Native Son Adaptation

“Native Son” composed by Richard Wright was revolved into an American drama picture in 1986 by director Jerrold Freeman. This piece caused a lot of controversy on whether the protagonist, Bigger Thomas, is guilty or innocent in the unfortunate events that have occurred. The purpose of this argumentative essay is to examine Richard Wright’s film adaptation of Native Son and prove his innocence based on how society deceived and deprived African Americans, his living and social environment, and his fears.

Many times in novels, authors will use conflicts to strengthen the plot and to give more depth to the story that they are penning. There are four main plot conflicts that authors have to choose from: man versus nature, man versus society, man versus man, and finally, man versus self. Authors, many times, will use only one or two of these conflicts but in the novel, Native Son, all four conflicts are used to some extent. In this novel, Richard Wright, does a superb job of meticulously blending all four conflicts together to form a well-rounded novel about a black man in 1920 's Chicago.

Both Richard Wright of “Native Son” and Toni Morrison of “Beloved” identify the brutality and violence of the racial discrimination of American community. Beloved is more force, disastrous human rights, and most of all destroying the family, but Native Son has less violence and control toward black people but still see them as slaves and treat them unfairly. Wright’s shows that even though that slavery ended, white people will never see us as equals and will never get the respect that they deserve. In the book beloved it says “ white people thought that in

In his most famous novel, Native Son, Richard Wright's female characters exist not as self-sufficient, but only in relation to the male figures of authority that surround them, such as their boyfriends, husbands, sons, fathers, and Bigger Thomas, the protagonists. Wright presents the women in Native Son as meaningless without a male counterpart, in which the women can not function as an independent character on their own. Although Wright depicts clearly the oppression of Blacks, he appears unconscious of creating female characters who regardless of race, are exploited and suppressed. Their sole purpose in the novel is to further the story by putting Bigger in new and more dangerous situations by

Wright implies, suggest, and even says that Bigger Thomas is an embodiment of the black revolt against the injustices of white caste society and that this revolt often takes the form of crime against this same white society. Borne into a white society, hostile and indifferent, Bigger becomes the total embodiment of that city hatreds and prejudice against the black man.

In the 1986 film adaption of Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, the director presents the following question: can those who suffer from Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome go insane after years of oppression? That is the question that must be answered in the case of 19-year-old Bigger Thompson, who is accused of murdering Ms. Mary Dalton. The purpose of this essay is to examine Richard Wright’s film adaptation of Native Son, and Bigger’s innocence regarding ethos, pathos, and logos.

Richard Wright, wrote the fictional novel Native Son, using three intellectual forces, which include: Naturalism, Existentialism, and Communism. He uses these forces, along with racist ideology, to shape the life of a young black male, Bigger, living in the ‘Black Belt’ of Chicago in the 1940’s. Wright refers to the ‘Black Belt,’ as a ‘black world’ where violence is directed towards other American Americans, and warns that this violence will be aimed at white people. Bigger, is used to depict the criminal actions that come along with living in racial confinement under the fear of white people during this time.

The film “The Englishman’s boy” is a screen adaptation of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s book of the same name. Vanderhaeghe also wrote the screenplay for the film. The book was based on the true story of the Cypress Hills massacre in 1873. I will provide a summary of the film’s most important plot points, characters and background information. The movie covers the horrors that were witnessed in Cypress Hills and shows the inhumane way Native Americans have been treated since colonization, in 1873 and through to the 1920s. The movie explains how white men were hearkened as heroes for committing these atrocities which were largely excused because society at that time viewed natives as inhuman and therefore undeserving of human rights. The film was set with a background in both 1873 pioneer plains and 1920s Hollywood. This method was used to show a dualism within the two eras and that negative attitudes towards Native Americans had not been corrected as they should have been but only muffled. I will compare the film and its accuracy to the actual Cypress Hills massacre and determine what dramatics were used to make a point within the direction of the movie. This film and the subsequent essay is relevant to this class because I believe that even though the crimes committed against native Americans are less obviously racist, violent and vulgar today, there is still a derogatory indifference towards them and their cries for equality.

