Oppression In Richard Wright's Native Son

Do people ever feel like they just want to kill? In The book Native Son, by Richard Wright, tells the story of a Black man named Bigger. The book follows Bigger and unveils the story through his eyes and peers through his thoughts, emotions, and actions. The story takes place in the south side of Chicago where many Black Americans who flee from the south in search of better lives in the north and during the time was when discrimination against African- Americans were an everyday occurance. There is a cycle in the book when Bigger would always have or feel an intense pressure almost like he is trapped to do only one thing, and that is to kill. The idea that Wright incorporates into Native Son displays when people are stressed or put into a state …show more content…
The theme of the book is “Oppression” and it is always recurring and is always present throughout the book. The cycle begins when at the very beginning of the book with the death scene of the rat marks the beginning of the cycle because it foreshadows the later deaths in the book. As the the story progresses, Mary constantly puts Bigger into positions where he doesn’t want to be in and finds himself being mistreated by Mary. This can be seen when Mary and Jan strenuously begged Bigger to go eat in the dinner with them while leaving Bigger without a say in what he thought about the situation. Another example is when Bigger was not letting Bessie leave him and his plans of money fraud against the Daltons. Bigger had mistreated many people throughout the story but the one person he knew he had total control over was his girlfriend Bessie and he completely manipulated her to do whatever he had asked and he got everything he wanted from her with ultimately causing her death. There is many unfair treatment seen and happening all through the book which ties into every scene and chapter and really brings the book together making it