Native Son And Black Boy Essay, Research Paper

Native Son & Black Boy

1. The point of view of this novel would be third-person narrator, which is neither objective or omnicent; just all knowing. Throughout the novel the narrator sees through the eyes of bigger which in turn helps get a really good picture and description of the way the black community is. Due to this the white people are kind of poorly described because it is described as Bigger Thomas would describe the white folk. The narrator is always telling and aware of Biggers thought feelings, all emotions and what he’s thinking of doing. And showing Biggers point of view allows you (the reader) to feel what he is feeling and feel sorry for him and reason with him. Through the novel you can really get an idea of how he goes from feeling weak and angry in the beginning to powerful yet sad in the end.

2. Bigger is shown to us at the beginning of the book as a young black boy wanting so badly to be able to everything a white person could do. It is shown to us that bigger keeps all his fear and hate and emotions bottled up inside of himself, especially with whites because of the way that they make him feel. I believe it to be though that Bigger does the most significant change in his character when he kills the young white girl Mary and gets sent to jail. With Mary he was able to let his feelings out after he had seen what happened, what he’d done. All the hate he could see that in a way he was like the white people, they’re both full of hate and vengeance. The most significant change that effected the story is when all of this made bigger feel powerful and stronger so he felt better but everything just made him more angry and worse.

3. A narrative technique that I believe is important to this novel is the way the author describes everything from Biggers point of view, yet is still able to make you see it separate from him as the third person. He is really able to get into detail about how he lives ad how the people around him live and feel while still just seeing through the eyes of that character. Yes, seeing through the eyes of him and not being is done very well. Especially during the time that he spends in jail for the charge of murdering the “poor white girl” Mary. And showing the minor themes of men and women with Bigger’s affair with Bessie and how its is affected by the difficult conditions they have to live in.

4. A recurring image pattern that was used in this story that I noticed is the cycle of violence and hate that Bigger Thomas seems to be caught up in. The reason Bigger Thomas keeps all of his hate and emotions bottled up is because of the way he lives and the way the white man makes him feel. And because of these emotions he acts them out with hate and violence which in tun makes him feel more powerful so he wants to do it again. When he does this violence over and over again it makes the white people angry at his race so they take it out on them by oppressing them with racism and hate and giving them a bad environment; and because of this environment it causes Bigger to keep all of his hate and emotions bottled up. So as you can see Bigger and the whole black community are caught up in a cycle that cant end even if they try.

5. 1″At the pool hall, Gus and Bigger stand outside and talk. They see a plane circling overhead. It is a skywriting plane, and the two young men watch the wispy white smoke gradually spell out the words, “Use Speed Gasoline,” a message that only highlights the fact that neither Bigger nor Gus has any chance of owning a car. ”

I believe what the author was trying to say here was that even the world that they live in , that they feel most comfortable with is shown at every place that they are the poor ones; they can never be as good as the other guy, there at the bottom.

2″Bigger goes through the Daltons’ fence and thinks that even if he is doing wrong, the Daltons can only deny him the job, not kill him.”

This shows that Bigger is trying to use the color of his skin as an advantage, what he’s doing is expected of a black person, for them to break the rules; because of this the white folk wont think much of it.

3″Peggy brings Bigger into the kitchen and gives him food. She comments that Mr. Dalton gives money to “colored” schools, and she mentions that, though his wife had millions when he married her, he also made a great deal of money in real estate after the marriage.”

Peggy trys to convince Bigger that her husband is a good man always trying to help people like him, I thought this was just a stupid attempt at trying to make a conversation with a bad topic.

6. The main character being Bigger, shows that almost all of his main conflicts are internal and external. Like his hate and rage against the white people, in the beginning of the story Bigger keeps his rage and hate all internal and lets no one know about it. Then as the story progresses he begins to acts his hate out with violence and shows everyone what his feeling and thinking. The only conflict that is mostly external and out of his hands is the one to do with his environment. Even though his environment shapes who he is and they way he feels, he cant control his environment because of the color of his skin. Because he is black he is forced into poverty and depression and there’s nothing that he can do about it. He cant be white and have it easy, he cant get a good job even if he was the best on qualified for it, there nothing he can do its all out of his hands. In the end none of these seem to be resolved, it all appears to be a cycle that never ends.

7. I think that in this story there are really several themes to it. The main one which I believe is kind of obvious is all the rage and hate that goes around with Bigger Thomas. And because of this rage he trys to push out everything and everyone which got him into the trouble that he’s in. Another theme I noticed is all the racism; this book just screams it, because he is black Thomas is forced to live in a rat infested slim hole and pays more rent then the white people that have nicer places. And why may you ask your self do the whites have nicer places, well that’s just because where the whites live they wont accept blacks to. Religion is really the only other theme that I had noticed while reading this book, because of Biggers moms religion he believes that she is just blind to all the hate and pain around her. Bigger believes that if there was truly something worth believing then that God wouldn’t let Bigger’s black people be treated like they way that they are being treated.