Bigger Thomas as America’s Native Son :: Essays Papers

Bigger Thomas as Americas Native SonIn the sassy the Native Son, the author Richard Wright explores racism and conquering in American society. Wright skillfully merges his narrative voice into Bigger Thomas so that the reader can in addition feel how the pressure and racism affects the feelings, thoughts, self-image, and life of a Negro person. Bigger is a tragic product of American imperialism and exploitation in a groundbreaking humanness. Bigger embodies one of humankinds greatest tragedies of how mass oppression permeates both aspects of the lives of the oppressed and the oppressor, creating a world of misunderstanding, ignorance, and suffering.The novel is loaded with a embarrassment of imageries of a hostile white world. Wright shows how white racism affects the behavior, feelings, and thoughts of Bigger. Everytime I think about it I feel worry somebodys poking a red-hot iron down my throatWe live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we aint. They do things and we cantI feel like Im on the outside the world peeping in through a knot-hole in the fence (20). Biggers sense of constriction and of parturiency is very palpable to the reader. Wright also uses a more articulate voice to accurately describe the oppressive conditions of a Negro person. An anonymous black cellmate, a university student cries out, You make us live in such displace conditionsthat one out of every ten of us is insaneyou dump all stale foods into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere elseYou tax us, but you wont build hospitalsthe schools are so crowded that they breed pervertsyou hire us last and fire us first (318). Biggers sense of constriction by the white world is so strong that he has no doubt that something awfuls going to happen to me (21).Nowhere in this novel can the reader see a greater example of Biggers fear and sense of constriction than in the accidental death of Mary Dalton. The all-e ncompassing fear that the white world has bred in Bigger takes over when he is in Marys room and in danger of being discovered by Mrs. Dalton. This internalized social oppression literally forces his hands to hold the pillow over Marys face, suffocating her. Bigger believes that a white person would assume that he was in the room to rape the white girl.