Native Son Essay: Sympathy For Bigger

The reader of Native Son by Richard Wright should have some sympathy for Bigger because of the racist society he was born into and his continuous fear of himself and white people, despite the fact the he disguises his fear with anger and pride.
Native Son takes place somewhere in the 1930’s around the time where the Jim Crow Laws, segregation against African-Americans, was still present and the Chicago Housing Crisis, unreasonably expensive and unsanitized housing of African-Americans after a large scale immigration from the South to the North, was still in effect. One should assume that being an African-American male in the 1930’s would be extremely difficult not only for the person but for his family too. The Chicago Housing Crisis (1902’s-1930’s) has affected Bigger and his family because they live in poor living conditions for a great quantity of money with hardly any room for all four of them, which can seriously take a toll on someone. As for the Jim Crow Laws (1865-1965) African-Americans weren’t treated as equals to white people, so it creates this feeling of “We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t.” (Wright,20), which creates conflict,

Bigger experiences this fear of himself because of how society views black people as monsters and untrusting. If someone was hearing this everyday of their lives, one would most likely start believing that they are monsters, and start doing the thing the others believe they are capable of, like murder, robbery ,etc.. As for Bigger’s fear of white people it comes from the fact that it the past all white people were higher ups to black people, so when Bigger was with Mary his fear of getting caught with a white woman was so strong that it made him accidentally kill her. Murder is a grisly thing and his fear is still no excuse for what he did to Mary, but if one put themselves in his situation they would probably react in a similar