The Tragedy of Self-Awareness in Native Son Essay Example for Free

The cataclysm of Self-Aw arness in Native male child EssayRichard Wrights Native Son is about the cost of woefulness and sacrifices which bingle man, defined as the Other from the mainstream of society, must pay in hostel to live as a full human being in a world that denies him the right to live with dignity. As a societal being, larger Thomas is tot solelyy take himself because he is unable to find his social and self-esteemed values both in the stunted ghetto life and in the oppression of racist society. Therefore, the only elan Bigger layabout express himself is through violence and rebellion Wright views Biggers tragic luck as the evidence which right away reflects the violence of a racist society. Eventually, in Native Son, Wights accusation is order toward the systematized oppression applied by the w progress toe slew, designed to keep the blacks from advancing and attaining their fullest potentialities.Wrights major purpose in Native Son is to show how tyra nnical racist society oppresses the international and internal condition of Bigger Thomas, and how Biggers existence is distorted in that oppressive condition. low the outside(a) oppression, black people come to inevitably go through an inner refraction, extremely internalizing the external oppression into the self, at the same eon. On that account, self-hatred, shame and impotence are produced. Biggers existence, also, is frizzy from not only his harsh reality but his own stunted inner-self. Under this dehumanizing condition, he has to be a dispossessed and disinherited man, and has to struggle for his existence even by means of radical rampageous actions (Wright 466).The deep-rooted discordance induces an inner-refraction, and promotes the fundamental business organisation of self. That concretely appears in the phase of Bigger who has to observe his familys suffering, and suffers from keep goinging his powerlessness. As for Bigger or different black people, fear means po or, incapable and furious. At the same time, fear is an anxious state of mind that he/she is afraid that him/herself is really such a person. This is the heart of the fear that blacks, including Bigger, feel, and that Wright wants to warn of.Similarly, in the case of Bigger, being confronted with the problematic condition, he is unwilling to confirm in his mind that he is valueless Each time he asked himself that question his mind hit a blank wall and he stopped thinking (Wright 12). In order not to directly see his reality, Bigger suspends his thinking from the unbearable and repetitious everyday-life. Therefore, wastefully he just spends most of time in the trivial matters such as deciding to buy a ten-cent magazine, or go to a movie, or go to the poolroom and talk with the gang, or just loaf around (Wright 13). The following description head shows Biggers unconscious desire to look away from a grim reality. He stretched his ordnance store above his head and yawned his eyes moi stened. The sharp precision of the world of steel and st ace dissolved into blear-eyed waves. He blinked and the world grew hard again, mechanical, distinct (Wright 16).What Bigger wants is an escape from the mechanical and distinct society (Wright 16). Thus, he wants to see the distinct boundary of society to be blurred even in the short consequence of yawning. He feels comfort in the instant scrap that sharp distinction of reality is blunt. The comfort, however, offered by terminable optical illusion, vanishes even simply by a blink.This kind of escapist-inclination is also revealed in the cases of Mrs. Thomas or Biggers girlfriend, Bessie. Mrs. Thomas retreats into conventional religion because she is unable to handle the harsh reality. Likewise, Bessie is frequently anesthetized by alcohol, swing music, and sex because she is afraid to realize herself, completely trapped by white-centered society. In relation to Bigger, he is momentarily satisfied with constructing his own f antasy indulging in movies, dreaming of robbing a white-owned store, and playing white, referring to a game of play-acting in which he and his friends imitated the ways and manners of white folks (Wright 17).Everyone in the novel is exposit literally or figuratively as blind people, from the states attorney, Buckley, whose sight is prejudiced by virulent racism, to Mrs. Dalton, whose blindness is actual as well as symbolic. As Brignano states, the world of Native Son is essentially a world divided by a color curtain (38), and no one ever really sees Bigger. Instead, they see what they believe because the blind people are seduced by social stereotypes into visual perception myth rather than the individual (Felgar 100).Before Bigger kills Bessie, he queers her. He is not conscious that he is raping her because the marrow of rape for him is much different from its general notion. When Bessie said to him that theyll say you raped her, Bigger effaces a physical part from the concept o f rape, and he replaces it with a psychological part Had he raped her? Yes, he had raped her. Every time he snarl as he had felt that night, he raped. still rape was not what one did to women. Rape was what one felt when ones back was against a wall and one had to strike out, whether one wanted to or not, to keep the pack from killing one. He committed rape every time he looked into a white face. He was a long, soused piece of rubber which a thousand white hands had stretched to the snapping point, and when he snapped it was rape. entirely it was rape when he cried out in hate deep in his heart as he felt the grade of living day by day. That, too, was rape (Wright 227-228).Bigger