Character Actions Defines Their Individual Personalities and Belief Systems
Richard Wright's novel, Native Son, consisted of various main and supporting characters to deliver an effective array of personalities and expression. Each character's action defines their individual personalities and belief systems. The main character of Native Son, Bigger Thomas has personality traits spanning various aspects of human nature including actions motivated by fear, quick temper, and a high degree of intelligence.
Bigger, whom the novel revolves around, portrays various personality elements through his actions. Many of his actions suggest an overriding response to fear, which stems from his exposure to a harsh social climate in which a clear line between acceptable behavior for white's and black's exists. His swift anger and his destructive impulses stem from that fear and become apparent in the opening scene when he fiercely attacks a huge rat. The same murderous impulse appears when his secret dread of the delicatessen robbery impels him to commit a vicious assault on his friend Gus. Bigger commits both of the brutal murders not in rage or anger, but as a reaction to fear. His typical fear stems from being caught in the act of doing something socially unacceptable and being the subject of punishment. Although he later admits to Max that Mary Dalton's behavior toward him made him hate her, it is not hate which causes him to smother her to death, but a feeble attempt to evade the detection of her mother. The fear of being caught with a white woman overwhelmed his common sense and dictated his actions. When he attempted to murder Bessie, his motivation came from intense fear of the consequences of
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"letting" her live. Bigger realized that he could not take Bessie with him or leave her behind and concluded that killing her could provide her only "merciful" end.
The emotional forces that drive Bigger are conveyed by means other than his words. Besides reactions to fear, his actions demonstrate an extremely quick temper and destructive impulse as an integral part of his nature. Rage plays a key part in his basic nature, but does not directly motivate the murders he commits. Rage does not affect Bigger's intelligence and quick thinking and it becomes evident during the interview with Briton. The detective makes Bigger so angry that the interrogation becomes a game to Bigger, a game of logic and wills, of playing the stupid negro, and telling the man exactly what he wants to hear.
In Richard Wright’s Native Son, Bigger Thomas attempts to gain power over his environment through violence whenever he is in a position to do so.
They deal with rat infestations, eviction, and poverty day by day. As the story goes on, Bigger’s mother constantly nags him about getting a job, and providing for his family. This causes Bigger to hate his family and hate his life because of the fact that they are so poor, and he can’t do anything to help them.
In the novel “Black Boy” by Richard Wright, Richard’s different character traits are revealed through multiple different instances of indirect characterization. Indirect characterization is a literary element commonly used in the novel. It is when the author reveals information about a character through that character's thoughts, words, actions, and how other characters respond to that character; such as what they think and say about him. Richard is put into many circumstances where the way he acts, the things he says and thinks, and the way others respond to him clearly show his character. Richard shows his pride when he refuses to fight Harrison for white men’s entertainment, principles when he doesn’t take advantage of Bess even though he has the opportunity, and ignorance when he sells KKK papers.
The theme that Native Son author Richard Wright puts in this story is that the white community makes Bigger act the way he does, that through the communities actions, Bigger does all the things he is accused of doing. The theme that I present is that Bigger only acts the way that he did because of the influences that the white community has had on him accepted by everyone. When Bigger gets the acceptance and love he has always wanted, he acts like he does not know what to do, because really, he does not. In Native Son, Bigger uses his instincts and acts like the white people around him have formed him to act. They way that he has been formed to act is to not trust anyone. Bigger gets the acceptance and love he wanted from Mary and Jan, but he still hates them and when they try to really get to know him, he ends up hurting them. He is scared of them simply because he has never experienced these feelings before, and it brings attention to him from himself and others. Once Bigger accidentally kills Mary, he feels for the first time in his life that he is a person and that he has done something that somebody will recognize, but unfortunately it is murder. When Mrs. Dalton walks in and is about to tell Mary good night, Bigger becomes scared stiff with fear that he will be caught committing a crime, let alone rape. If Mrs. Dalton finds out he is in there he will be caught so he tries to cover it up and accidentally kills Mary. The police ask why he did not just tell Mrs. Dalton that he was in the room, Bigger replies and says he was filled with so much fear that he did not know what else to do and that he did not mean to kill Mary. He was so scared of getting caught or doing something wrong that he just tried to cover it up. This is one of the things that white people have been teaching him since he can remember. The white people have been teaching him to just cover things up by how the whites act to the blacks. If a white man does something bad to a black man the white man just covers it up a little and everything goes back to normal.
John Smith, the troubled Indian adopted by whites appears at first to be the main character, but in some respects he is what Alfred Hitchcock called a McGuffin. The story is built around him, but he is not truly the main character and he is not the heart of the story. His struggle, while pointing out one aspect of the American Indian experience, is not the central point. John Smith’s experiences as an Indian adopted by whites have left him too addled and sad, from the first moment to the last, to serve as the story’s true focus.
The life of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son is not one with which most of us can relate. It is marked by excessive violence, oppression, and a lack of hope for the future. Despite this difference from my own life and the lives of my privileged classmates, I would argue that Bigger's experience is somewhat universal, His is not a unique, individual experience, but rather one that is representative of the world of a young black man. If Bigger were alive today, perhaps he would be a “Gangsta Rapper” and express his rage through music instead of violence.
