Native Son Discrimination Essay

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In “Native Son,” Bigger, the main character in the novel, is a young African American male, who is being offered a job of chauffeur by Henry Dalton, a wealthy white man. The job seems decent for Bigger as he will be paid very well, and offered a room to live in. Yet, he is tremendously nervous since he will have to live among white folks, whom he recognizes as racists based on his experience. Bigger feels even more anxious when he meets Mary, Mr. Dalton’s daughter. Mary is a communist and she attempts to treat Bigger as an equal. Later, Bigger is told to drive Mary to her university, but she asks him to drive her to meet her boyfriend, Jan, who is also a communist. Mary tells Bigger that she trusts him to keep her secret. When Bigger meets …show more content…

In fact, they are unaware of their own deep-rooted racial prejudices. They tell Bigger that they want to eat somewhere in his neighborhood. Mary says: “We want to go to real place…we want one of those places where colored people eat” (489-490). Mary’s word choice evidently constitutes racial discrimination. Mary and Jan’s desire to eat at an African American place undoubtedly does not descend merely from a belief in racial equalities, rather, it actually shows a kind of social tourism. They rather seem to believe that it is and adventure and they will discover the Black Belt simply by eating with Bigger at one restaurant. Then, after dinner, once the three of them are fairly drunk, racial and servitude boundaries become more apparent. On the way back, Jan does not offer to drive the car or bother to sit he and Mary next to Bigger in the front seat, he simply asks Bigger to drive, so “Bigger [gets] behind the steering wheel… Jan and Mary [get] into the back seat” (498). Jan no longer desires to act friendly and race-blind, and in fact he simply asks Bigger to drive them around. He says: “You better drive on, Bigger” (500). So, Bigger has to return to his position as a servant for Dalton’s family. Still, Jan believes he is treating Bigger as his equal, even though he has no trouble asking him to do

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