Native Son Analysis

Justice Jones
Mrs. Pangle – 4th Period
Ap Literature and Composition
15 December 2015 All Odds Are Found
African Americans have been trapped within a lifestyle of lack and poverty in their everyday lives for centuries. They were brought into a system that was not built to help them reach their goals and dreams. African Americans were broken and deceived into weak pawns of a white society. The late writer, Richard Wright shed light on this plight within America. Richard Wright was born in Roxie, Mississippi in 1908. This was an era that African Americans were treated as second class citizens. The novel Native Son by Richard Wright is about discovering strength through family pressures, self values and social norms. This
Her only stress reliever is drinking. All of Bigger’s friends do not live life to the fullest. They live scared. Bigger’s friends rob their own kind but are scared to disrupt the lives of their “Caucasian superiors”. The entire African American community has been held down for so long that all they know is to work and stay in their lane. Their view on the world and society is limited. They are all products of their environment. The Dalton family has a blend or incorporation of views on life and society. Mr. Dalton is perceived as a rich civil rights advocate. He has given millions to the black community to help better their lives. In reality, Mr. Dalton does not seek to solve major problems that African Americans face. Mrs. Dalton is blind elderly woman. She may lack vision but has a greater perception of the inequalities that African Americans face in America through their everyday lives. Mary Dalton is your typical radical and defiant teen that seeks to make a dramatic change in her environment and the world. She is most like her mother. She is compassionate and desires better for those who struggle regardless of race. She is a communist or a “Red” but this is the only political party that can match her values and
Native Son is told almost entirely from Bigger’s point of view. This allows the reader to fully comprehend the struggles that a black man faced during this time period in a segregated America. The tone of this novel is one of sympathetic nature to Bigger’s situation. The tone assists the reader to understand that it is not Bigger’s fault that he is poor or drawn to crime. As a reader, one only wants Bigger to break from this cycle of poverty and discover strength to overcome society’s stranglehold over his life. The diction the author uses within the dialogue of the characters shows the time period that the characters are living in. During the 1930s, most African Americans did not have an adequate education. This affected their grammar. Mrs. Thomas says, “Sometimes you act the biggest fool I ever saw.” (Wright 11). Bigger constantly uses the phrases, “Yessum and Suh.” These phrases depict a time of social inequality. Wright uses metaphors to show the fear that the African Americans have because of the whites. Wright says, “It would be trespassing into territory where the full wrath of an alien white world would be turned loose upon them; In short, it would be