At what point does the narrator's life stop following a predetermined route constructed for him before he was even a part of it? When does he believe he's no longer a part of it? At any given point during the book so far, had the narrator been asked, he would have almost certainly said that he was where he was because of his own free will, and not really anything more. However, it's evident to me, as a reader, that this really isn't the case.
Starting from the very beginning, the narrator believed that the speech he had given was what ultimately led to him going to college, despite the fact that there were only a handful of audience members who cared at all about that he had to say. From there, he continued along the path where he made it through part of college before being dismissed rather suddenly by Bledsoe, where he seemed to be derailed from the set course. Still, the letters that the narrator carried with him only brought him onwards along this set trail, and he really didn't even become aware of it until Emerson showed him what the letter said.
Is this the point at which the narrator veers off the path of predestined fate? The narrator can't help but shake the feeling that it's not. Throughout the next few chapters, he becomes increasingly suspicious of authority, especially with Kimbro and Brockway. Even in the hospital, when he's talking to the director after his little visit, he asks if he knows Norton or Bledsoe, as if he's suspicious that even he is in on the little charade that has been put on for him for most of his life. Even though it would appear as though he's out behaving of his own free will now, I'll be very interested to find out if he ever truly believes it, or if maybe he's never left the predetermined route at all.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Freedom and Identity
Throughout the book, the narrator seems to undergo alternating periods of having a solid identity and times where he really doesn't know (or care) who he is or what his purpose is. It's interesting to view these on and off intervals in terms of the amount of freedom he has, or at least he perceives himself to have. Initially, when the narrator is in college, he very much feels like he has goals and a purpose in life: to become well-known and respected, like Bledsoe, through hard work and education. At the same time, his freedom is relatively restricted. For a large portion of his life so far, although he's passionate about what he does and has aspirations, he's essentially on a very set course that's been laid out for him way before he became a part of it.
Once he actually gets a chance to meet Bledsoe for real though, he's dismissed from the college and finds himself making decisions for himself. He acquires a newer sense of freedom than he had before, doing more of what he wanted to do rather than what he felt he should do. He gets this feeling again after his confinement in the paint factory where his sole purpose was to mix paint and assist a crazy old engineer. After his "operation," he talks much more openly to those above him and describes having a newfound sense of freedom, even though he has lost a huge part of his identity and purpose.
This lasts for a while until the narrator is taken up by the Brotherhood, where they impose a brand new identity upon him. Instead of expanding his freedom with this new identity, it actually constrains it a little bit more because even though he's now part of something larger than just himself, he's constantly underneath the Brotherhood's thumb. This constant cycle of identity and invisibility and freedom and confinement is really interesting to look at, and I'm especially interested in seeing how the narrator ends up like he does at the end where he becomes practically invisible with no identity associated with him, but with the power to do almost whatever he wants.
Once he actually gets a chance to meet Bledsoe for real though, he's dismissed from the college and finds himself making decisions for himself. He acquires a newer sense of freedom than he had before, doing more of what he wanted to do rather than what he felt he should do. He gets this feeling again after his confinement in the paint factory where his sole purpose was to mix paint and assist a crazy old engineer. After his "operation," he talks much more openly to those above him and describes having a newfound sense of freedom, even though he has lost a huge part of his identity and purpose.
This lasts for a while until the narrator is taken up by the Brotherhood, where they impose a brand new identity upon him. Instead of expanding his freedom with this new identity, it actually constrains it a little bit more because even though he's now part of something larger than just himself, he's constantly underneath the Brotherhood's thumb. This constant cycle of identity and invisibility and freedom and confinement is really interesting to look at, and I'm especially interested in seeing how the narrator ends up like he does at the end where he becomes practically invisible with no identity associated with him, but with the power to do almost whatever he wants.
