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

Bigger Thomas as America’s Native Son In the novel the Native Son, the author Richard Wright explores racism and oppression in American society. Wright skillfully merges his narrative voice into Bigger Thomas so that the reader can also 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 modern world. Bigger embodies one of humankind’s greatest tragedies of how mass oppression permeates all aspects of the lives of the oppressed and the oppressor, creating a world of misunderstanding, ignorance, and suffering. The novel is loaded with a plethora of imageries of a hostile white world. Wright shows how white racism affects the behavior, feelings, and thoughts of Bigger. â€Å"Everytime I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat†¦We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t†¦I feel like I’m on the outside the world peeping in through a knot-hole in the fence†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (20). Bigger’s sense of constriction and of confinement 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 crowded conditions†¦that one out of every ten of us is insane†¦you dump all stale foods into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere else†¦You tax us, but you wont build hospitals†¦the schools are so crowded that they breed perverts†¦you hire us last and fire us first†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (318). Bigger’s sense of constriction by the white world is so strong that he has no doubt that â€Å"something awful’s going to happen to me†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (21). 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.