ANALYSIS OF Richard Wright's NATIVE SON BY Tameem Garga.

NATIVE SON

BY

 Richard Wright.

Plot.

The plot of the book is about the lives of the family of four blacks who live in one room apartment. They are four in their family: Bigger the protagonist; Buddy, his younger brother; Vera, his sister and their mother. They wake up early morning at the sound of alarm clock. A big rat appears and with the help of other three persons, Bigger kills the rat and terrifies his sister with the dead body till she faints. Mrs. Thomas accuses Bigger for lack of care and concern for the family. She tells Bigger to go and take a job with the white man who happens to be their landlord, instead Bigger goes to his friends and plan robbery at white property. They had been robbing black shops but didn’t attempt on white. They plan to rob the white simply because they want to avert the fear they have for white people. They go for cinema before the robbery. After the cinema, Bigger attack one of his cliques to create a scenario where the robbery will be sabotaged.

Bigger takes a job with a Whiteman in person of Mr Dalton.  Mrs. Dalton, Dalton’s wife is blind. Marry Dalton is the daughter of Mr. Dalton. Bigger is employed to work as their chauffeur. Though feeling inferior and fearful, Bigger finds Dalton’s nice and friendly family. On his first day of his Job, Bigger drives Marry and her communist boyfriend, Jan. In that night bigger drives Marry and Jan around. They buy bottles of alcohol. They get drunk and have sex at the back seat of the car while he drives.  As they reach home, Bigger realizes that Marry is so drunk that he has to take her to her room. As he places her on her bed, Mrs. Dalton, who is a blind, enters the room. Out of fear to be caught in Mary’s room, Bigger takes a pillow and places it into Marry’s face to silence her from making any noise that will make Mrs. Dalton know he is in the room. Accidentally Bigger suffocates Marry to death. Because of the extreme fear of whites, Bigger decides to burn the cadaver in the house furnace. He will uses the hatred that Mrs. Dalton has for Jan and claims that it is Jan that takes Marry away and never bring her back. He put the body in the furnace and adds more charcoal to it.

Despite all efforts to cancel his crime, Marry’s body is found in the furnace and as a result, Bigger flees with his girlfriend, Bessie to an empty building where Bigger rapes Bessie and kills her since she knows that he kills Marry. After a chase, Bigger is finally caught.  Jan, Marry’s boyfriend visits bigger in Jail and provides him with a lawyer. Despite the plea by Max, the lawyer, Bigger is sentenced to death.

ISSUES

Wright tries to tell us that Bigger is neither a hero nor a criminal. The hate, prejudice of while towards blacks makes Bigger’s criminal acts. We meet Bigger and his friends planning a robbery but Bigger Sabotages the robbery in order to prevent himself from involving into the robbery. Wright tells us that out of fear of minor crime one tends to commit a Bigger crime, out of fear of realizing that he is with a white lady in her room makes Bigger commits the murder.

Bigger sees white people as though they are special people, specially creates in a special way. The gap that is created between the blacks and the whites with regard to the social and economics standard is purely clear.

CHARACTERIZATION

Bigger Thomas

He is the protagonist of the novel. He is an uneducated poor black American. He is twenty years old from African American Family living with his family in a room. He is presented to us as a young man surrounded by fear, destitution, illiteracy and inferiority complex. He hates his family because of their destitution and he cannot do anything about it. He accepts a job with a Whiteman as a chauffeur. He accidentally kills Marry, the daughter of his employer and tries to hides his crime by putting the body in a furnace and burns it. He rapes his girlfriend and kills her intentionally fearing that she may disclose his secret. He feels that all things are enforce on him simply because he is black. He believes that blacks are not equal to Whites in any way. He is made to realize lots of things about himself being human and alive and that he is entitle to some benefits at the end when he is about to be sentenced to death.

Marry Dalton.

She is the daughter of wealthy Whiteman who opposes her father’s political and social inclination. She tells Bigger that her father is capitalist but she inclines toward communist. As such she has a communist boyfriend she tries to be friendly to Bigger regardless of his racial and social class. She wants Bigger to take her to his friends so that she can be friend with the black. She is accidentally killed by Bigger.

