"Native Son" written by Richard Wright in 1940 tells the story of a young man named Bigger Thomas who grew up in the ghetto of Chicago and retells his life story. Bigger is put in a bad situation and smothers Mary, who is a white young girl and his employer’s daughter and ends up killing her. The interesting part that goes along with this is that he does it in front of her blind mother and she doesn’t realize what is going on. This is great use of symbolism where there is definitely some racial blindness going on and her being blind is showing this. Unfortunately for Bigger this isn’t the only incidence he gets in and he also rapes and kills his girlfriend Bessie. Wright mainly talks about how racism affects African Americans and how blacks act differently when surrounded by racism and racist people. For instance Bigger is afraid of white people so when he and his gang are robbing store, they will only rob black owners and when they try and rob a white store Bigger backs out of it and starts a new job.
Wright talks a lot about how people feel about religion and how both Bigger’s mother, and Mary’s mother both are very religious and Mary’s mother even prays over Mary’s bed when Bigger had just killed her not even knowing she was dead or hurt. Bigger also receives and wears a cross when he goes to prison which symbolizes his recognition of religion and the fact he says “he was feeling the words of the preacher, feeling that life was flesh nailed to the world, a longing spirit imprisoned in the days of the earth” (266).
Bigger was blind to the white race, and up until the very end, considered them in one group as oppressors to the black race. At the very end of the story, when he is on death row, tells Max to say hello to Jan. Jan was Mary’s boyfriend and also befriended Bigger. The reason why this is important is because he refers to Jan as his first name and thus symbolizing his new consideration of the white race and how he, at his very end, considers them equals. This goes along with some of our other readings in the fact that it wasn’t until he was tried and convicted, and then sentenced to death that he considered himself equal with his white friends and this goes with our Joan Dayan reading where a slave doesn’t become free until he commits a crime. In this setting, Bigger didn’t become equal until he committed a crime and realized how the world really was.