Native Son Rhetorical Analysis

Bigger, the boy looking for a new way that belongs to neither white people nor black people, gets blind when he faces the world with no way for him to go. He ignores the danger to find a new life by committing crimes, but finally realizes his blindness. As a black boy under white’s domination, Bigger also experiences discrimination towards black people, which fails to enfeeble the ambitious man to be insensible to the world. However, the reality strongly strikes his dream and asks him to fell on his knees. In his conversation with Max, he said, “I want to do things. But everything I wanted to do I

The tone of the novel, Native Son, is deploring. Throughout the plot, Richard Wright consistently shows the oppressive power of the white race over the black people. Because of this societal structure, Wright uses the character of Bigger as an example of the dangerous outcomes which can result from oppression and racism. He exploits the social injustices which discriminate against black people among many other races, and implies that understanding is the cure to lessen society’s internal conflicts. Through his writing, Wright shows the horrific consequences that stem from racial oppression in an attempt to bring equality and peace between the races.

When he brings Mary, his rich employers daughter to her room, he smothers her with a pillow her for fear that he will be discovered in her room. He knows that he has killed her by accident but automatically he thinks “She was dead and he had killed her. He was a murderer. A Negro Murderer, a black murderer” (95). Bigger goes on to say, “though he had killed her by accident, not once did he feel the need to tell himself that it had been an accident. He was black and he had been alone in a room where a white girl had been killed, therefore he had killed her” Bigger understands the world that he lives in deeply and knows that everyone will assume that he killed her on purpose. That he raped her. He does not even tell himself the truth because his truth is not considered reality by society. His truth is not important. Bigger becomes a criminal as a way to survive. He becomes exactly how white men and women see him: a rapist and a murderer. He begins to feel like he can only get out of his environment by murdering, and manipulating others. Bigger goes so far as to identify himself as a murderer capable of killing anyone who gets in his way. He goes as far as raping and killing Bessie, his

Max, since bigger was no longer able to speak up for himself in a society that was completely against him. Not only had been a culprit of murder in a biased society, he also made a bad reputation for the black people of South Side Chicago. With everyone hating Bigger, it was certain he’d receive the death penalty. However, he meets his lawyer, Mr.Max, a communist that decided to use Bigger’s case as a stage to highlight the struggles of a minority. During Mr. Max’s long speech, he stated, “... the are not [black people] simply twelve million people; in reality they constitute a separate nation, stunted stripped, and held captive within this nation, devoid of political, social, economic, and property rights” (Wright 364). Undeniably, it’s true black people during the time were stripped of many rights, including Bigger. Bigger had had social, political, or property rights that were equivalent to a white man. It can be seen that choice and free will is predetermined at birth, depending on your race, your family wealth, and your

In the beginning of the of the novel, Bigger accuses everyone including his mother, his sister, his brother and the Daltons of being blind about what is going on around them. The Daltons were blinded by their wealth. Bigger's mother was blinded by her religious beliefs,

Trapped by a natural situation, set on a tough and not flexible path and pushed him into a terrible fate, Bigger was born to die, with the very death sentence he would formally be delivered in twenty years time. There will be no escaping the very death Bigger will so come face to face. Wright uses of Bigger, as a model to represent the nature of man in the world around us is an experiment that tests the true motives of man and how naturalism is really defined in the modern world. Wright conveys more then just whites vs. black, it’s about how our society is broken and Wrights shows that by comparing it to Bigger's life and how he is an animal just trying to survive in this animal kingdom. Nothing in this society is equal and Bigger will never have the chance to be in charge or on top of the whites people that is not how society works and it work very differently in the time that Wright wrote this novel. Even though he committed those crimes the trial he was put in doesn’t show fairness and equality because of the people that had been chosen to judge the case and find if he was guilty or not. Bigger and his life just show us how our society has shaped the nature of man to what we were and what we are

Bigger arrives this time with money in his pocket and what he believes a more respectable job than what the others hold. He feels more confident in himself after his thought of his ability to give back to his parents and friends. As he assumes that the arguments are over and he is in control of his own life again. Additionally, Bigger has more important problems to worry about than his current friendship, as he had just murdered a wealthy high class girl. Another important note is how Bigger feels so much more powerful, he accomplished something that nobody would have thought capable of him, as such he has such a huge boost of confidence.

In fact, it was the white dominated society that actually had killed the real Bigger much earlier than his physical death. Thus, as Bakish points out, Bigger’s spiritual death predates his execution because “he is formally killed by the society that had been slowly murdering him all his life. (40). And it was white horror and the fear of his inferior race that compels him to hide his presence in Mary’s room on the arrival of Mrs. Dalton. Had Bigger been white instead of black, his fear would not have dominated him to such an extent. After Killing Mary, Bigger’s thinking is surrounded by the fear of his race as he thinks “he was a murderer, a Negro murderer, a black murderer. He has killed a white woman” (NS, 82). Bigger’s fatal experience reverberates

In the after the opening scene in the book Bigger’s mom lectures him about how he is going to regret that he didn’t make something out of his life. In addition, she claims that if Bigger takes the job he could make a better life for them as a family. However, Bigger does not care for what his

He dropped out of school in the seventh grade and was unable to acquire a job. His psychological decline began because of his fear of the world. Bigger did not have the capability to understand his own thoughts and emotions because of his education level. He had the desire to see the world and had only hoped that the world would see him as Bigger rather than the black boy. Tremaine states that “Bigger, in fact, yearns to make himself understood not only to himself but to those with whom he shared the world.”

One day he wakes up to see a huge black rat in his room, which is said to mimic him. Bigger corners the rat into a corner and kills it, much how Bigger is pressured and cornered by the white people of his society. The rat was killed, as Bigger was metaphorically killed through the oppressiveness of society, and how they changed him, his inner-self, into someone he could have aspired to be much greater than. Rather than going to a jo interview of which his mother encouraged him to go to, Bigger met up with a group of his friends

Race plays a major role in the choices that Bigger makes because in this time period majority of the white people hate Blacks. Bigger is an African American, he’s poor, and unemployed. Bigger’s mom has a job but it’s not one that can support a family of 4. The apartment that Bigger and his family lives in is described as small and dirty. All of those characteristics play a role in Bigger’s life because all he wanted was more. More to live for. Bigger felt trapped and he let the fear of not having money or happiness ruin his life.

Bigger hates his family because of their poverty and suffering and because he feels there is nothing he can do to help them. He believes that he cannot afford to let himself feel their shame and misery too strongly without also feeling the urge to kill himself or someone else. He has cultivated a façade of outer toughness to protect himself from the unbearable pressure he feels as a result of his family’s social position. His

After he awakes from his trance he is greeted by Jan, who is accompanied by a lawyer, fellow communist Boris A. Max. Bigger’s view on Whites changes dramatically after listening to Jan. This is the first time he views a white man not as a part of a force of oppression, but as an individual being. Bigger is then greeted by Mr. Buckley, a prosecutor of the state who will be facing Bigger and Maz in the court of law. Buckley, similar to Britten, is another direct symbolization of White racism. Buckley already feels Bigger is guilty

At first, at the beginning of the novel Bigger is told he needs to get a job, so that is what he does. He gets a job and works for the Dalton’s family. Bigger had done some errands for the Dalton’s and was going back to the Dalton’s house with Mary the daughter who is very drunk. Bigger is attempting to