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Native Son by Richard Wright is a piece of literature that is meant to demonstrate how fear in the white community drives society to label blacks as dangerous, immoral, and subhuman. The main character, Bigger Thomas, embodies all of the preconceptions and secret fears that people associate with black Americans. He lies, he steals, he is violent, and by the end of the story he is a rapist and a murderer. The first time he is given an opportunity to improve his family’s life, he tries to adapt, but because of a turn of fate he has to throw his chances away. Bigger wants to evade all of the stereotypes of “people like him.” Eventually he realizes that he has become what everybody fears most: a nigger. His horrific crimes awaken the fears that the majority has against blacks, and they unleash a new wave of intolerance and oppression, which in turn creates more men just like Bigger. The story is set in post-WWII Chicago. Racism and segregation is a part of everyday life for Bigger. It is unspoken but everyone knows that blacks are only allowed to do certain things, while the whites keep their distance. A life of poverty and indifference has caused Bigger and his friends to become crooks, just as most people expect young black men to be. In order to enjoy simple entertainments like cigarettes and the cinema, Bigger’s crew has robbed from black-owned businesses many times. However, when a plan is made to steal from Blum’s...
The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worst attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point where they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous examples used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were.
“At the University of California at Irvine, experiments in rats indicate that the brain’s hormonal reaction to fear can be inhibited, softening the formation of memories and the emotions they evoke” (Baard).
Older and modern societies tend to have organized castes and hierarchies designed to encompass everyone in society. This is demonstrated in Richard Wright’s acclaimed novel, Native Son. The novel follows the life of a twenty year old African American man named Bigger Thomas, and his experiences living as a black man in 1930s Chicago, Illinois. Unfortunately, he commits two unlawful killings of women, mostly as a result of the pressure and paranoia that had been following him from a young age. He is tried and convicted of the deaths, and is sentenced to die as a result.
The theme that Native Son author Richard Wright puts in this story is that the white community makes Bigger act the way he does, that through the communities actions, Bigger does all the things he is accused of doing. The theme that I present is that Bigger only acts the way that he did because of the influences that the white community has had on him accepted by everyone. When Bigger gets the acceptance and love he has always wanted, he acts like he does not know what to do, because really, he does not. In Native Son, Bigger uses his instincts and acts like the white people around him have formed him to act. They way that he has been formed to act is to not trust anyone. Bigger gets the acceptance and love he wanted from Mary and Jan, but he still hates them and when they try to really get to know him, he ends up hurting them. He is scared of them simply because he has never experienced these feelings before, and it brings attention to him from himself and others. Once Bigger accidentally kills Mary, he feels for the first time in his life that he is a person and that he has done something that somebody will recognize, but unfortunately it is murder. When Mrs. Dalton walks in and is about to tell Mary good night, Bigger becomes scared stiff with fear that he will be caught committing a crime, let alone rape. If Mrs. Dalton finds out he is in there he will be caught so he tries to cover it up and accidentally kills Mary. The police ask why he did not just tell Mrs. Dalton that he was in the room, Bigger replies and says he was filled with so much fear that he did not know what else to do and that he did not mean to kill Mary. He was so scared of getting caught or doing something wrong that he just tried to cover it up. This is one of the things that white people have been teaching him since he can remember. The white people have been teaching him to just cover things up by how the whites act to the blacks. If a white man does something bad to a black man the white man just covers it up a little and everything goes back to normal.
A simple definition of the human psyche is the embodiment of the human spirit. However, when one takes a more in-depth look, it becomes much more complex than the tidy little package that the definition would infer. The psyche has a direct link to thoughts, emotions, reactions and consequences. Of these components, emotions have the most significant impact on the human essence. The way in which humans view and react to the world around them is directly linked to the conscious and subconscious feelings associated with a particular activating event. The human psyche is driven by a wide variety of emotions ranging from love, hate, anger, happiness, fear, and courage to name but only a few. Of these, fear has the power to disrupt the body and spirit in profound ways as it encompasses all emotions. Therefore, it is the strongest emotion associated with the human condition.
The book Native Son is about the segregation of blacks and whites in the 1940's. Bigger, the main character of this book, killed a white girl and was sentenced to the death penalty for it. The white prosecutors in the book tried to pin many other crimes on him such as rape, burglary, and other murders.
Native Son is unmatched in its power…It is not true as Baldwin claims that Bigger Thomas, the doomed, frustrated black boy, is just another stereotype…extreme in his wish to injure himself and do injury to others…
In The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky said, “…fear is simply the consequence of every lie.” Dostoevsky is stating how people are afraid of what will happen when their lie(s) is/are put out in the open. Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined. This line suggests that people are afraid of the truth, which inevitably is the consequence of every lie. Even though this quote was written by a 19th century author it can still relate to texts that were made centuries prior. Both Sophocles and Shakespeare’s plays support Dostoevky because both plays deal with the act of lying and its consequences as a major motif.
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.
Aristotle once said, “Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.” It’s generally known that fear is quite a motivator in any given situation. This is apparent in many real life situations such as the Red Scare or the Salem Witch Trials of 1962. Arthur Miller was a playwright victimized by McCarthyism in the Second Red Scare who related his experience to the Salem Witch trials. He was oppressed because he had Communist sympathies. In the midst of this oppression, he looked into the Salem Witch Trials and saw similarities to the Red Scare. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller shows his belief that humanity is driven by fear and self-preservation, often resulting in people abandoning their morals.
In the late 1930’s, the era the Native Son was written, African American men and women were considered outcasts and were constantly treated differently. They were not able to get the benefits and opportunities that white people had unlimited access to. They’re oppressed and were almost seen as worthless as dogs. African Americans could only handle so much of this discrimination, eventually some were pushed past their limit of control. In the story, of the Native Son, Bigger Thomas is seen as full of anger and hate. He let the discrimination get to him and he committed unforgiveable actions. He lost his control. In this paper I will look at how Bigger Thomas is treated in his social class and how these classes affected his actions.
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.
Intro: Summary, Thesis, Highlighting main points (Text to Text, Text to Self and Text to World) The tale of Native Son by Richard Wright follows the story of a young man by the name of Bigger Thomas who lives in the 1930’s. In the beginning of the story, we meet Bigger a young, angry frustrated black man who lives with his mother, brother and sister in a cramped apartment in New York. The story is narrated in a limited third-person voice that focuses on Bigger Thomas’s thoughts and feelings. The story is told almost exclusively from Bigger’s perspective. In recent years, the
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
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.