In the 1930’s, the black population in Chicago was a minority. Blacks, even though they were “free men”, were actually trapped within the grasps of white society. Richard Wrights character Bigger is very much influenced by this way of life. In the early stages of Native Son, Bigger is angry at white society because he feels that he is powerless. However, as the novel progresses, the tables turn and Bigger, essentially, holds all the power. In the early pages of Wrights novel, Bigger Thomas’s fear and anger with white society is evident. In a conversation with his friend Gus, Bigger says: But I just can’t get used to it. I swear to God I can’t. I know I oughtn’t think about it, but I cant help it. Every time I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat. Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things we ain’t. They do things we can’t. Its just like living in jail. Half the time I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping through a knot-hole in the fence . . .” (Wright, 20) The quote shows Bigger’s apparent frustration with the way he is forced to live. He fears whites, and thus, feels trapped in a way of life and unable to make any sort of change. Bigger often acts out of fear. This is much the case when he accidently kills Mary Dalton, the daughter of the family who has recently employed him. Mary’s death is more then just a vicious murder, however. Her death gives Bigger something that he has always wanted and never had; power. Momentarily Bigger is free of fear and feels equal to the white society. Because he could go now , run off if he wanted to and leave it all behind, he felt a cirtian sense of power , a power born of a latent ca... ... middle of paper ... ...e in his life, Bigger stands up to a white person with out fear. When the white police say they will force him, he responds by saying “You can’t make me do nothing but die!”(Wright 336) Bigger Thomas is finally on a level playing field with white society. Something he has what he has always strived for. Native Son shows the twists and turns of Bigger Thomas’s journey from an essentially abandon and forgotten black life to one that is equal to that of a white. Bigger begins his journey as any other black man, one that is filled with fear of the white society. Ultimately, Bigger overcomes his fear of whites when he realizes that he has taken something from them and they can’t ever get that back. Bigger goes on an incredible journey that unfortunately cost two women their lives, but in the end, gave blacks a very slight edge up toward equality with white society.
The first expression of Bigger’s desire for power comes in the opening scene of the book in which Wright sets the precedent for Bigger’s actions. In the opening scene, the Thomas family discovers a black rat in their apartment, and it is Bigger’s task to take care of it. Bigger kills the rat, and through this action, he asserts control over the disturbance of his environment. Though he dominates one annoyance in his environment, he is not yet satisfied; he needs to have control over his family as well. In his quest to gain control over his family, he takes the dead rat and dangles it around Vera’s face to scare her thus putting him in control. Bigger’s act of waving the rat is not a physically aggressive action, but it still constitutes violence because it is an unjustified assertion of force. Bigger is not satisfied that he only has control of Vera, however. Next he must control his mother, which he does by not responding when she asks him to help Vera to bed. Bigger only obeys after the second time that his mother tells him to act, which demonstrates that he decides what he does and when he does it, as opposed to his mother’s doing so. Thomas’ reasons for pursuing his control are the same ones that he has for killing Mary; he must have power over any oppressive structure that he can. His mother is oppressive in the way that she seeks to limit him through rules, forcing him to get a job, and commanding him to act. Bigger’s mother even prohibits him from forming any self-identity because she alters other people’s perception of Bigger. When Bigger refuses to obey his mother she calls...
They deal with rat infestations, eviction, and poverty day by day. As the story goes on, Bigger’s mother constantly nags him about getting a job, and providing for his family. This causes Bigger to hate his family and hate his life because of the fact that they are so poor, and he can’t do anything to help them.
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.
Max plays the role of a spokesman for Richard Wright. Unlike others, he considers the humanity in Bigger and sees him for what he is rather than a black man and/or a murder. Considering this, Bigger is open to Max and tells his side of the story for the first time. Moreover, because of Max’s understandment, Bigger sees that it is indeed possible for a black and a white man to have a sympathetic relationship.
“Notes of a Native Son” is faceted with many ideas and arguments. The essay begins with Baldwin recounting July 29, 1943. The day his father died and his mother bore her last child (63). Baldwin shares his fathers’ past and of the hate and bitterness that filled him and how Baldwin realizes that it may soon fill him also. Baldwin spends the rest of the essay mostly analyzing his experiences and the behavior and mentality of his father, of whom he seemed to dislike. He comes to the conclusion that one must hold true two ideas: “. . . acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is and men as they are: in light of this idea... injustice is...
Richard Wright’s “Big Boy Leaves Home” confronts a young black person’s forced maturation at the hands of unsympathetic whites. Through his almost at times first person descriptions, Wright makes Big Boy a hero to us. Big Boy hovers between boyhood and adulthood throughout the story, and his innocence is lost just in time for him to survive. Singled out for being larger than his friends, he is the last to stand, withstanding bouts with white men, a snake, and a dog, as we are forced to confront the different levels of nature and its inherent violence.
In Darryl Pinckney’s discerning critical essay, “Richard Wright: The Unnatural History of a Native Son,” Pinckney states that all of Wright’s books contain the themes of violence, inhumanity, rage, and fear. Wright writes about these themes because he expresses, in his books, his convictions about his own struggles with racial oppression, the “brutal realities of his early life.” Pinckney claims that Wright’s works are unique for Wright’s works did not attempt to incite whites to acknowledge blacks. Wright does not write to preach that blacks are equal to whites. The characters in Wright’s works, including Bigger Thomas from Native Son, are not all pure in heart; the characters have psychological burdens and act upon their burdens. For instance, Bigger Thomas, long under racial oppression, accidentally suffocates Mary Dalton in her room for fear that he will be discriminated against and charged with the rape of Mary Dalton. Also, according to Pinckney, although the characters of Wright’s books are under these psychological burdens, they always have “futile hopes [and] desires.” At the end of Native Son, Bigger is enlightened by the way his lawyer Max treats him, with the respect of a human being. Bigger then desires nothing but to live, but he has been sentenced to death.
