Native Son Reflection

Richard Wright's novel Native Son,which was interpreted into a play, gives its viewers a realistic and blatantly true experience of the life of black Americans before desegregation. But not only does the novel display the degrading treatment of blacks on a regular basis, it explains the racism at a deeper level. It articulates how the society back then ingrained into the minds of blacks that they are unequal humans. It was a racism that forced these subjugated people to hold no dreams or aspirations. Simply put, Native Son reveals the purposeful and systematically implemented mindset held by black people during this time, one of inferiority and uselessness. The novel puts the reader into the shoes of Bigger Thomas, a poor black man living in Chicago. Bigger’s whole life he has been compared to a dirty useless rat. But not only Bigger though,in the play the dirty useless rat insult serves as a euphemism for black people in general. He receives this insult from blacks and whites alike. His friends use it when he tells them his dreams of being an airplane pilot. White people use it, most usually, whenever he shows the slightest hint of anything besides a mindless servant. This comparison of black people to a useless rat is overwhelming in Bigger Thomas's life and the lives of other black people in the story. I think Richard Wright used this useless rat motif to illustrate how black people were forced to identify themselves as useless and inferior.