Native Son Analysis

  

   The plot of the native son

The story begins in the one-room rat-infested apartment of the protagonist's family the 'Thomases' the protagonist, is sheduled to attend a job interview which is to serve as the lifeline for the poor thomas family.

But Bigger instead chooses to meet up with his friends to plan the robbery of a white man’s store.

Anger, fear, and frustration define Bigger’s daily existence, as he is forced to hide behind a facade of toughness or risk succumbing to despair. While Bigger and his gang have robbed many black-owned businesses, they have never attempted to rob a white man. Bigger sees whites not as individuals, but as a natural, oppressive force a great looming “whiteness” pressing down upon him. Bigger’s fear of confronting this force. overwhelms him, but rather than admit his fear, he violently. attacks a member of his gang to sabotage the robbery. Left with no other options, Bigger takes a job as a chauffeur for the Daltons.

Coincidentally, Mr. Dalton is also Bigger’s landlord, as he owns a controlling share of the company that manages the apartment building where Bigger’s family lives. Mr. Dalton and other wealthy real estate barons are effectively robbing the poor, black tenants on Chicago’s South Side—they refuse to allow blacks to rent apartments in predominantly white neighborhoods, thus leading to overpopulation and artificially high rents in the predominantly black South Side. Mr. Dalton sees himself as a benevolent philanthropist, however, as he donates money to black schools and offers jobs to “poor, timid black boys” like Bigger. However, Mr. Dalton practicexs this. philanthropy mainly to alleviate his guilty conscience for exploiting poor blacks. Mary, Mr. Dalton’s daughter, frightens and angers Bigger by ignoring the social taboos that govern the relations between white women and black men. On his first day of work, Bigger drives Mary to meet her communist boyfriend, Jan. Eager to prove their progressive ideals and racial tolerance, Mary and Jan force Bigger to take them to a restaurant in the South Side. Despite Bigger’s embarrassment, they order drinks, and as the evening passes, all three of them get drunk. Bigger then drivesxaround the city while Mary and Jan make out in the back seat. Afterward, Mary is too drunk to make it to her bedroom on her own, so Bigger helps her up the stairs. Drunk and aroused by his unprecedented proximity to a young white woman, Bigger begins to kiss Mary.

Just as Bigger places Mary on her bed, Mary’s blind mother, Mrs. Dalton, enters the bedroom. Though Mrs. Dalton cannot see him, her ghostlike presence terrifies him. Bigger worries that Mary, in her drunken condition, will reveal his presence. He covers her face with a pillow and accidentally smothers her to death. Unaware that Mary has been killed, Mrs. Dalton prays over her daughter and returns to bed. Bigger tries to conceal his crime by burning Mary’s body in the Daltons’ furnace. He decides to try to use the Daltons’ prejudice against communists to frame Jan for Mary’s disappearance. Bigger believes that the Daltons will assume Jan is dangerous and that he may have kidnapped their daughter for political purposes. Additionally, Bigger takes advantage of the Daltons’ racial prejudices to avoid suspicion, continuing to play the role of a timid, ignorant black servant who would be unable to commit such an act. Mary’s murder gives Bigger a sense of power and identity he has never known. Bigger’s girlfriend, Bessie, makes an offhand comment that inspires him to try to collect ransom money from the Daltons. They know only that Mary has vanished, not that she is dead. Bigger writes a ransom letter, playing upon the Daltons’ hatred of communists by signing his name “Red.” He

then bullies Bessie to take part in the ransom scheme. However, Mary’s bones are found in the furnace, and Bigger flees with Bessie to an empty building. Bigger rapes Bessie and, frightened that she will give him away, bludgeons her to death with a brick after she falls asleep. Bigger eludes the massive manhunt for as long as he can, but he is eventually captured after a dramatic shoot-out. The press and the public determine his guilt and his punishment before his trial even begins. The furious populace assumes that he raped Mary before killing her and burned her body to hide the evidence of the rape. Moreover, the white authorities and the white mob use Bigger’s crime as an excuse to terrorize the entire SouthSide .

