Native Son by Richard Wright

Richard Wright was born on September 4, 1908, to a poor family on a plantation in Mississippi. His father was an illiterate sharecropper and his mother was a well-educated teacher. Due to his family’s poverty they were forced to move to Memphis. When Wright was five years old, his father left his family for another woman, and his mother was forced to leave her job as a school teacher and do domestic work to provide for her family. As Wright grew up, he became involved with the Communist Party, and in 1940 he published Native Son. This success of Wright’s book made the black community proud of him, but it also brought a lot of uncomfortable feelings. They felt that the main character, Bigger, portrayed a stereotypical, harsh, black man the

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.

Bigger Thomas uses deception to cover the crime for his personal safety. He knows that the white people of Chicago will kill him if they know he killed a white girl. Throughout his deceit, Bigger feels the white world

What is black, white, and red all over? A sunburned zebra, of course! These three colors also describe events that occur in Richard Wright’s novel Native Son. While a great deal of importance is placed on the color black, white remains present throughout the novel. The colors combine in many instances to lend great significance to characterization and setting. Through symbolism, Wright uses the colors black and white to illustrate the major problem of the era: the separation of black and white Americans. Furthermore, Wright utilizes "communist" red to emphasize the novel's overwhelming black and white imagery.

He turns his quest for escape into a game as he attempts to put all the pieces into the right places. He makes attempts to pin the disappearance on the Communist Party, particularly Jan. Trying to make an innocent person and group look guilty for a crime is sadistic behavior. Bigger seems to want to hurt Jan by making him look like the murderer. However, Bigger’s thought process was “Reds’d do anything. Didn’t the papers say so?” Bigger was taught by society that the Communists were evil. The newspaper shaped his thoughts. Bigger also chose to try to get away with the murder because he was happy to have choices for once. He was so used to following the customs and laws of his community that he was excited about the chance to make his own

Richard Wright's Native Son provides us with an exemplary example of the way the black race was conditioned in the 1930's. He does this by telling us about an adult black male named Bigger Thomas. Wright titles each book in the novel the way he does to give insight into the various actions and feelings of Bigger.

The plan falls through after Bigger starts a fight with one of the guys who comes late. "Bigger was afraid of robbing a white man and he knew that Gus was afraid, too… He hated Gus because he knew that Gus was afraid, as even he was; and he feared Gus because he felt that Gus would consent and then he would be compelled to go through with the robbery" (25). Bigger hates his race and wishes he could escape the oppression. He isn't proud of being black and sees it as an impediment and a burden. These views of his own race allow him to pilfer from them with no remorse. He and his friends clandestinely envy the freedom that white people experience. He longs to enjoy their privileges but doesn't know how to release himself of the racial boundaries: ‘"Them white boys sure can fly," Gus said. "Yeah," bigger said wistfully. "They get a chance to do everything."… "I could fly a plane if I had a chance," Bigger said. "If you wasn't black and if you had some money and if they'd let you go to aviation school, you could fly a plane," Gus said' (16-17). Racism has curtailed Bigger's ambitions in life and his perception of himself. He is ashamed of his family's penury and he hides his feelings. He has crafted a façade of toughness to guard himself from the pressure he feels because of his family's social position and his inability to help

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

Although Native Son by Richard Wright was set in Chicago in the 1930s instead of the South, Jim Crow laws were still a big deal. Being a bigger city in the north, Chicago came with more opportunities, but it gave black people a taunting sense of possible achievement that the segregation took away. They were forced to live in overpriced small tenants in the black belt, while being oppressed by white people in the racist, stereotype-filled society. This caused Bigger Thomas, the protagonist, to react more unmanageable than he would have had if he was living in the South. The crippling racism and Jim Crow laws oppressing African Americans in the racist, white controlled society of America led to the dangerous creation of “Native Sons” like Bigger Thomas, which Richard Wright depicts through exaggerating how the media portrays black and white people, using the motif revolved around blindness, and showing the violence and hatred that is instilled in the protagonist.

Wright repeats the word “violent” when he describes Bigger in the passage, therefore “violent” has great significance when his comes to the characterization of Bigger. Bigger is characterized as someone who is ruthless, vicious, and someone who has an unstable personality and emotions. The reader gains a sense of uneasiness when reading due to the fact that Bigger has an uncontrollable personality and could revert to violence at any time. When Wright repeats “violent” he puts emphasis on that characteristic, it demonstrates that vicious actions are part of Bigger's character and that his uncontrollable violence could show at any time. In addition, Wright creates an uneasy or apprehensive mood because, the reader senses tension between Bigger and who ever he interacts with due to Biggers ruthless nature, combined with his uncontrollable personality, Bigger could get set off by another person and turn raged and revert to his violent actions as a result.

Bigger has a lot of internal conflicts with himself, which led to these consequences. RIchard Wright uses Bigger as a window into African Americans’ experiences in America in many ways. From what Wright talks about in Native Son, this conveys that African Americans fear for their lives everyday, are pressured to find jobs and have a stable life, and are feeling oppressed which led them to feel like outcasts in American society. The first way Wright conveys African Americans’ experience in America to the readers is that they fear for their lives in their own homes. Book 1 is entitled Fear, which symbolizes Bigger’s many fears about what will happen to his family, and to himself throughout each day.

  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

Wright has shaped the Daltons as red-fearing capitalists. Although the Dalton’s see the problems within communism, they cannot see that the systematic racism has the same underlying oppression as communism. This novel provides the perspective of a system from the working class perspective and makes readers question if prosecuting Bigger for his crimes is justifiable. Luckily, in our modern U.S. Justice System, our justice isn’t defined by the “superstructure” created by the bourgeois or our government. Our Justice System protects our human and constitutional right, and the rights belong to everyone, not just those who systematically deserve them. Native Son makes the reader understand a different type of justice, one that aligns closer to fairness amongst every perspective of the situation and one that led to the shaping of our current justice

I am not referring to the violent behavior that he participated in but to the extent that as human beings we are not perfect and at our most vulnerable moments we can fall victims to the system and become a person we are not. Bigger’s attitude toward whites is a convincing combination of powerful anger and powerful fear. I believe Bigger was a victim of what racism created. Bigger is stuck with a powerful conviction that he will never have control over his own life. Intimidation, fear and frustration are all part of Bigger’s daily existence, as he is forced to hide behind a mask of toughness or either fall victim to

Additionally, Bigger asserts control over his friends to accomplish his own goals. When he plans to rob Blum’s store and decides that it is not a good idea, he beats Gus to gain control. Bigger does this because he realized that he lost control at the point when he decided to take the chance of ruining his own life by robbing a white store over getting a job with the Dalton’s; making that choice left the power in Blum’s hands. Whether or not Bigger got away unharmed would depend on Blum’s weapon possession, how fast he contacted the police, and if the police could catch him, none of which Bigger could control. Though the logical solution would be to inform Gus, G.H.,