The Tragedy of Self-Awareness in Native Son
The Tragedy of Self-Awareness in Native son
Richard Wright’s Native Son is about the cost of suffering and sacrifices which one man, defined as the Other from the mainstream of society, must pay in order to live as a full human being in a world that denies him the right to live with dignity. As a social being, Bigger Thomas is completely deprived himself because he is unable to find his social and self-esteemed values both in the stunted ghetto life and in the oppression of racist society. Therefore, the only way Bigger can express himself is through violence and rebellion: Wright views Bigger’s tragic destiny as the evidence which directly reflects the violence of a racist society. Eventually, in Native Son, Wight’s accusation is directed toward the systematized oppression applied by the white people, designed to keep the blacks from advancing and attaining their fullest potentialities. Wright’s major purpose in Native Son is to show how tyrannical racist society oppresses the external and internal condition of Bigger Thomas, and how Bigger’s existence is distorted in that oppressive condition. Under the external oppression, black people come to inevitably go through an inner refraction, extremely internalizing the external oppression into the self, at the same time. On that account, self-hatred, shame and impotence are produced. Bigger’s existence, also, is perverted from not only his harsh reality but his own stunted inner-self. Under this dehumanizing condition, he has to be “a dispossessed and disinherited man,” and has to struggle for his existence even by means of radical violent actions (Wright 466). The deep-rooted discordance induces an inner-refraction, and promotes the fundamental fear of self. That concretely appears in the phase of Bigger who has to observe his family’s suffering, and suffers from confirming his powerlessness. As for Bigger or other black people, fear means poor, incapable and furious. At the same time, fear is an anxious
Richard Wright’s Native Son is about the cost of suffering and sacrifices which one man, defined as the Other from the mainstream of society, must pay in order to live as a full human being in a world that denies him the right to live with dignity. As a social being, Bigger Thomas is completely deprived himself because he is unable to find his social and self-esteemed values both in the stunted ghetto life and in the oppression of racist society. Therefore, the only way Bigger can express himself is through violence and rebellion: Wright views Bigger’s tragic destiny as the evidence which directly reflects the violence of a racist society. Eventually, in Native Son, Wight’s accusation is directed toward the systematized oppression applied by the white people, designed to keep the blacks from advancing and attaining their fullest potentialities. Wright’s major purpose in Native Son is to show how tyrannical racist society oppresses the external and internal condition of Bigger Thomas, and how Bigger’s existence is distorted in that oppressive condition. Under the external oppression, black people come to inevitably go through an inner refraction, extremely internalizing the external oppression into the self, at the same time. On that account, self-hatred, shame and impotence are produced. Bigger’s existence, also, is perverted from not only his harsh reality but his own stunted inner-self. Under this dehumanizing condition, he has to be “a dispossessed and disinherited man,” and has to struggle for his existence even by means of radical violent actions (Wright 466). The deep-rooted discordance induces an inner-refraction, and promotes the fundamental fear of self. That concretely appears in the phase of Bigger who has to observe his family’s suffering, and suffers from confirming his powerlessness. As for Bigger or other black people, fear means poor, incapable and furious. At the same time, fear is an anxious