Native Son

In Richard Wright's Native Son, we see how American institutionalism has oppressed African Americans. We also see how this oppression leads to the destruction of the soul of the oppressed. In the story, Bigger illustrates a nihilistic attitude that stems from his treatment by white, racist society. Living in such a dominant and racist environment, Bigger and African Americans are largely viewed as "monsters" by whites. Such treatment tends to make Bigger an outsider whose voice is oppressed. His only chance for expression stems from his relations with other African Americans. Despite this community among African Americans, the forces of racism and oppression are responsible for Bigger's downfall.

Wright often uses symbolism and characterization to reinforce his theme of racism and oppression. The alarm clock that rings in the beginning of the novel is symbolic. It is a symbol Wright uses as a "wake up" call to a society that remains locked in illusions regarding its creation of unequal race relations. Such treatment of African Americans makes Bigger an individual who is "following a strange path in a strange land" (Wright 127). This is why Bigger's lawyer tells the court that Bigger is incapable of killing, because he is already dead as he is forced to exist in a society that refuses him any affirmation of life.

Bigger is a displaced persona because the society into which he is born allows him no place. He is destined to fail, primari

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in some detail. (In this regard, the projection of white supervision onto the cat is the flip side, so to speak, of the projection of a certain black self-policing onto the black rat from the novel's opening.) But to say that Bigger's vision, or narrative if you will, is not paranoid does not mean that this projection, though emotionally or psychologically powerful, helps him understand how the system works. Quite the contrary, it makes such an understanding impossible. In short, while the virtual blizzard of whiteness is a powerful metaphor for a system of supervision and control and its effect on the black subject, what is required is the examination and understanding of that system through some scientific method, say dialectical materialism, not simply a representation of that system. Again, it should be noted that such mystification and misunderstanding are not restricted to Bigger. They are characteristic of virtually everyone the reader encounters in Native Son. Once again Wright utilizes a central gothic convention, a terror of incomprehension. This is the terror that the world one inhabits is guided by rules other than those one is able to see, or that within one's world or very close to it are contained secrets--deeds, o

Category: Literature - N