The Symbolism Of Color In Richard Wright's Native Son

Throughout the whole novel Bigger had felt cornered and intimidated by the white man and who they were. However, this man was different from the others. He treated Bigger as a normal human being, not as a downtrodden person or a murderer, just a normal human being. This is the only instince in which this happens in the whole novel. Wright used it primarily to show that he himself did not feel as if all whites were bad but that because of stereotyping, many were. Wright goes out of his way to show that this man was not under the inlfluence of stereotyping and to show the decent side of some whites.

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

In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Richard is struggling to survive in a racist environment in the South. In his youth, Richard is vaguely aware of the differences between blacks and whites. He scarcely notices if a person is black or white, and views all people equally. As Richard grows older, he becomes more and more aware of how whites treat blacks, the social differences between the races, and how he is expected to act when in the presence of white people. Richard, with a rebellious nature, finds that he is torn between his need to be treated respectfully, with dignity and as an individual with value and his need to conform to the white rules of society for survival and acceptance.

It is first portrayed as having placid eyes, placid means peaceful or something that is not easily upset. This is something that can relate to the way that Mary and Jan treated Bigger. They were more curious than oppressive. Then the cat is also described to have fastened it’s black eyes on Bigger. The color black can mean death which means it foreshadows the fate of Bigger. Then after Bigger kills Mary, the cat’s eyes are “two green burning pools—pools of accusation and guilt” (91). In some cases, green represents new life or growth, however in this quote, green acts as a color of judgement of right and wrong. Green eyes can also act as a metaphor of Jesus Christ and his ability to look into one’s heart and judge it. Also the encounter with the cat did happen after mary died however before anyone else knew anything about the murder. Bigger for a while believed that no one suspected him; However, Wright uses the two words accusation and guilt to describe what Bigger sees in the cat’s eyes. The cat returns when the reporters are taking pictures of him, and Wright makes the cat have another appearance at this time to make it seem like the cat is back to accuse Bigger. Constantly, Bigger has felt this accusation upon him because of the white society around him and addition to his skin color that separates him from the whites are all of their advantages. All his life Bigger feels the accusations of others and the suspicion that they have, this, leading to a massive feeling of guilt. The surroundings he had and the situation have only added to his aggression making him forced to strike

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

to afford food and housing, led to resentment between the two social classes. In the novel, the social classes were divided by who lived on what side of the city line. The real estate companies would only rent run down apartments to blacks on their side of the line, ironically at higher rates. Towards the end of the novel, Bigger’s lawyer, Max states how “‘You rent to Negroes in the Black Belt and you refuse to rent to them elsewhere” when speaking in front of the courtroom, mentioning how Mr. Dalton hurts the black community. As Bigger Thomas searched around his family’s small one room apartment, divided by curtains he “then darted to a curtain and swept it aside and grabbed two heavy iron skillets from a wall above a gas stove” in search

Bigger is oppressed by racism in the 1930s. In the 1930s the color of a person’s skin defined them. Bigger being a black male defines him as a lesser man than a white man. People of color are reduced to live in the South Side of Chicago. Bigger, his mom, and two siblings live in a dirty

When they finally get home, mary is so drunk that she can’t make it to her room. Bigger, drunk and slightly aroused, he tries to kiss Mary. Mary’s blind mother comes in the room, and bigger gets nervous. Afraid that mary will make his presence known, he tries to quiet her with a pillow. Somehow he accidentally smothers her. This is a feeling Bigger has never known before, like he had gained some kind of power over this powerful oppression called “white people”. At first he didn’t know what he was going to do. He shoves her in her luggage trunk and carry it downstairs. He see’s the furnace and tries to hide her in there, but her shoulders wouldn’t fit. He starts hacking her head off with a hatchet, then he throws it in the furnace with the body. He starts planning and blames it all on Jan. He eats breakfast at the Daltons house and then starts to take her trunk to the train station, then he goes to see bessie. He tells her about the Dalton girl missing, then decides to write a ransom letter to the Daltons, trying to get money out of them. He bullies bessie into playing part in this scheme. She could tell there was part of the story that he wasn’t telling her. Mr. Dalton finds out that Mary never got to Detroit, and that her bag was never claimed, so he hires a private detective named Britten. Britten brings Jan to the house and starts questioning him. He knows Bigger is lying and confronts him on the street about it, but Bigger scares him off with a gun. He

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

Bigger's anger towards blacks causes his isolation from his own race. Bigger is livid against blacks because they do nothing to stop the whites from limiting their lives. His lack of psychological abilities to learn how to control his anger greatly contributes

Wright suggests that throughout book one and two that the black rat in the tenements symbolizes Bigger and when he visits the Daltons house there is a white cat that symbolize white people watching over Bigger the rat. The black rat always fearful of the white cat because the cat is more powerful and will kill the rat at anytime. Bigger is scared of what will happen to him in this world and the nature of man, because he was most terrified of, more than anything in the world, was the unavoidable certainty of his future. For this, he dreaded his own fate: the inevitable outcome of a life constrained by social forces determined by a billowing and intangible oppressor. Bigger feared that as a young black male living on Chicago’s South Side his life course was inalterable, always not knowing what will happen because he is the lower man in this society and always looks up to the white

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

The era of modernism is roughly marked as the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century. Shortly thereafter, the Harlem Renaissance fanned into flames during at the last decade of the modern period, in the 1920s. Richard Wright, the author of the novel Native Son, was just about Bigger’s age (20) at the end of this period, which was also the hottest point of the Harlem Renaissance. One of these many revolutionary developments during this time was the branch of sociology called critical theory which combines history, sociology, and a need for change as established by Max Horkheimer. Native Son was a direct product of these times and is, therefore, characterized with the popular thoughts of the era. The

Bigger's dream is to become an aviator but instead he is given a job through the relief agency-a chauffeur for a white millionaire-philanthropist named Henry Dalton. Ma warns Bigger to avoid his gang and set aside his criminal habits, lest he end up in the "gallows." Ma is unable to relate to Bigger and he is unresponsive to her religiosity and her overtures on "manhood." When Ma asserts that Bigger would go out and get a job if he "had any manhood in him," Bigger resents his mother for her dependence upon him. While he sincerely cares about his family, Bigger knows that he will never be offered the type of job that would allow him to offer his family substantial

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).