By: Richard Wright Native Son by Richard Wright is about a young, uneducated, 20 year old, poor black man, who lives is in a 1930’s Chicago society that makes blacks feel obsolete. Bigger Thomas is the main character, he is the oldest in his family with a little brother and sister, his family depends on him and his mom. Wright describes Bigger as a scared and confused person with very little ethics as they were taken away from him by society. Bigger is scared of white people because they are the oppressors and force him to live the way he does which is very poorly. His gang does nothing but steal from their own kind of people and they dare not steal from a white man. In order to avoid doing this and not admit he is scared bigger results in drastic measures. He separates himself from the gang by starting a fight with one of his friends. His mom stresses about taking this big job as a chauffeur with a man who runs the white society. They need this money in order to survive because his mom cannot make enough to put food on the table. Mr. Dalton is a wealthy white man with a blind wife and a young teenage communist daughter named Mary. The Dalton family turns Bigger’s life upside down as he ends up raping and murdering Mary one night when she is under the influence. Bigger then tries to run but is caught, put up for trail, and sentenced to death. In the book Native Son Wright uses characterization, imagery, and symbolism to show how white society gives the people no option in life and denies them the basic human rights to live free.
In the book Native Son Wright uses characterization to show how society affects the nature of people. The people in the poor slum urban areas, like Bigger, have a hard time fitting into society because society does not accept them and their natural human rights are forgotten. Bigger cannot handle this hate of society and results in drastic unethical decisions. “He shut their voices out of his mind. He hated his family…he