Jan visits Bigger in jail. He says that he understands how he terrified, angered, and shamed Bigger through his violation of the social taboos that govern tense race relations. Jan enlists his friend, Boris A. Max, to defend Bigger free of charge. Jan and Max speak with Bigger as a human being, and Bigger begins to see whites as individuals and himself as their equal.

Max tries to save Bigger from the death penalty, arguing that while his client is responsible for his crime, it is vital to recognize that he is a product of his environment. Part of the blame for Bigger’s crimes belongs to the fearful, hopeless existence that he has experienced in a racist society since birth. Max warns that there will be more men like Bigger if America does not put an end to the vicious cycle of hatred and vengeance. Despite Max’s arguments, Bigger is sentenced to death. Bigger is not a traditional hero by any means. However,Wright forces us to enter into Bigger’s mind and to understand the devastating effects of the social conditions in which he was raised. Bigger was not born a violent criminal. He is a “native son”: a product of American culture and the violence and racism that suffuse it. 

Themes in Native Son 

Anger and Charity

Theme Analysis

Wright attempts to tease out, in Native Son, the nature of Bigger’s anger—his hatred of humanity—and the extent to which charity toward man, as espoused by Max, Jan, Mary, and others, is a preferable way of life. Bigger is defined and enveloped by his hate. He hates the white people he believes have kept him out of school, out of the profession (aircraft pilot) he desires; he hates the Daltons for giving him a room and a job, for treating him as someone in need of charity; and, perhaps most importantly, Bigger hates and rejects his mother and siblings, feeling that, although they love him, they can only crowd in on him and demand things of him. Bigger’s anger is his default emotional state—his natural way of viewing the world.

But others in Bigger’s life wish to combat this anger. Jan and Mary seem genuinely to want to get to know him, and though the night they spend together goes horribly awry, and Bigger attempts to blame the murder on Jan, Jan nevertheless takes Bigger’s side, and hopes, even during the trial, that Bigger might escape the death penalty. Bessie, Bigger’s girlfriend, is a foil for Bigger’s mother: both are women afraid of Bigger’s anger, hoping that he will somehow realize that, although white society might attempt to thwart Bigger and his aspirations, that there exists, too, a society in that Black Belt willing to support and love Bigger.

This all contrasts with the charity offered by the Daltons, who take in members of the black community to work for them, and who give money (evoked most pointedly by the “ping-pong tables”) to the Black Belt community. Unfortunately, the Daltons are not capable of understanding that their efforts infantilize and continue, however implicitly, to support the oppression of African-American Chicagoans. Max, on the other hand, is a person outside Bigger’s community who, through genuine concern for Bigger’s life, and for the plight of all African Americans, shows Bigger compassion, makes a case for Bigger’s difficult circumstances, and hopes to avoid the death penalty for his client and friend. At the novel’s end, although it is a small victory, Bigger realizes that Max’s attempts to understand the story of Bigger’s life and circumstances have provided a model for genuine human engagement: a charity of the heart and mind, a form of human communion. Their conversation is not enough to save Bigger’s life, but the small smile Bigger gives at the close of the book seems tacit, and poignant, recognition of the possibility of human kindness.

Fate and Free Will

Native Son suggests that we are only partially in control of or responsible for our own actions. In part, the environment in which we are raised creates certain knee-jerk reactions and also presents us with life options. Some people have more options (and better options) than others.

The Effect of Racism on the Oppressed

Wright’s exploration of Bigger’s psychological corruption gives us a new perspective on the oppressive effect racism had on the black population in 1930s America. Bigger’s psychological damage results from the constant barrage of racist propaganda and racial oppression he faces while growing up. The movies he sees depict whites as wealthy sophisticates and blacks as jungle savages. He and his family live in cramped and squalid conditions, enduring socially enforced poverty and having little opportunity for education. Bigger’s resulting attitude toward whites is a volatile combination of powerful anger and powerful fear. He conceives of “whiteness” as an overpowering and hostile force that is set against him in life. Just as whites fail to conceive of Bigger as an individual, he does not really distinguish between individual whites—to him, they are all the same, frightening and untrustworthy. As a result of his hatred and fear, Bigger’s accidental killing of Mary Dalton does not fill him with guilt. Instead, he feels an odd jubilation because, for the first time, he has asserted his own individuality against the white forces that have conspired to destroy it.