Monday, September 1, 2014
White Ignorance in Native Son
Native Son really did contain a number of protests throughout the novel. In class, we talked about the emotion-fueled justice system, the society that completely stifles ambition, the white concept of "your people" referring to all blacks when they spoke to just Bigger, as well as a few more. One that we didn't really touch on very much at all though was just how ignorant some of the white people in the book who really cared (or at least wanted to care) about black culture, people etc. actually were of it.
Right away, Mr. Dalton says that he's doing his best to give to the black community by making donations through the NAACP, but it's so disconnected from black society that, when asked, Bigger doesn't even know what it is. It's later pointed out by Max that Mr. Dalton is actually charging blacks way more for housing than whites, and so his donations of relatively useless things like ping-pong tables are largely in place to make him feel less guilty. It makes it painfully obvious to the reader that Mr. Dalton really doesn't have much idea about the real issues or obstacles that constantly face African Americans.
Shortly after, when Mary and Jan first meet Bigger, they do their very best to become his best friends. Both of them are incredibly polite to him and they try their hardest to get Bigger to open up to them. Unfortunately, by the end of the night, Bigger has killed Mary and is trying to frame Jan for it. Why? What could have possibly been so bad about that evening that it drove him to murder? One of the biggest answers, of course, is that Mary and Jan didn't know a single thing about Bigger Thomas. Their desire to become his friend was purely based on the color of his skin. Naturally, Bigger is uncomfortable about the whole encounter and hates them for it because, as Max points out later, he has no template or prior knowledge about how to act around Mary and Jan because it's simply so foreign to him. Bigger's terror over this alien behavior is what justifies the murder in his mind.
Bigger's entire way of life is built around this invisible boundary between blacks and whites, and Mary and Jan are both too ignorant to realize this. Bigger isn't able to just put it all aside for them, he truly doesn't know how to. When Jan tells Bigger "I'll call you Bigger and you'll call me Jan. That's the way it'll be between us." (66) or when Mary asks Bigger to take them to "one of those places where colored people eat" (69) Bigger doesn't have a clue how to respond. How could he? He wouldn't dream of going up to any white person and asking them these questions nor vice versa, and here are Mary and Jan, treating him like he should. It's unfair toward Bigger and neither of them realize it.
Right away, Mr. Dalton says that he's doing his best to give to the black community by making donations through the NAACP, but it's so disconnected from black society that, when asked, Bigger doesn't even know what it is. It's later pointed out by Max that Mr. Dalton is actually charging blacks way more for housing than whites, and so his donations of relatively useless things like ping-pong tables are largely in place to make him feel less guilty. It makes it painfully obvious to the reader that Mr. Dalton really doesn't have much idea about the real issues or obstacles that constantly face African Americans.
Shortly after, when Mary and Jan first meet Bigger, they do their very best to become his best friends. Both of them are incredibly polite to him and they try their hardest to get Bigger to open up to them. Unfortunately, by the end of the night, Bigger has killed Mary and is trying to frame Jan for it. Why? What could have possibly been so bad about that evening that it drove him to murder? One of the biggest answers, of course, is that Mary and Jan didn't know a single thing about Bigger Thomas. Their desire to become his friend was purely based on the color of his skin. Naturally, Bigger is uncomfortable about the whole encounter and hates them for it because, as Max points out later, he has no template or prior knowledge about how to act around Mary and Jan because it's simply so foreign to him. Bigger's terror over this alien behavior is what justifies the murder in his mind.
Bigger's entire way of life is built around this invisible boundary between blacks and whites, and Mary and Jan are both too ignorant to realize this. Bigger isn't able to just put it all aside for them, he truly doesn't know how to. When Jan tells Bigger "I'll call you Bigger and you'll call me Jan. That's the way it'll be between us." (66) or when Mary asks Bigger to take them to "one of those places where colored people eat" (69) Bigger doesn't have a clue how to respond. How could he? He wouldn't dream of going up to any white person and asking them these questions nor vice versa, and here are Mary and Jan, treating him like he should. It's unfair toward Bigger and neither of them realize it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)