Native Son Poem And Racism In Richard Wright's Orientalism

In his thesis for his book, Orientalism, Edward Said states that the existence of a subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture derives from Western culture 's long tradition of false and romanticized images of Asia. This same could be said about America’s prejudice against African-Americans and America’s tradition of false notions about the brutality of African-Americans. Richard Wright was determined to make his readers feel the reality of race relations by writing something so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears; his goal for writing Native Son, and his success. Wright created a character that rejected the domestic black life and instead actively plays

He comes from the lowest rung of the American social and economic ladder. Due to his lack of education he been relegated to menial labor, thus making him feel trapped the entirety of his life, resenting, hating and fearing white people who have defined the narrow confines of his existence. Bigger doesn’t view white people as individuals to fear, but rather a collective, overwhelming force that tells him what to do, where to live, where to work, etc. “’man’ has typically been, if not synonymous with “white,” then very closely aligned with it. Nevertheless, Wright seems to hold out some hope for a manhood unmarked by race. Native Son’s hero Bigger Thomas is one of millions “whose existence ignored racial and national lines” (Wright, “How Bigger” 446)” (Matthews 277). Said makes the same argument about Western society’s domination of Eastern cultures. He argues that much of the Western world’s study of the Islamic civilization was political intellectualism meant more for Europe’s self-affirmation, rather than for the objective intellectual questioning and academic study of the Easter cultures. Because of this, Orientalism functioned as a method of practical and cultural discrimination applied as a sort of imperial domination, claiming that the Western Orientalist knows more about the Orient than the actual Orientals. Western society only studied about the Orient so that they could lay claim that the Orientals living in their lands know more about their own history and cultures because they now live in a more educated world. Wright reiterates this argument in Native Son, where the whites have dominated the western society, claiming that they know exactly how the black culture functions and should function because they have been dealing with them from the beginning of America. Bigger is only a product of his culture, because the whites have created him to be the monster they expect him to be. This is the same though that