Bigger Thomas is African-American from Chicago who is convicetd of the rape and murder of a white women. Bigger Thomas is also a man who lives in poverty and is uneducated. It’s the 1930’s in Chicago and a family of four is living in a cramped apartment on the south side in a neighborhood known as “The Black Belt”. Bigger’s mother insists he take the job with Daltons, a wealthy white family who have offered him a way to live outside of making plans to rob a white man’s store. Bigger becomes fearful and doesn't follow through and instead goes to the interview for the job. Bigger can’t take it anymore and he does something that would change his life forever. Hiding the remains, asking for money and being on the run. Bigger eventually gets caught after yet another homicide. Bigger Thomas got a job as a chauffeur with the Daltons and he ends up killing their daughter and he is trying to get money out of it to better support his family. In Native Son, poverty, fear, and racism have the greatest impact on Bigger’s perspective by acknowledging how fast things can change someone's life for the worst based on the way they are living and their color.
For starters, poverty plays such a big role in Bigger’s life because he struggles financially and would do anything for his family to see them not struggle anymore. Bigger Thomas suffers from Poverty that his family lives in a cramped up apartment they have to turn around when the girls are changing and vise versa that he feels he is the sole one that can take his family out of that situation and into a better one. ”Three of us’ll go in, see? One of us’ll throw a gun at old Blum; one of us’ll make for the cash box under the counter; one of us’ll make for the back door and have it open so we can make a quick get-away down the back alley. . . That’s all” (Wright,24). “... and the tiny, one-room apartment galvanized into violent action” (Wright, 4). Bigger at this point is planning to rob Blum's so that he can get money for his family. They are born into poverty and find it extremely difficult to get themselves out of it. Bigger Thomas and his family clearly portray a typical family stuck in the ways of poverty. The Dalton’s offer jobs to African Americans so he is definitely helping their society. The problem is that he is only helping one out of hundreds of people. He cannot end poverty through one person. Bigger will do anything to help his family good or bad.
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Similarly, fear is a huge role that Bigger experiences after commiting murder he takes precatuion so he doesn’t get caught. Bigger knows that he’s killed Mary and now his goal is to blame someone else and for that he needs to be careful with what he says and does. ”Fingerprints! He had read about them in the magazines” (Wright, 88). “Quickly, he wrapped the head in newspapers and used the wad to push the bloody trunk of the body deeper into the furnace. Then shoved the head in. The hatchet went next” (Wright,92). Bigger kills Mary and he feels power because he had killed a white woman. Fear also plays an important role in the way that society is organized in the way that it is the white people who fear the black people which causes them to seek the control of them.
Equally important, racism is a big part of the way that Bigger views the way that the world works. Racism is a bad thing that is very unfair because the color of skin determines everything which isn’t right because some get better treatment than others. ”They would say he had raped her and there would be no way to prove that he did not” (Wright, 227). “The people in Ernie’s Kitchen Shack knew him and he did not want them to see him with theses white people” (Wright, 71). The color of his skin is the reason why they said he raped her. If he murdered a person of the same color they wouldn’t have made it a big deal. If a White kills a White then nothing will happen. African-Americans are in the suffering of economic oppression and forced to act compliant before their dictator, while the media consistently portrays them as animals. However, Wright emphasizes the vicious double-edged effect of racism. Bigger’s violence grows from racial hatred, it only increases racism in American society, as it confirms racist whites basic fears about blacks.
Thus, the way that Biggers life changed at a very fast pace was unexpected even for him and that just shows how one's actions need to be taken serious because one bad one and the whole thing can come tumbling down. Bigger working for the Daltons and making 25 a week was good enough to support him and his family but didn't matter to him he wanted to live better and ended up killing but not for money at first it was accidental but after realizing the position of power he was in he wanted money. In Native Son, poverty, fear, and racism have the greatest impact on Bigger’s perspective by acknowledging how fast things can change someone's life for the worst based on the way they are living and their color. Bigger’s view of the world impacted him in a bad way because he ended up doing a lot of bad things in the book such as murder two times.
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