Native Son--Midwest Lit--African American - Essay Example

The scene when Bigger chokes Mary under the glance of “the white ghost”, Mary’s mother (Wright) belongs to the first group. This is a classical example of the feeling of being controlled by observation, just like in prison. The whiteness, special sensations (Bigger feels that Mrs. Dalton actually senses more about this world than people with vision), a cat following Mrs. Dalton suggest the seemingly “supernatural” danger of her; moreover, this whiteness is a powerful contrast to Bigger’s blackness.

He is a black spot on the white bad followed by the white ghost. However, the most important are his inner feelings: as usual in the novel, this is painful muscular stiffness and the feeling of growing, hot suffocation: “he grew tight and full, as though about to explode” (Wright). 2. The novel is set in the time when white people such as Jan or even Mr. Dalton began to support the movement for racial equality represented by such organizations as NCAAP (references to which may be found throughout the novel).

However, structural inequality was still impressive. This may be illustrated by the fear Bigger’s gang had of attacking Blum’s shop (the police did not supervise the confrontations between African Americans, but white-black confrontations were the other story); the remarks by Buckley (who “knew” how his black convicts felt but still questioned them without sympathy); the fact that Mary and Jan did not have many black-skinned acquaintances and did not even know where African American Chicago dwellers used to eat.

In addition, the power of Wright’s novel lies in the way how inequality is represented: it is rooted very deeply, in the very state of mind. It is Bigger’s fear of being in “white” neighborhood; Bigger’s anger with the “wall” separating white and black people of Chicago; Bigger’s discomfort and his girlfriend’s sneer in the “black” cafe “Ernie’s Kitchen Shack” where he drinks with whites. 3. Wright shares with Sandburg the poetics of contrasts that characterize different social classes.

Their Chicago is the place where over-privileged and under-privileged meet. This is evident in Sandburg’s “Fellow Citizens” where the author describes “a millionaire manufacturer” and “a man with his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache” (characteristically, “down, in Gilpin Place…”) (Sandbrug “Fellow Citizens” 7). Like the whites protect themselves from angry blacks in Native Son, the rich separate themselves from the poor in Sandburg’s “A Fence”. Both Wright and Sandburg take the view and voice of the suppressed in this opposition.

However, there is a difference. Sandburg’s vision of Chicago is dark but controversial: he hates this city and loves it at the same time, just like he hates and loves the slavish toil in Chicago (“A Teamster’s Farewell”). Wright’s character is there just because he happens to be there, and his feelings are not voluntary but rather provoked in him by the powers he cannot master, such as time, space, social inequality, and his own temper. Hence, his city is very concrete, divided into sectors (‘the white part’ which is dangerous and the black part from which there is no escape), and perceived with constant hatred and fear: “It’s just like living in jail.

Half the time I feel like I’