Identity

In Book Three, the theme of identity is developed‹mostly in the scenes where Bigger prepares to face his death in the electric chair. In these final moments, Bigger must struggle to "come to terms" with what he has done and what he has become. In this regard, Bigger's identity crisis is more of a struggle to separate his own impressions from the projections of the racist society around him. Even as Bigger must accept responsibility for his crimes, he faces the complex task of asserting his own worth even as he can't ignore his crime. When Bigger is involved in the process of asserting his own worth, he finds that he is in a trap because he has been unable to act upon all of the dreams that he has. Bigger wants to define himself as an aviator or even as the leader of his gang, but these are all ultimately false. One important thing to note is that Wright's treatment of the identity theme resembles the philosophies expounded in several existentialist works. In particular, the prison scenes toward the end of the novel are intended to hearken back to the works of Wright's favorite writer, Dostoevsky. Particularly after his rejection of established religion, Bigger has the existentialist burden of searching for meaning in life without the traditional support systems offered by the church or other social structures. By the end of Native Son, it seems that Bigger is one man who is doomed to fight against the machinery of a hostile world.

Power

The world in Native Son is divided between those who have power (white people) and those who do not (black people). Power is intimately connected to race. However, it is also connected to wealth, as we see clearly with the Capitalist vs. Communist fight played out in the courthouse and in society at large.

The Effect of Racism on the Oppressor

The deleterious effect of racism extends to the white population, in that it prevents whites from realizing the true humanity inherent in groups that they oppress. Indeed, one of the great strengths of Native Son as a chronicle of the effects of oppression is Wright’s extraordinary ability to explore the psychology not only of the oppressed but of the oppressors as well. Wright illustrates that racism is destructive to both groups, though for very different reasons. Many whites in the novel, such as Britten and Peggy, fall victim to the obvious pitfall of racism among whites: the unthinking sense of superiority that deceives them into seeing blacks as less than human. Wright shows that this sense of superiority is a weakness, as Bigger is able to manipulate it in his cover-up of Mary’s murder. Bigger realizes that a man with Britten’s prejudices would never believe a black man could be capable of what Bigger has done. Indeed, for a time, Bigger manages to escape suspicion.

Other white characters in the novel—particularly those with a self-consciously progressive attitude toward race relations—are affected by racism in subtler and more complex ways. Though the Daltons, for instance, have made a fortune out of exploiting blacks, they aggressively present themselves as philanthropists committed to the black American cause. We sense that they maintain this pretense in an effort to avoid confronting their guilt, and we realize that they may even be unaware of their own deep-seated racial prejudices. Mary and Jan represent an even subtler form of racism, as they consciously seek to befriend blacks and treat them as equals, but ultimately fail to understand them as individuals. This failure has disastrous results. Mary and Jan’s simple assumption that Bigger will welcome their friendship deludes them into overlooking the possibility that he will react with suspicion and fear—a natural reaction considering that Bigger has never experienced such friendly treatment from whites. In this regard, Mary and Jan are deceived by their failure to recognize Bigger’s individuality just as much as an overt racist such as Britten is deceived by a failure to recognize Bigger’s humanity. Ultimately, Wright portrays the vicious circle of racism from the white perspective as well as from the black one, emphasizing that even well-meaning whites exhibit prejudices that feed into the same black behavior that confirms the racist whites’ sense of superiority

