The 9th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) In China (ELT2020)

406 / 2020-02-25 17:08:25

“What I killed for, I am!”: Social Stereotypes and Black Identity in Richard Wright's Native Son

racial discrimination, murder, excitement, social stereotype, black consciousness, identity

Teaching of Literature > Teaching of Literature

Richard Wright was an African-American author whose literary works mainly concerned with racial themes, especially related to how the African Americans suffered the discrimination and violence during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. In his Native Son, Wright presents an overwhelming racial conflicts between the black and the white through a symbolic murder—Bigger Thomas, a poor young black man, accidentally murders Mary Dalton, a rich white girl. Bigger’s fear of being arrested is soon replaced by a sense of excitement of escaping from the suspicion. Viewing Bigger’s predicament as part of an ongoing historical process is important to the author’s intention: Wright wants to demonstrate how the racial injustice hurts the black as well as the white. My approach to Native Son discusses Bigger’s excitement twofold to understand the racial theme: one is his excitement comes from his manipulation of the social stereotypes of the black to misdirect his murder investigation; the other is how Bigger identifies himself after committing the bloody murders. I apply Frantz Fanon’s concept of black consciousness to analyze how Bigger views himself in the white’s world, and how he from his excitement senses his freedom and creates himself a new identity. Native Son deals with the racial divide in America in which African Americans struggle in the social conditions imposed by the dominant white society. This article provides a meaningful sociocultural context to teachers to examine the society of Native Son and its connection to Bigger’s excitement and his black identity from murders.