has no regard to Bessies continuous rejection because, for him, rape means both an irresolvable fury toward white people and the ineffaceable humiliation of black life. In addition, because he is completely immersed in his desire to do and to fulfill something, Bessies protests are utterly ignored in h is soul Her voice came to him now from out of a deep, faraway silence and he paid her no heed. The rubbishy demand of the tensity of his own body was a voice that drowned out hers (Wright 233).Contrary to Biggers elated state. Social reality is growing ever more hostile to black people because of his crime. quin thousand policemen are thrown about Black Belt, many windows in the Negro section are smashed, all white schools are scheduled to be closed until the black murderer is captured, and several degree Celsius black employees throughout the city are dismissed from jobs. Especially, Bigger realizes again the blind, inhuman and white-centered attitudes of society aft(prenominal) being captured by policemen. At a court room in the Cook Country Morgue, what Bigger comes to feel is not a sense of guilt but rebellion, which arises against the fact that he has to be riotous into the sport for whites even in the moment of confronting finale. Bigger think white people have no right to watch and use him for whatever they want He sensed that in their attitude toward him they had ka post(p) beyond hate. He was their eyes gazing at him with calm conviction. Though he could not have put it into words, he felt that not only had they resolved to put him to death, but that they were determined to make his death mean more than a mere punishment that they regarded him as a figment of that black world which they feared and were anxious to keep under control. The atmosphere of the crowd told him that they were going to use his death as a bloody symbol of fear to wave before the eyes of that black world (Wright 276).Especially, Bigger sternly contemplates himself and the meaning of his life through the conversation with Max. The dialogue makes Bigger perceive relationships between himself and other people that he has never thought of If that white looming mountain of hate were not a mountain at all, but people, people like himself, and like Janthen he was faced with a h igh bank the like of which he had never thought could be, and a despair the full depths of which he knew he could not stand to feel (Wright 361).Faced with impending death, Bigger is aware of why he had to kill other people, and of what he did not know But really I never wanted to hurt cryptograph They was crowding me too close they wouldnt give me no room I was always wanting something and I was feeling that nobody would let me have it Ill be feeling and thinking that they didnt see me and I didnt see them (Wright 425). I didnt want to kill Bigger shouted. But what I keeled for, I am. What I killed for mustve been good When a man kills, its for something. I didnt know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill forem. Its the truth (Wright 429).Biggers statement, What I killed for I am, shows the sensation of his whole individualizedity (Wright 429). It is not an irresponsible excuse but a atrocious acknowledgement of himself. Bigger does not asse rt his violent act of murder is good because he has regretted such violence by realizing, in guilt and horror, how it has hurt many innocent people. Ultimately, Bigger himself comprehends that he has been distorted, modify and blinded his whole life. Equally, he realizes too much suffering and sacrifices have been paid in order to achieve his self.Apparently, Biggers tragedy lies in that he fails to grasp the proper moment of life, recognizing himself as a full human being, and he only comes to grasp that moment on the day of his execution. His awareness is too late. In addition, the total awareness was possible in the condition that all the other opportunities were deprived by confinement in prison except death Waiting to die, Bigger discards all hopes for living, because he does not have to resist being crush by a racist society and to fear being cornered by a harsh environment.What Bigger achieves is not the splendid thing that all the people would try to gladly attain and assi milate. However, Biggers desperate struggle to achieve the meaning of his existence cannot be simply considered as a trivial and monstrous thing, even though the effect has originated from violence and rebellion. Biggers self-awareness is important in both personal an social respects. For, in the personal dimension, Bigger continuously attempts to realize his existence, resists not to be a mere environmental victim, and he agonizingly achieves his inward life that makes him understand other people as well as himself until the last moment of his life. And in the social dimension, the problems of Bigger transcend the limit of race, and present with reconsiderations to think about other oppressed people in society. In the end, the tragedy of Bigger Thomas clearly shows the painful process of self-awareness of one human being who suffers from the oppression of social prejudice, and struggles to find his human value.In Native Son, violence of whites and blacks is directed toward each o ther. The society, stained with hostility and discrimination, prevents people from realizing their full potential as human beings and excludes them from full and agree participation in society. In such condition, like in the case of Bigger Thomas, self-realization can only come through violence. Finally, the destruction from such violence is mutual What becomes the tragedy of an individual in the long run leads to the tragedy of society.