Psychological Escape

This theme is very much related to the theme of madness and it recurs in all three books of Native Son. It is worth noting that many of Wright's moral and political ideas, derived from Communist ideology, never achieved common acceptance among his largely American readership. While Wright does draw some superficial distinctions between Bessie and Ma, his philosophy reduces both Bessie's alcoholism and Ma's ardent religion to "escapes" from reality. Through Bigger, Wright sums up Ma's religion as a sense of resignation in regards to the present, only permissible and justified by faith in heaven, a life after death. The "escape" aspects of organized religion are exaggerated by the Reverend's antics and when this "holy fool" is juxtaposed with the Dalton's frigid, unstinting compassion, much of Society's morality seems to be only surface-deep. While Bigger avoids Ma's escapism, he is less successful navigating through the Black Belt's "underworld" of sex, violence and drugs, portrayed in the Book One and Book Two. The ransom note, the half-attempts to escape to Harlem, the alcoholic atmosphere at the Paris Grill, like the movie-house in the beginning of the novel‹all of these are escapes that offer a temporary relief from life's misery, even as they leave the characters worse off and increasingly ill-equipped to get their lives in order. Ironically, these escapes both intensify and add to the miseries of the Black Belt. Mr. Dalton's ping-pong tables are farcical in comparison to religion and alcohol, but this donation indicates that Dalton is well aware that the Bigger Thomases of the world are in need of a diversion.

Territory

The very title of the novel, Native Son, invites the reader to think about ideas of "nativism" and "territory." From the opening scene of the novel, where Bigger is killing the rat-invader, to Bigger's execution at the novel's end, there is a tension between Bigger's "native" status and his lack of political rights. Bigger was born in Mississippi, not Chicago, and the idea of a "native son" applies more to Bigger's status as an American as opposed to his status as a Chicagoan. Indeed, for all of the squalor of the Black Belt, Wright continually presses the argument that Bigger would be no better off in Mississippi or in Harlem. As America's "native son," Bigger is born an American, but perhaps more important, the Bigger that he becomes, is a product of America's native soil. The novel continually presents Bigger's "trapped" feelings and his lack of personal, physical freedom. While this seems to contradict Bigger's title role as a "native son," Wright ultimately makes the argument that poverty and American racism has remade Bigger into the "native son" that he has become. When Wright presents a detail that seems particular to Chicago or the Black Belt, there is usually a larger argument or ideology that is attached to it. One example is the fact that Mr. Dalton is Bigger's employer and landlord. While this might have been a common occurrence, Wright fashions this detail within the rubric of Marxism. In this regard, Mr. Dalton is evidence of the essentially feudal relationship (property-owner vs. laborer) that is masked by and intertwined within capitalism. In his treatment of the "property" theme, Wright argues that capitalism and racism reify one another, conspiring to insure Bigger's poverty and misery.

Criminality

This novel asks who is to blame for criminality—the criminal or the society that the criminal lives in? Native Son suggests that the society creates the criminal. A lawyer in the novel implies that punishing (or giving the death sentence to) a murderer, doesn’t solve the larger problem.

Society must change in order to end criminality. In addition, the storyline in Native Son suggests that a mob mentality influences the justice system, and thus justice is also operating under a criminal mentality.

Analysis of characters

Bigger : 

Twenty years old, he is the eldest of the three children of Mrs Thomas who is a sinle parent.

He dropped out of school at the eighth grade, he had been at the reformatory school once for stealing auto tyres. now he keep company of other jobless friends, committing petty crimes Bigger is limited by the fact that he has only completed the eighth grade, and by the racist real estate practices that force him to live in poverty. Furthermore, he is subjected to endless bombardment from a popular culture that portrays whites as sophisticated and blacks as either subservient or savage. Indeed, racism has severely curtailed Bigger’s prospects in life and even his very conception of himself. He is ashamed of his family’s poverty and afraid of the whites who control his life—feelings he works hard to keep hidden, even from himself. When these feelings overwhelm him, he reacts with violence. Bigger commits crimes with his friends —though only against other blacks, as the group is too frightened to rob a white man—but his own violence is often directed at these friends as well. Bigger feels little guilt after he accidentally kills Mary. In fact, he feels for the first time as though his life actually has meaning. Mary’s murder makes him believe that he has the power to assert himself against whites. Wright goes out of his way to emphasize that Bigger is not a conventional hero, as his brutality and capacity for violence are extremely disturbing, especially in graphic scenes such as the one in which he decapitates Mary’s corpse in order to stuff it into the furnace. Wright does not present Bigger as a hero to admire, but as a frightening and upsetting figure created by racism. Indeed, Wright’s point is that Bigger becomes a brutal killer precisely because the dominant white culture fears that he will become a brutal killer. By confirming whites’ fears, Bigger contributes to the cycle of racism in America. Only after he meets Max and learns to talk through his problems does Bigger begin to redeem himself, recognizing whites as individuals for the first time and realizing the extent to which he has been stunted by racism. Bigger’s progress is cut short, however, by his execution.