According to Frederick Douglass, “it was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it (p.4).” Frederick Douglass and Toni Morrison literatures examine the stigma of slavery, and the perceptions of its dangers. They illustrate what life was like and the mental as well social impact it had on enslaved African-Americans and their life after gaining freedom. Richard Wright convinces his audience in Black Boy that he was tired of the limitations and outcries in the South “I was not leaving the South to forget the South, but so that some day I might understand it, might come to know what its rigors had done to me, its children (284).” Alice Walker obtains her readers attention by transforming young women into their own characters with a voice using spiritual guidance. In Native Son, Bigger has achieved is lost after being apprehended and brought into captivity, as he transitions back into silence and passivity and begins to recover only in his final confrontation, whereas Douglass in the same prevailing convention, only heals after the regaining of his freedom. Through these literatures, and many others, African-Americans find multiple ways to alleviate and recover from the intensity of undesired bondage and bigotry.

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster states that violence is much more than punching and kicking. Richard Wright uses violence in Native Son to show how far violence can make someone do horrible acts because of fear. The violent nature of Bigger Thomas shows the fear that he and his community felt during this time. Fear causes many individuals to do acts that they usually would not do.

A victim of the same impoverished environment as Shakur, Bigger personifies violence in the form of the real murders of Mary Dalton and Bessie, unlike Shakur who only talks and sings of murder. In Native Son, Wright, for better or for worse, presents his readers with an entity in Bigger Thomas who achieves self realization only after murder, and this characterization suggests violence presents a kind of road which winds down into self consciousness and self awareness, a road many African Americans, most notably gangster rappers, cannot help but continue to travel on today.

In the beginning, when Bigger started working for the Dalton’s, he had to drive Mary Dalton, the daughter, to the University of Chicago. However, she wanted him to pick up her boyfriend, Jan, and head to a restaurant. When Bigger was in the car with Jan and Mary, “he was very conscious of his black skin...Jan and men like him” made Bigger feel insecure of who he was. (Wright 67) Even though Jan and Mary did not say anything that would insult his race, the presence of white people made him self-conscious. Being

  In Native Son, Wright employs Naturalistic ideology and imagery, creating the character of Bigger Thomas, who seems to be composed of a mass of disruptive emotions rather than a rational mind joined by a soul. This concept introduces the possibility that racism is not the only message of the novel, that perhaps every person would feel as isolated and alone as Bigger does were he trapped in such a vicious cycle of violence and oppression. Bigger strives to find a place for himself, but the blindness he encounters in those around him and the bleak harshness of the Naturalistic society that Wright presents the reader with close him out as effectively as if they had shut a door in his

She tells Bigger, “I think I can trust you” (Wright 64) in order to toy with his emotions and disobey his boss’ orders as Bigger, Mary, and Mary’s communist boyfriend Jan Erlone take the car out for a night in the loop. After a rousing evening on the town filled with booze and conversations about communism that left Bigger offended and ashamed to be black, it became Bigger’s duty to make sure that Mary was placed safely in her bed after being too intoxicated to stand on her own. Because Bigger strives to obey his boss, he feels inclined to personally place Mary in her own room in order to avoid trouble. This shows that Bigger Thomas took Mary to her bedroom with no intention of causing any problems in his new workplace reminding the reader that Bigger is not an evil human being, just a product of his environment. After being in Mary’s bedroom, Bigger decided to overstay his welcome due to his curious arousal with white women. To Bigger’s surprise, “a hysterical terror seized him” (Wright 85) as Mrs. Dalton makes an appearance in Mary’s bedroom to check on her daughter. Bigger automatically assumed that if he was caught in Mary Dalton’s bedroom at an odd hour of the night he would be immediately fired and accused of raping a white woman that could ruin his already tragic life forever. Due to her blindness, Bigger was not seen immediately, but he realized if Mary kept mumbling, Mrs. Dalton would make her way

Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, depicts the life of the general black community in Chicago during the 1930’s. Though African Americans had been freed from slavery, they were still burdened with financial and social oppression. Forced to live in small, unclean quarters, eat foods on the verge of going bad, and pay entirely too much for both, these people struggled not to be pressured into a dangerous state of mind (Bryant). All the while, they are expected to act subserviently before their oppressors. These conditions rub many the wrong way, especially Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of the story. Though everyone he is surrounded by is going through all the same things that he is, growing up poor and uneducated has made Bigger angry at the whole world. You can see this anger in everything he does, from his initial thoughts to his final actions. Because of this, Bigger Thomas almost seems destined to find trouble and meet a horrible fate. Wright uses these conventions of naturalism to develop Bigger’s view of the white community(). With all of these complications, Bigger begins to view all white people as an overwhelming force that drags him to his end. Wright pushes the readers into Bigger’s mind, thoroughly explaining Bigger’s personal decay. Even Wright himself says that Bigger is in fact a native son, just a “product of American culture and the violence and racism that suffuse it” (Wright).