Bessie Mears

She is Bigger’s girlfriend who first insinuates that bigger might be responsible for Mary’s death. She is presented to us as alcoholic whom we may assume as a result of the effect of the racial discrimination and illiteracy. She accomplices Bigger on trying to make Mary’s death as kidnapping case and source money from Mr. Dalton. Fail to accomplish the plan, Bigger runs with her, rapes her and kills her so that she cannot provide any clue of his whereabouts

Jan Erlone

He is Mary’s boyfriend. He is a member of communist party. He joins hand to fights against racial discrimination against black Americans. He tries to be friend with Bigger. Bigger tries to frame him for the murder of Marry. In return he tries to protect bigger by providing him with a lawyer. He visits Bigger at the jail which makes them both understand the social strata of each other.

Henry Dalton

He is the father of Mary. He is a wealthy man who owns a reasonable amount of share in the estate where Blacks live. He is describes as a capitalist therefore gives rent to black and collect too much money from them. He also appears to be philanthropist-donating money to the black community but collect high amount from the rat-infested houses from the blacks.

Boris Max

He is a Jewish lawyer who is also a member of communist party like Jan Erlone. He is a lawyer assign to help Bigger by his friend, Jan. He believes that unless Americans shun racial discrimination against other race, Americans can never stop such criminal acts.

Minor Characters

Vera Thomas   -        Bigger’s younger sister

Mrs. Thomas   -        Bigger’s mother

Buddy Thomas         -        Bigger’s brother

Peggy:                  She is the Irish-American house keeper for Dalton’s family

Gus:                                    One of the Bigger’s gang members

THEMES

Theme of effect of Racism

Richard Wright made us understand the effect of racism on black Americans. The blacks who are seen as unimportant fellow in 1930’s American lives caused the most devastating event in the novel. The psychological and emotional imbalance of Thomas is caused by racial discrimination. We meet black people in the book as those who are lagging behind as regard education and employment. They have less privilege of schooling and so they have to make robbery gangs and become nuisance to the blacks and whites communities. The death of Mary is one of the havoc caused by fear of racism. Bigger fears to be seen in white lady’s room causes him to kill her unknowingly.

Theme of Fear

Fear is the dominant emotional state of Bigger. He appears to be dreadful of almost everything – destitution, white people, courtroom and speaking publicly. This theme is explained in many places in the novel. Bigger and his gang have robbed many blacks but fears to rob white even once. In the beginning of the book, we meet Bigger terrorizes his sister with dead rat which cannot move nor bite but makes her faints. As we move on, we see the consequences of the protagonist’s fear. Out of fear to robbed white man bigger ends up terrorizing his friend. And the killing of two ladies by Bigger is the result of Bigger’s fear. It is as a result of fear to be seen with Marry, Bigger, accidentally, kills her. He also kills his girlfriend for fear to be caught.

Theme of Power

Is this theme derives from money or race? The white are seen in the novel as more powerful than the blacks. Does this power comes as a result of color of their skin or as a result of their growth of wealth? We must assume that the power comes from the racial differences which give whites opportunity to be wealthy. We see the blacks live in the rat infested houses. The white live in expensive houses and the blacks are their servants.  In the first few lines of Book 1 of the novel, we understand how destitute is Thomas’s to the extent that four people live in a single rat-infested room.

 Literary Terms

Symbolism

The Rat: We meet Thomas family trying to kill an outsider who confronts them. This symbolizes Bigger when he confronts the white they take their weapons till they destroy him the way he destroys the rat. Therefore the beginning of the novel foreshadows the end of Bigger as he is destroying the rat.

Mrs. Dalton’s Blindness: Mrs. Dalton enters the room but cannot see that there is a man in Mary’s room and that she can’t see that Mary is dead describe white social and psychological blindness to the world around them. She cannot see Bigger killing her daughter signifies the Whites inability to see blacks as human being destroys them indirectly. Inability of a person to see something that can destroy him is more dangerous than being physically blind.

POINT OF VIEW

The author uses the ‘Third person’ narrative technique where he is seems as reading the minds of all his characters. The narrator tells us that Bigger is afraid without Bigger realizing it himself. The author uses third person pronoun throughout the novel.