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Richard Wright believed that all humans are a product of their environment and when this environment oppresses any member, there is physical and psychological devastation (Wright, 1940, p. 6).” The ghetto, though no longer assumed to create pathological social conditions today did, however aid in the pathological, or deviant behavior of many African Americans in the late nineteenth century. Some psychologists would argue that, the ghettos of today in the United States do in fact still have devastating impacts on African American youth. In Wright’s novel, The Native Son, the protagonist, Bigger Thomas and his single mother, younger brother and sister reside in a one-bedroom apartment in Chicago’s South Side Black Belt. Throughout the course of the novel, it is evident to the reader that Bigger’s …show more content…
Fears of Jewish encroachment in certain economic spheres “forced” Venetian rulers to expel Jews from the city into the ghetto. Many Jews moved to the ghettos because they faced persecution in their communities and anti-Semitism (Weiner, 2000, p.2). Similarly, due to the social and economic effects of the Great Depression, many African Americans fled the South to the North in an attempt to escape poverty, predjudice, and racial discrimination. The Great Depression was a economic downfall in the history of the United States between WWI and WWII. In an attempt to escape intolerable living conditions, and clinging to the hope of a “brief glimpse of post-Civil War freedom (Wright, p.7)” many blacks fled the South and landed in the Midwest area (Illinois or Kansas) where those states held mixed arbitrary signals torn between pro and antislavery faction. In The Native Son, Wright presents Bigger’s boss Mr. Dalton as epitomizes gives money for social welfare while simultaneously owning a rat-infested housing apartment in which Bigger and his family
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 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.
The life of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son is not one with which most of us can relate. It is marked by excessive violence, oppression, and a lack of hope for the future. Despite this difference from my own life and the lives of my privileged classmates, I would argue that Bigger's experience is somewhat universal, His is not a unique, individual experience, but rather one that is representative of the world of a young black man. If Bigger were alive today, perhaps he would be a “Gangsta Rapper” and express his rage through music instead of violence.
Out of bitterness and rage caused by centuries of oppression at the hands of the white population, there has evolved in the African-American community, a strong tradition of protest literature. Several authors have gained prominence for delivering fierce messages of racial inequality through literature that is compelling, efficacious and articulate. One of the most notable authors in this classification of literature is Richard Wright, author of several pieces including his most celebrated novel, Native Son, and his autobiography, Black Boy.
Racism has existed through the world for centuries and has been the primary reason for numerous conflicts, wars and other human tragedies all over the planet. From 16th to 19th-century blacks were taken from their homes and families and taken for the slave trade. They were often overworked, beaten and killed. Being black was not the best thing you could be in 1950’s. Racism is not something that is inborn, it is what people created. In the article, “We’re all racist. But racism by white people matters more”, Mona Chalabi says “I don’t think white people are born with some sort of racism gene – the main thing that explains those different scores is the way that society has geared up our brains differently.” It is our society that is ignorant,
"Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man. I asked myself if these human qualities were not fostered, won, struggled and suffered for, preserved in ritual from one generation to another." This passage written in Black Boy, the autobiography of Richard Wright shows the disadvantages of Black people in the 1930's. A man of many words, Richard Wrights is the father of the modern American black novel. Wright has constituted in his novels the social and economic inequities that were imposed in the 30's in hope of making a difference in the Black Community. His writing eventually led many black Americans to embrace the Communist Party.
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.
The twentieth century was a time of tremendous change that commenced with WWI and the Great Depression. While WWI brought countless deaths, the Great Depression affected both urban and rural Americans. Yet, underlying these devastating events was the abuse of black Americans. Both whites and blacks had to cope with the major occurrences of the time, but blacks also faced strife from whites themselves. During the early part of the twentieth century, white Americans Russell Baker and Mildred Armstrong Kalish gained kindred attributes from their families, especially in comparison to that of Richard Wright, a black American. The key differences between the experience of whites and blacks can be found within the mentality of the family, the extent to which they were influenced by their families in their respective lives, and the shielding from the outside world, or lack thereof, by their families. Through the compelling narrations of these three authors, readers can glimpse into this racially divided world from the perspective of individuals who actually lived through it.
Native Son written by Richard Wright, is a novel that is set in the 1930’s around the time that racism was most prominent. Richard Wright focuses on the mistreatment and the ugly stereotypes that label the black man in America. Bigger Thomas, the main character is a troubled young man trying to live up the expectations of his household and also maintain his reputation in his neighborhood. Wright’s character is the plagued with low self esteem and his lack of self worth is reflected in his behavior and surroundings. Bigger appears to have dreams of doing better and making something of his future but is torn because he is constantly being pulled into his dangerous and troublesome lifestyle. 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 families’ 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".
The Great Migration was the movement of two million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Midwest, Northeast and West between 1910 and 1940. In 1900, about ninety percent of African Americans resided in formed slave holding states in the South. Beginning in 1910, the African American population increased by nearly twenty percent in Northern states, mostly in the biggest cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland. African Americans left the rural south because they believed they could escape the discrimination and racial segregation of Jim Crow laws by seeking refuge in the North. Some examples of Jim Crow laws include the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks (“The History of Jim Crow). In addition, economic depression due to the boll weevil infestation of Southern cotton fields in the late 1910s and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 forced many sharecroppers to look for other emplo...
When the newcomers came to the north and west Starling, Gladney, and Foster it wasn’t a warm welcome. Wilkerson says that often when immigrants from the southern states came to the north or west mostly people closed the door on them and didn’t want to help. It a long time for them to find there place in major cities of the North and West, but southerners who stayed end up finding their way using elements of the old culture with the new opportunities in the north. Also traveling to the newer states wasn’t easy for African Americans. They usually traveling by train, boat or bus. And it was very dangerous to travel because of the gas station your able to stop at and even stop to get food. Also the long trips ahead. You would never know what troubles would be head of the journey. Typically once the black citizens arrived in the state it was hard to settle and to find a job with leak of skills. Like Ida Mae husband George ended up hauling ice up flights of stairs in cold Chicago and Ida Mae did domestic jobs before finding a decent job. Wilkerson also states that it took them a long time before really get settled in an affordable home in south side of Chicago. Then the journey to south was not cheap to make it far so many African Americans took in mind that having money before leaving would be the
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.
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 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 life of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son is not one that most can understand. It is stamped by ruthlessness, mistreatment, and a future that is not looked forward to. Richard Wright uses Bigger Thomas as a fundamental character in Native Son. Bigger is also the center focus of the story, was made to be a stereotype and an example of the impact of prejudice on the mental state of African American people living in Chicago during the 1940s. Coming from the background he came from Bigger really was more likely to fail than to be successful. Bigger was born into poverty, on the south side of Chicago, and being a black hurts him even more in such a racist environment. Richard Wright places Bigger in a stereotype role that white society see black men as Wright uses this role to show that this Bigger was not born this way, but it is a racist society that has made him this way. This can be seen because like most people Bigger wanted to be able to provide for his family, put them in a nice home, and he hated that he could not. He also wanted a career and in his case as a pilot. This is the reason Wright names his book “Native Son”, to show readers that Bigger was born and raised in the United States making him a Native Son of the United States. Being a native son Bigger is going to be greatly influence and effected by his environment and the ways of society which is the argument of his attorney that this is what society gets because they mistreated him put fear into him and this is the sum of their equation.