Native Son Fear Quotes

Native Son, written by Richard Wright in a naturalist lens, is novel about an impoverished, ignorant black male, called Bigger Thomas whose life goes in downward spiral after he kills Mary Dalton, the daughter of the millionaire, white family he works for. Naturalists, like Wright, believe that people do not have agency over their lives and society, so their outcomes are predetermined. This novel is set in the city of Chicago in the late 1930s, where segregation laws divide the blacks and whites, and give the blacks fewer opportunities than the whites. Book One of Native Son, called Fear, is about Bigger’s growing fear and anger towards society and how that affects the way he acts toward the people around him. One night, Bigger and Mary came home drunk. Bigger seduced Mary, but with the blind, observant Mrs.Dalton nearby at the time, Bigger had to silence Mary with a pillow in order to save his job.

We used our two quotes effectively because they clearly showed that Bigger had a choice and that the actions that led to Mary’s death were not triggered by society. We were also very prepared and successful in refuting our opposing team’s arguments. Something that could have strengthened our argument would be mentioning society, and how its laws didn’t have an affect on Bigger’s decisions at that time. Moreover, we could have came up with better questions to weaken our opposing team’s arguments. My opposing team, on the other hand, were ready with questions and did have strong arguments that were backed up by the text and real world facts. To improve on their argument, I believe they could have explored more sides of how society was involved and make their statements less easily refutable. In conclusion, I believe my team was somewhat successful in challenging my opposing team’s arguments because we could still strengthen our argument to make it more evident that my team won the