Bigger often acts out of fear. This is much the case when he accidently kills Mary Dalton, the daughter of the family who has recently employed him. Mary’s death is more then just a vicious murder, however. Her death gives Bigger something that he has always wanted and never had; power. Momentarily Bigger is free of fear and feels equal to the white society.
Bigger Thomas wasn’t just one man but every man Richard Wright, the writer of Native Son, had encounter in his childhood and adulthood. Wright had encountered a nice Bigger, violent Bigger, and a Bigger Thomas who hated the white society. He combined all of these Thomases and created Bigger Thomas in Native Son. Bigger filled with enrage and fear of the whites accidentally kills a white woman and tries to run away, but only to end in a prison cell waiting for his punishment. Bigger’s definition of himself and the white society had limited his possibilities of having a greater future but Bigger could have went to the right path if he had controlled himself and his choicies.
Bigger's first encounter with a rat foreshadows what will happen to him later on in the story and explains his reaction to danger. ?The rat automatically becomes a natural enemy and an invader the moment it is discovered in Bigger's apartment? (Hakutani 41). Bigger's family is instantly afraid of the rat and demands its destruction. Buddy blocks the entrance to the rat's home, leaving the rat trapped in the room with no escape. Finally, the rat becomes frenzied and resorts to violence to protect itself from Bigger and Buddy. "The rat squeaked and turned and ran in a narrow circle, looking for a place to hide; it leaped again past Bigger and scurried on dry rasping feet to one side of the box and then to the other, searching for the hole. Then it turned and reared upon its hind legs" (Wright 4). Initially, the rat is shown as helpless, with no intent to hurt Bigger. The rat's fight for its survival becomes so desperate, however, that it leaps at Bigger's pant leg in an attempt to protect itself.
Bigger’s confession was coerced. State Attorney Dalton assures Bigger that he has no need for tactics and that the young man is as already caught so he might as well confess. Buckley warns Bigger that it will be better for him to confess. He describes Bigger as a wayward youth who has broken his mother's heart and surely, if he might escape the justice of the state, he would meet a far worse fate at the hands of the angry, frothing mob that is only growing. Buckley tells Bigger the police know that Bigger raped her and that he threw her body in an airshaft. Buckley suggests that Bigger's only way out is to confess, admit who helped him commit the crimes and settle for spending the rest of his life in a "hospital." Bigger confesses to the crime, denying his insanity and the existence of any accomplices. Buckley is joined by a "man with a pad" who records Bigger's confession and after they leave, Bigger is alone in his cell. He hears them joking outside the cell about how "easy...
In Darryl Pinckney’s discerning critical essay, “Richard Wright: The Unnatural History of a Native Son,” Pinckney states that all of Wright’s books contain the themes of violence, inhumanity, rage, and fear. Wright writes about these themes because he expresses, in his books, his convictions about his own struggles with racial oppression, the “brutal realities of his early life.” Pinckney claims that Wright’s works are unique for Wright’s works did not attempt to incite whites to acknowledge blacks. Wright does not write to preach that blacks are equal to whites. The characters in Wright’s works, including Bigger Thomas from Native Son, are not all pure in heart; the characters have psychological burdens and act upon their burdens. For instance, Bigger Thomas, long under racial oppression, accidentally suffocates Mary Dalton in her room for fear that he will be discriminated against and charged with the rape of Mary Dalton. Also, according to Pinckney, although the characters of Wright’s books are under these psychological burdens, they always have “futile hopes [and] desires.” At the end of Native Son, Bigger is enlightened by the way his lawyer Max treats him, with the respect of a human being. Bigger then desires nothing but to live, but he has been sentenced to death.
“Notes of a Native Son” is an essay that takes you deep into the history of James Baldwin. In the essay there is much to be said about than merely scratching the surface. Baldwin starts the essay by immediately throwing life and death into a strange coincidental twist. On the 29th of July, 1943 Baldwin’s youngest sibling was born and on the same day just hours earlier his father took his last breath of air from behind the white sheets of a hospital bed. It seems all too ironic and honestly overwhelming for Baldwin. From these events Baldwin creates a woven interplay of events that smother a conscience the and provide insight to a black struggle against life.
Nowhere in this novel can the reader see a greater example of Bigger’s fear and sense of constriction than in the accidental death of Mary Dalton. The all-encompassing fear that the white world has bred in Bigger takes over when he is in Mary’s room and in danger of being discovered by Mrs. Dalton. This internalized social oppression literally forces his hands to hold the pillow over Mary’s face, suffocating her. Bigger believes that a white person would assume that he was in the room to rape the white girl.
Intro: Summary, Thesis, Highlighting main points (Text to Text, Text to Self and Text to World) The tale of Native Son by Richard Wright follows the story of a young man by the name of Bigger Thomas who lives in the 1930’s. In the beginning of the story, we meet Bigger a young, angry frustrated black man who lives with his mother, brother and sister in a cramped apartment in New York. The story is narrated in a limited third-person voice that focuses on Bigger Thomas’s thoughts and feelings. The story is told almost exclusively from Bigger’s perspective. In recent years, the
In Native Son, Richard Wright introduces Bigger Thomas, a liar and a thief. Wright evokes sympathy for this man despite the fact that he commits two murders. Through the reactions of others to his actions and through his own reactions to what he has done, the author creates compassion in the reader towards Bigger to help convey the desperate state of Black Americans in the 1930’s.