Throughout history, white society has segregated/ isolated many communities, cultures, and races. In his novel, Wright directs attention to the alienation of blacks from national culture (Tolentino 381). In the novel Native Son, Richard Wright exposes society’s isolation of the black community and its effect on one’s mind. Through the life of Bigger Thomas, an impoverished black man who is the bread-winner of his family, Wright reveals society’s culpability for the heavy responsibility placed onto Bigger. This responsibility influences Bigger to indulge in his vices because it gives him a place in society.
Bigger, his mother Mrs. Thomas, his brother Buddy, and his sister Vera all live in a one-bedroom apartment on the South Side of Chicago …show more content…
They all feel the same pressures from society and their families which provides for them a point of connection. Poor urban black males such as Gus, G.H., Jack, and Bigger constantly endure police brutality, unemployment, and scrutiny from within their own communities/families. The social and cultural world that poor urban black males create for themselves in different places throughout the community, such as poolrooms and the streets, were places to commiserate over and recover from the difficulty of living in a culture of terror (Ellis 25-26). In the beginning of the novel, Bigger’s family fights off a rat. They back it into a corner and kill it. This rat can be seen to represent Bigger and the black community themselves. Some symbols have a limited range of meaning but one symbol never just means/stands for one thing (Foster 98). This group/ person is backed into a corner (isolation) and in some cases, killed. This symbol could represent Gus, Jack, or G.H. as well. Due to their inability to attain the same opportunities and things in general as other individuals, they are figuratively backed into a corner. They are also literally backed into a corner because of their living conditions. In the least livable area of the city. At one point in the novel Gus and Bigger play white. This reflects a symbolic appropriation and internalization of the central attributes of white patriarchal power: authority,
Bigger, his mother Mrs. Thomas, his brother Buddy, and his sister Vera all live in a one-bedroom apartment on the South Side of Chicago …show more content…
They all feel the same pressures from society and their families which provides for them a point of connection. Poor urban black males such as Gus, G.H., Jack, and Bigger constantly endure police brutality, unemployment, and scrutiny from within their own communities/families. The social and cultural world that poor urban black males create for themselves in different places throughout the community, such as poolrooms and the streets, were places to commiserate over and recover from the difficulty of living in a culture of terror (Ellis 25-26). In the beginning of the novel, Bigger’s family fights off a rat. They back it into a corner and kill it. This rat can be seen to represent Bigger and the black community themselves. Some symbols have a limited range of meaning but one symbol never just means/stands for one thing (Foster 98). This group/ person is backed into a corner (isolation) and in some cases, killed. This symbol could represent Gus, Jack, or G.H. as well. Due to their inability to attain the same opportunities and things in general as other individuals, they are figuratively backed into a corner. They are also literally backed into a corner because of their living conditions. In the least livable area of the city. At one point in the novel Gus and Bigger play white. This reflects a symbolic appropriation and internalization of the central attributes of white patriarchal power: authority,