fearful or ignorant to see it. He knows that what he has accidentally done can never be justified to whites; he wants to die knowing he is equal to his counterparts.
In his novel, Native Son, Richard Wright favors short, simple, blunt sentences that help maintain the quick narrative pace of the novel, at least in the first two books. For example, in the following passage: "He licked his lips; he was thirsty. He looked at his watch; it was ten past eight. He would go to the kitchen and get a drink of water and then drive the car out of the garage. " Wright's imagery is often brutal and elemental, as seen in his frequently repeated references to fire, snow, and Mary's bloody head.