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. Bigger embodies one of humankind’s greatest tragedies of how mass oppression permeates all aspects of the lives of the oppressed and the oppressor, creating a world of misunderstanding, ignorance, and suffering.
The novel is loaded with a plethora of imageries of a hostile white world. Wright shows how white racism affects the behavior, feelings, and thoughts of Bigger.
“Everytime I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat…We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t…I feel like I’m on the outside the world peeping in through a knot-hole in the fence…” (20).
Bigger’s sense of constriction and of confinement is very palpable to the reader. Wright also uses a more articulate voice to accurately describe the oppressive conditions of a Negro person. An anonymous black cellmate, a university student cries out,
”You make us live in such crowded conditions…that one out of every ten of us is insane…you dump all stale foods into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere else…You tax us, but you wont build hospitals…the schools are so crowded that they breed perverts…you hire us last and fire us first…” (318).
Bigger’s sense of constriction by the white world is so strong that he has no doubt that “something awful’s going to happen to me…” (21).
Nowhere in this novel can the reader see a greater example of Bigger’s fear and sense of constriction than in the accidental death of Mary Dalton. The all-encompassing fear that the white world has bred in Bigger takes over when he is in Mary’s room and in danger of being discovered by Mrs. Dalton. This internalized social oppression literally forces his hands to hold the pillow over Mary’s face, suffocating her. Bigger believes that a white person would assume that he was in the room to rape the white girl.
Just as Max did in defending Bigger during his trial and inevitable conviction, Wright uses Bigger as an example for how African Americans have been treated. True, the vast majority of African Americans do not commit the awful crimes which Bigger has committed, but the crimes themselves, and in fact the details of Bigger's life are not really that important in the scheme of thin...
Bigger is a young black man living in the Southside of Chicago with his mother and two younger siblings. His family lives in a one room apartment, leaving little space for privacy. After being awoken by the sudden clang of an alarm clock, the Thomas’s start their day like every other before it. As the family is getting dressed a large rat runs into the room, causing chaos. Bigger trapped the rat in a box, giving it no way to escape. Looking at Bigger “the rat’s belly pulsed with fear. Bigger advanced a step and the rat emitted a long thin song of defiance, its black beady eyes glittering” (Wright 6). The fear that pulses in the belly of the rat is the same fear that runs through Bigger. Bigger is trapped within the physical walls of his run-down apartment and the city lines that the white society has put around the Chicago Black Belt. Bigger and the black community have no choice or way to escape. The confinement of these areas causes Bigger to feel confusion and anger towards those who have put him
Richard Wright introduces the main character in his novel, “Native Sun”, as a poor black man, named Bigger Thomas, living in the ghetto. In book 1 “fear”, I analyzed how Bigger lived and learned who his true character was. I also learned how he felt towards himself, family, and his friends. Bigger Thomas’ character is a very angry and violent person towards anyone who makes him feel afraid or out of place. Richard Wright uses imagery, sentence syntax, and symbolism to express how Bigger Thomas truly thinks.
Obstacles are opportunities in disguise. If a person is starving with only one sunflower seed, he/she has a choice to either plant the sun flower seed or to eat it. His obstacle is only having one sunflower, but his opportunity is to plant it. Women and men from urban areas are faced with these decisions everyday of choosing starvation v. assurance, mind v. matter, now v. forever. They are hit with harsh reality in some of the most severe ways, that the bad options can outweigh the good. Alternatively, there those who are hit, though they fight back. The obstacles of living in an urban environment, being faced with controversial experiences, and their relationships during their childhood are what shaped their character and possibly dictate
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.
people of different ethnicities. Such harm is observed in the history of North America when the Europeans were establishing settlements on the North American continent. Because of European expansion on the North American continent, the first nations already established on the continent were forced to leave their homes by the Europeans, violating the rights and freedoms of the first nations and targeting them with discrimination; furthermore, in the history of the United States of America, dark skinned individuals were used as slaves for manual labour and were stripped of their rights and freedoms by the Americans because of the racist attitudes that were present in America. Although racist and prejudice attitudes have weakened over the decades, they persist in modern societies. To examine a modern perspective of prejudice and racism, Wayson Choy’s “I’m a Banana and Proud of it” and Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Pretty Like a White Boy: The Adventures of a Blue-Eye Ojibway” both address the issues of prejudice and racism; however, the authors extend each others thoughts about the issues because of their different definitions, perspectives, experiences and realities.
Racial prejudices permeating society caused fear and hatred in the African American community, who knew they could be targeted for simply living their lives in a world in which the unequal balance of power favored the white community. Bigger Thomas understood
Cassie developed because of the alien invasion, the loss of her family, and Evan Walker. The alien invasion inspired and hardened her, the loss of her family made her skeptical, and Evan Walker showed her that not everybody is who they seem to be. She began as an average high school girl, but she became a hardened survivor. Throughout Rick Yancey’s novel, Cassie’s personality developed, and she gradually learned how to live in a world filled with
In Native Son the black population’s isolation from the whites plays a major role in Bigger’s development and viewpoint. He is placed at a great disadvantage by his race and is keenly aware of the unfairness of his situation. His isolation drives him to furious helplessness. He is confined to a small portion of the city where he feels the constant superiority of the whites. Everywhere he looks he can see their power. Whites own most of the
People being prejudice and racist have been a major issue in society. This causes people to commit crimes in order to receive justice. In Native Son by Richard Wright there is a lot of prejudice against the black community. In Book Two: Flight; we get a closer look at Bigger Thomas’s actions and thoughts after murdering Mary. With the amount of racism and stereotypes made against the black community it has forced Bigger to feel that the people around him are blind, making him feel powerful and him murdering Mary is justified.
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
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.
Oppression caused by the white community results to the actions committed by the blacks, one like watching one of their own suffer at the hands of the former. They don’t retaliate to correct the wrongdoings that the white had transgressed, to making a stop to all the tyranny. Although a black man standing his ground can call for dreadful things, this domination over them will remain permanent until something or someone ceases it. However, instead of trying to work on that objective, they engage in conflicts with each other. As Wright is asked by two people to witness a trial of an acquaintance, he tells them, “You claim to be fighting oppression, but you spend more of your time fighting each other than in fighting your avowed enemies” (368). Blacks, in some way or another, claim that nothing will stop the harassment, but they don’t fight this injustice; they just cope by comforting themselves by thinking it’s just how life goes. Blacks have a sense of hopelessness within them after an excessive amount of suppression done by the whites, in which the blacks don’t know what to do anymore with this predicament. They had lost the light in the tunnel, and gave up. On the other hand, Wright makes the readers know that fear exists within the black community, which was the result of countless incidents inflicted by the whites. They would rather spend their days engaging themselves in the black community’s problems, that wouldn 't matter in the long run, instead of coming to a compromise with the whites, or confront them at the least, for they are scared and had seen what the latter is capable of. Wright also wants them to see it from his perspective, that the manner they’re representing won’t solve anything. The mindset the blacks had established in regarding the oppression from the whites is not an effective method of eradicating it, rather they are letting the problem be, allowing it to develop and have its roots so
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.
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