Mary :

 Mary is the beautiful daughter of the chicago capitalist millionaire, Mr Henry Dalton she is the heiress to the big wealth of the dalton because she is the only child of the family. she is considered a major character in the novel not because of the number of her role or frequency of her appearance in the events making up story, but the centrality of her appearance. consciously identifies herself as a progressive: she defies her parents by dating a communist, cares about social issues, and is politically and personally interested in improving the lives of blacks in America. Though Mary’s intentions are essentially good, however, she is too young and immature either to commit fully to her chosen causes or to attain a sophisticated understanding of those people she seeks to help. Mary attempts to treat Bigger as a human being, but gives no thought to the fact that Bigger might be surprised and confused by such unprecedented treatment from the wealthy white daughter of his employer. Mary simply assumes that Bigger will embrace her friendship, as she supports the political cause that she believes he represents. She does not even think to wonder about any of his personal qualities, thoughts, or feelings, butmerely seeks to befriend him automatically, because he is black. For a tragically brief moment, Mary seems to recognize Bigger’s discomfort, a sign that perhaps one day she could be capable of greater understanding. Ultimately, however, Mary never gets the chance to perceive Bigger as an individual. Though Mary has the best of intentions, she treats Bigger with a thoughtless racism that is just as destructive as the more overt hypocrisy of her parents. Interacting with the Daltons, Bigger at least knows where he stands. Mary’s behavior, however, is disorienting and upsetting to him. Ultimately, Mary’s thoughtlessness actually ends up placing Bigger in serious danger, while the only risk she herself runs is mild punishment or disapproval from her parents for her disobedience. She does not stop to think that Bigger could easily lose his job—or worse —if he upsets her parents. Mary unthinkingly puts Bigger in the position of being alone with her in her bedroom, and her inability to understand him and the terror he feels at the prospect of being discovered in her room proves fatal.

Mr. and Mrs. Dalton 

 - A white millionaire couple living in Chicago. Mrs. Dalton is blind; Mr. Dalton has earned a fortune in real estate. Although he profits from charging high rents to poor black tenants—including Bigger’s family—on Chicago’s South Side, he nonetheless claims to be a generous philanthropist and supporter of black Americans.

Jan Erlone - 

A member of the Communist Party and Mary Dalton’s boyfriend—a relationship that upsets Mary’s parents. Jan, like Mary, wants to treat Bigger as an equal, but such untraditional behavior only frightens and angers Bigger. Jan later recognizes his mistake in trying to treat Bigger this way and becomes sympathetic toward his plight. Jan becomes especially aware of the social divisions that prevent Bigger from relating normally with white society.

Boris A. Max -

 A Jewish lawyer who works for the Labor Defenders, an organization affiliated with the Communist Party. Max argues, based on a sociological analysis of American society, that institutionalized racism and prejudice—not inherent ethnic qualities create conditions for violence in urban ghettos.

Bessie Mears -

 Bigger’s girlfriend. Their relationship remains quite distant and is largely based upon mutual convenience rather than romantic love. Mrs. Thomas - Bigger’s devoutly religious mother. Mrs. Thomas has accepted her precarious, impoverished position in life and warns Bigger at the beginning of the novel that he will meet a bad end if he fails to change his ways.

