Theme Of Fate In Native Son

With the world we live in today, it's only fair that everyone has a chance at becoming successful, but do people have control over their own fate? In this novel, Native Son by Richard Wright, the main character Bigger Thomas believes that he is a victim of white stereotypes about blacks, but in reality his actions contribute to making those stereotypes factual. Bigger surely has control over his own destiny, although the choices he makes which are routinely negative, influence and have a critical outcome on his life later down the road.
Bigger believes that he is invincible. Starting out in the book Bigger is in his family's small, one story apartment with his family when all of the sudden there was a big black rat running around. Bigger’s …show more content…
In one part of the book, Bigger and his friends, “had talked about robbing Blum’s for months, but could never bring themselves to do it” (Wright 17). Bigger is blinded by the stereotypes that white have about blacks, and believes they are all out to get him, therefore he doesn’t see the problem with doing bad bad things to them. His friends are a bad influence on him and if they were to of gone through with robbing Blums, they would have been caught and sent to jail, which would of ruined his chances of being anything but in control of his life and his destiny. Another occasion where Biggers friends are leading him in the wrong direction is where the book states that, “all the other times they had raided newsstands, fruit stands, and apartments” (Wright 17). The friends of Bigger have a big effect on whether or not he has control over his future, because if he keeps on hanging with them and doing these reckless things, he is bound to get caught, and his destiny will be …show more content…
In some cases he was in need to make himself calm down. However, he couldn’t do it naturally therefore felt as though he needed to hurt someone or something almost all the time in order to release his anger. On page 220, for the first time without having to hurt anybody, “he felt the tenseness flow gradually from him… ” (Wright). During another juncture in the book Bigger was infused with anger while running from the police with his girlfriend, and needed to do something about it, his “... hand gripped the brick and shot upward and paused a second then plunged downward through the darkness to the accompaniment of a deep short grunt from his chest and landed with a thud… ‘Yes!’” (Wright 222). Bigger was stressed out about the white people and police coming after him he couldn't control himself, and after this affair, couldn't control the outcome of his future. His anger is directed at white people, but that’s not who he effects at the end of the day, the only things he affects are his fate, and himself. After everything Bigger has done, he blames the white people since he presumes they are hate blacks and do not want them to exist