Native Son Segregation

In “Native Son” by Richard Wright, Bigger Thomas is a black 20-year-old man whom throughout the novel becomes a murderer. The way in which Bigger Thomas’ fate was set-up power and privilege is shown, which is why I chose the question “How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?” The novel was set up in the 1930’s, a time where racism and segregation was still very prominent, and Bigger was perceived as the stereotypical “black man” who was incompetent, barbarous, and illiterate. As a matter of fact, his whole social group was degraded to such low standards in society. The segregation between whites and blacks was evident, and it played a large role in the novel. Also, the use of language in the novel magnified the discrimination in the text, and inflicted a pitiful mood on the readers that added on to the reason behind the representation of Bigger’s social group.

The African-American race was completely and utterly discriminated against, and that was due to the time frame in which the novel was written in as well as the mood it was supposed to inflict upon its readers. The time frame of the novel being the 1930s, when racism was still very prominent, gave reason for the verbal abuse in the novel. The blacks and whites were still segregated, and obviously the blacks were looked down upon. From the beginning of the novel the way blacks were perceived was made clear, they were illiterate, and extremely dangerous, all of this was made clear through verbal abuse towards Bigger throughout the novel. Even Bigger’s mother referred to him as an incompetent stupid “nigger”, and wherever bigger went he was stared at, and if there was a white person near him complete terror flowed through their body. All of the verbal ab...

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... and his entire social group from the beginning created the whole conflicted mood of the novel.

The main point is for the novel to bring out some conflicted emotion from the reader. For the reader to feel indecisive about Bigger, whether he was a victim of racism and discrimination, and that is what led him to become a murder or if he was just some psychotic killer who blamed ignorance and racism for his way of being. Whichever way the novel is looked at emotion is brought out, the reason behind the representation of the social groups is shown. Language played a key part of the whole process, if it wasn’t for Wright setting the stage by using harsh discriminative language at the beginning of the novel the effect of emotional conflict wouldn’t of shown through, but since he did represent Bigger and his social group in a racist fashion his objective was conveyed.