Buddy Thomas - 

 Bigger’s younger brother. Buddy, unlike his brother, does not rebel against his low position on the social ladder. In fact, he envies Bigger’s job as a chauffeur for a rich white family. As the novel progresses, however, Buddy begins to take on a more antagonistic attitude toward racial prejudice.

Vera Thomas - 

 Bigger’s younger sister. Vera, like Bigger, lives her life in constant fear.

G. H., Gus, and Jack -  

Bigger’s friends, who often plan and execute robberies together. G. H., Gus, and Jack hatch a tentative plan to rob a white shopkeeper, Mr. Blum, but they are afraid of the consequences if they should be caught robbing white man. At the beginning of the novel, Bigger taunts his friends about their fear, even though he is just as terrified himself.

Mr. Blum -

 A white man who owns a delicatessen on the South Side of Chicago. Mr. Blum represents an inviting robbery target for Bigger and his friends, but their fear of the consequences of robbing a white man initially prevents them from following through on their plan.

Britten - 

racist, anticommunist private investigator who helps Mr. Dalton investigate Mary’s disappearance. Buckley - The incumbent State’s Attorney who is running for reelection. Buckley is viciously racist and anticommunist

Peggy - 

An Irish immigrant who has worked as the Daltons’ cook for years. Peggy considers the Daltons to be marvelous benefactors to black Americans. Though she is actively kind to Bigger, she is also extremely patronizing. Doc - The black owner of a pool hall on the South Side of Chicago that serves as a hangout for Bigger and his friends. Reverend Hammond - The pastor of Mrs. Thomas’s church who urges Bigger to turn toward religion in times of trouble.

Symbols

Black Ape

Symbol Analysis

Various members of the crowds that gather outside the courtroom, after Bigger’s capture, describe Bigger as a “black ape,” and even newspaper articles circulating in Chicago do the same. This derogatory term has several meanings. First, it exemplifies the racist discourse common to the United States at that time: a belief that African Americans were somehow biologically inferior to white Americans, and that, as such, black attitudes toward violence, toward women, and toward other parts of society were considered “closer” to those of animals than to those of human beings. This form of racism, so profound in its reduction of African Americans to the image of animals, promotes the kind of vicious anger that leads to Bigger’s “conviction” in the “mob,” and to his later conviction in the trial, whose prosecution is led by Buckley, the State’s Attorney. Max, on Bigger’s behalf, attempts to fight the idea that Bigger is inferior to white Americans. However, though Max’s argument is impassioned and righteous, it does little to sway the jury and the judge, who sentence Bigger to death. Nevertheless, the novel includes Max’s well-meaning dissent as a means of arguing that Bigger is not an “animal,” nor is he possessed of animal desires. Instead, it is a majority-white society that has condemned Bigger to inferior status throughout his life

The Furnace

Symbol Analysis

One of Bigger’s jobs at the Dalton house is to stoke the furnace that heats the entire property. He is taught to do this by Peggy on his first day of the job. After accidentally smothering Mary later that night in a fit of panic, however, Bigger decides that it would be best to burn Mary’s body in the furnace in order to avoid detection and make it seem that Jan is, in fact, Mary’s killer. Bigger manages to stuff Mary’s body entirely in the furnace, although he has to cut off her head and load it in separately. But Bigger fears all along that the furnace will not burn Mary’s body completely, and he is right. The journalists who gather in that room the next day find Mary’s body, and this eventually leads to the conviction that places Bigger on death row. The furnace, therefore, is not just an implement used by Bigger to aid in the commission of his crime; it is also a symbol of one of his small jobs at the Dalton estate, and a fiery reminder of the terrible deed Bigger has done. Later in the novel, Bigger has a dream in which the furnace appears to be burning the entire landscape, and it is clear that the physical act of placing Mary inside the machine has stuck with Bigger—it is the dominant image of his crime. And just as Bigger fed Mary into this destructive device, so too is Bigger fed (as Max later argues, at the trial) into the maw of the Chicago criminal justice system. Despite Max’s best efforts, the court rules that Bigger ought to be punished this way, and he is sentenced to execution at the novel’s end.