Richard Wright's Native Son, That Character of Term Paper

Richard Wright's Native Son, that character of Bigger is at times both a victim and a sacrificial figure. The horrible events of his life are shaped by the hopelessness and racism of his environment. As such, Wright manages to create a form of compassion for Bigger, a man whose life was largely predetermined by his environment. Eventually, Bigger realizes that a violent attack against white society was the only option available to him, in the overwhelming despair and hopelessness of the inner city. Wright manages to create a feeling of compassion and understanding, if not for the horrible acts of Bigger himself, but for the racism and hopelessness of his situation.

Richard Wright was born in 1908 in Adams County, Mississippi into a life of poverty and racial discrimination that would eventually color his writing. He was the eldest of two boys, and knew from the age of 15 that he wanted to be a writer. In keeping with the controversy that surrounded his books, Wright married a white woman, Ellen Poplar. In all, Wright wrote 16 books, including The Outsider and American Hunger. Native Son was his most popular work, selling an impressive 250,000 hardcover copies in six weeks. Wright died at the age of 52 of a heart attack in Paris, France (Haskins).

Native Son is a powerful book that delves deeply into the poverty and injustice that influences our lives. The main Character, Bigger Thomas is consumed by the hopelessness and despair of his life.

A child of his circumstances, who is constantly in trouble ranging from larceny to assault, Bigger seems destined for jail. Eventually, Bigger kills a young white woman in a moment of panic and fear, and from that time he is caught in a series of events that pull him deeper in to despair. Most of the novel takes place as Bigger is headed for jail for the murder and rape of the young woman.

Although white people in the novel try to help Bigger, their efforts are tinged by selfish motives. In the novel, Wright compellingly paints a picture of a white segregationist society that only cares for the black community when it impacts the white community.When Bigger works in a Boy's Club, he comes to the ultimate realization that his job was motivated by white selfishness. Notes Wright, "the rich folk who were paying my wages did not really give a good goddamn about Bigger... their kindness was prompted at bottom by a selfish motive. They were paying me to distract Bigger with ping-pong, checkers, swimming, marbles, and baseball in order that he might not roam the streets and harm the valuable white property which adjoined the Black Belt.

In Native Son, Wright portrays Bigger as a cruel and fierce man. While the initial murder of the white girl Mary Dalton is accidental, Bigger's actions quickly reveal the cruelty inherent in his character. Afraid of being blamed for Mary's murder, he beheads and burns her body and tries to shift the blame to her boyfriend, Jan. Invigorated by the murder, Bigger concocts a plan to exhort ransom money for the murdered girl. Eventually, Bigger kills his girlfriend in order to ensure her silence.

Throughout Native Son, Bigger is portrayed as both a victim and a sacrificial figure. Certainly, as a black man, Bigger is the victim of the blatant and cruel racism of the time. He falls easily into the hopelessness of life in the inner city, and spends his days hanging around the pool hall with his friends. Bigger is largely unredeemed and pitiful; he is without direction or responsibility. Notes Wright "As long as (Bigger) could remember, he had never been responsible to anyone. The moment a situation became so that it exacted something of him, he rebelled." With an eighth-grade education and a network of family and friends as caught up in the poverty and hopelessness as he is, Bigger stands very little real hope of overcoming the sadness that is his life.

Bigger is also clearly portrayed as a sacrificial figure in the novel. He simply reacts to his….....