Xenophobia In Native Son Essay

Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, is about the murder trial of Bigger Thomas, who is an African-American man accused of murdering and raping both a black and white woman. Boris Max, Thomas’s lawyer, is arguing the case that Thomas alone is not responsible for his actions as it is America’s racism and segregation against minorities that factored into Thomas’s reasons for killing them. Although Bigger Thomas is responsible for the murder of Mary Dalton and Bessie Mears as his actions are caused by him alone, the racial and ethnic prejudices, class conflict, and xenophobia at the time played an important role in Thomas’s case as it was what influenced Thomas to commit these crimes in the first place. In the case of Bigger Thomas, racial and …show more content…
In the case of Bigger Thomas, xenophobia played a impactful role in his case as it played a part in why Bigger made some of the decisions he did. Bigger decided to pin the blame on Mary Dalton murder on Jan, her boyfriend, because he was a known member of the Communist party and Mr. and Mrs. Dalton was more likely to believe that he would play a hand in this murder instead of Bigger, who portrayed himself as humble, ignorant, servant of the Daltons (Wright 195-200). As Bigger was being questioned by the detective, his believed that “he could tell them anything he wanted and what could they do about it? It was his word against Jan’s, and Jan was a Red” (Wright 198). This shows how xenophobia influenced Bigger as it led him to believe that he could use America’s fear of communism to his advantage and let him escape with murder as well as ransom. Later on in the novel, he sends a note to the Daltons asking for $10,000 and signs it as “Red” and includes a drawing of a sickle and hammer. The Daltons continue to believe that Jan played a role in the disappearance of Mary and do not even consider Bigger as a suspect. He continues using society’s fear of communism to benefit himself monetarily in this