Black Boy And Native Son example essay topic

Native Son - Richard Wright #1 Post-Reading After Bigger Thomas, the central character of this novel, has "murdered a white girl and cut her head off and burnt her body", he thinks that he has "created a new life for himself. It was something that was all his own, and it was the first time in his life he had anything that others could not take from him". (Native Son- Book 3: Fate) Richard Wright may well have felt the same way as Bigger felt about his bloody act of violence, about the act of writing Native Son. It gave Wright an opportunity to express his thoughts and feelings to the world. Wright came to understand through writing this story, that words could be used as weapons.

His protagonist, Bigger Thomas, has a background which resembles Wright's. Like Bigger, he was brought up without a father; like Bigger's family, Wright's also left the South for the urban ghetto of Chicago; like Bigger who was schooled only to the eight grade, Wright finished with the ninth, and like Bigger, the author of Native Son grew up a loner and a rebel, whose devoutly religious family assumed he lived a life of crime. During Wright's childhood, Southern Whites prevented blacks from voting, maintained separate educational institutions for them, tried to keep them from holding civilized jobs, and insisted on their acting deferentially in the presence of whites. As a result of this exposure to the white world's hostility and aggression towards blacks, most of Wright's books portray both racial discrimination and the black response to that injustice; such as Black Boy and Native Son.

Even as an adult, Wright felt discrete to both whites and blacks, and several of his major characters share this sense of being isolated, like he did. In Native Son, Wright uses words as weapons. This novel is a reflection of racism. He definitely portrays racial discrimination and its reaction. Racism affects Bigger's life at home, at the Daltons, and in police custody.

The Thomas' must live in their rat-infested apartment partly because no one will rent to blacks in any other section of town. Races are literally separated. At the same time, blacks are charged higher rents than whites, which is ridiculous. When Bigger goes to the movies with Jack one of the films shows blacks as jungle savages. This depicts them as wild beasts which need to be cared for and kept under control. After Bigger's arrest he discovers that the media and public are using racial stereotypes to portray him as a sex criminal and brutal mass murderer.

All the articles in the paper are entirely prejudice and simply feed racism. And even the Daltons and Jan, despite their good intentions and charity, act toward Bigger in a racist manner by failing to recognize him as an individual. The fact that they seek to be overly-kind to him and give him their charity, just separates him all the more. They are just isolating him and segregating him. Their purpose is to try to help, but racism is nothing that three people can do to fix a problem which began far before their time. Another theme that is introduced in this novel is the response to discrimination, or in Bigger's case, rage.

Bigger Thomas is angry. You first see him in conflict with his mother and sister, then he turns in fury on one of his best friends, Gus. "Bigger held the open blade an inch from Gus's lips... ". Lick it, I said! You think I'm Playing?" Gus looked around the room without moving his head, just rolling his eyes in a mute appeal for help.

But no one moved. Bigger's left fist was slowly lifting to strike. Gus's lips moved toward the knife; he stuck out his tongue and touched the blade. Gus's lips quivered and tears streamed down his cheeks". (Native Son- Book 1-Fear) This incident was extremely disturbing and horrifying. From that point on I lost most if not all respect for Bigger.

To be forced to go an extreme like that on one of his best friends, however, made me realize he must be exceedingly struggling internally. He is also enraged by Jan and Mary. He frequently thinks of "blotting out" the people around him. And some of his moments of greatest happiness occur when he vents his hostility in violence. It seems to me that Bigger's anger is closely connected to his sense of racial identity. He expresses his thoughts and feelings through rage.

He is infuriated by both blacks and whites; blacks for their passive responses to their treatment by whites, and whites for making him feel self-conscious and ashamed. I think that Wright presents Bigger's anger as a tragedy. The author identifies more with Boris Max, who seems shocked and upset by Bigger's attitude toward violence. It is obvious to me that Wright expresses himself through Max and that Max's arguments in the court room are those of the Communist Party of Wright's time. From reading this work I learned how author's use their literary works to express themselves.

Every story told, every novel ever written, every plot created, always had an idea behind it, a theme, an opinion. Authors used their stories, novels, and plots to communicate to the public their ideas and opinions. Richard Wright wrote Native Son in order to communicate his thoughts on racial discrimination and black response to that injustice. He wrote Native Son to share his thoughts with the world.