The effects of racism can cause an individual to be subjected to unfair treatment and can cause one to suffer psychological damage and harbor anger and resentment towards the oppressor. Bigger is a twenty year old man that lives in a cramped rat infested apartment with his mother and 2 younger siblings. Due to the racist real estate market, Bigger's family has only beat down dilapidated projects of south side Chicago to live in. poor and uneducated, bigger has little options to make a better life for him and his families. having been brought up in 1930's the racially prejudice America, bigger is burdened with the reality that he has no control over his life and that he cannot aspire to anything more than menial labor as an servant. Or his other option which are petty crimes with his gang.
We are black and white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping in through a knot-hole in the fence.” (20).
This vacant self esteem Bigger embodied correlates to the explanation of racism on the black psyche, in The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B DuBois, “One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (2) hencing towards Bigger being still one person but having, two separate wandering lwanderingost thought processes, thisthat resulteds in him not being able to interact with others and unable to comprehend himself. Bigger’s life is drowned out with the sense of finding himself, yet unfortunately in order for him to have found that out he had to take the lives of two innocent women. He had no time to rejoice this realization due to the fact that his life would be cut short from the death penalty. “The perception of racism could lead to such emotional responses as anger, anxiety, sadness, or hopelessness, and to behavioral responses that including externalizing disruptive behavior” (Nyborg and Curry 209) Clark et.al., 1999) thiswhich shows in Bigger’s behavior especially anger towards himself and his surrounding
“Who was the most racist in that situation? Was it the white man who was too terrified to confront his black neighbors on their rudeness? Was it the black folks who abandoned their mattress on their curb? … Or was it all of us, black and white, passively revealing that, despite our surface friendliness, we didn’t really care about one another?” He never blames the black neighbors for their disregard of the mattress because their black, but sounds aware of the stereotyping and how he comes off addressing it. He also knows how much he stands out in the community as a minority, wondering what the cops would say to him, “ ‘Buddy,’ the cops would say. ‘You don’t fit the profile of the neighborhood.” Despite his pride in his actions of disposing of the mattress, the mistreatment by his black neighbors comes off as an unfortunate, but expected, consequence, “I knew the entire block would shun me. I felt pale and lost, like an American explorer in the
Bigger’s last moments of freedom was when he was running on the roofs of apartment buildings. It was very cold out that night and a lot of snow on top of the buildings. Before he was running, he was in the trapdoor and had heard a lot of noises, footsteps, shouting, and it was getting him nervous. He was about suicide but his pride got in the way. When he came to the last ledge their was no more roofs.
The simplest method Wright uses to produce sympathy is the portrayal of the hatred and intolerance shown toward Thomas as a black criminal. This first occurs when Bigger is immediately suspected as being involved in Mary Dalton’s disappearance. Mr. Britten suspects that Bigger is guilty and only ceases his attacks when Bigger casts enough suspicion on Jan to convince Mr. Dalton. Britten explains, "To me, a nigger’s a nigger" (Wright 154). Because of Bigger’s blackness, it is immediately assumed that he is responsible in some capacity. This assumption causes the reader to sympathize with Bigger. While only a kidnapping or possible murder are being investigated, once Bigger is fingered as the culprit, the newspapers say the incident is "possibly a sex crime" (228). Eleven pages later, Wright depicts bold black headlines proclaiming a "rapist" (239) on the loose. Wright evokes compassion for Bigger, knowing that he is this time unjustly accused. The reader is greatly moved when Chicago’s citizens direct all their racial hatred directly at Bigger. The shouts "Kill him! Lynch him! That black sonofabitch! Kill that black ape!" (253) immediately after his capture encourage a concern for Bigger’s well-being. Wright intends for the reader to extend this fear for the safety of Bigger toward the entire black community. The reader’s sympathy is further encouraged when the reader remembers that all this hatred has been spurred by an accident.
“Native Son” is a novel written by Richard Wright that portrays a story of a 20 year old African- American, Bigger Thomas that takes place during 1930’s in Chicago’s South Side. Bigger and his family, that consists of his mother, his younger sister and brother named Vera Thomas and Buddy Thomas, live in a one room apartment in poverty with rats running around. Bigger and his group of friends plan to rob a white, rich man named Blum, but Bigger bails out when he thinks that he can have a better life if he takes a job that a rich man, Mr.Dalton offered him. Bigger is now a chauffeur for the Dalton family and he is the driver of Mr. Dalton’s daughter, Mary Dalton. Bigger goes out with Mary and her friend, Jan and they all drink. However, Bigger
Bigger often finds himself lashing out as a way to handle his own fear. He is afraid of not being able to help his family enough and so treats them harshly, holding “toward them an attitude of iron reserve” (10). He is afraid of holding up Blum, a white man, and so projects his own fear onto Gus. He berates him for it, calling him “‘yellow’” when he hesitates to take the job (26). Bigger has been so psychologically beat down in his own community and trained to believe that he is a lesser person that he even feels the need to get ahead amongst his own friends, fighting Gus to “feel the equal” of him (41). Yet his anger still translates most directly to the white people whom he blames for it. He describes the deep and "inarticulate hate" he feels toward Jan and Mary but cannot place the immediate cause of it. This is the partial and subconscious reason that Bigger kills Mary (67). For the first time, Bigger feels a semblance of control over his situation and over the white world that Mary represents in that moment. However, Bigger also knows very consciously that if he is discovered in her room he will be accused of rape just for being black, and so he knows his only option is to make sure he isn’t discovered. In this way, though it was not entirely on purpose, the violent act of suffocating Mary comes about as a result of Bigger’s