FREE ESSAY ON SYMBOLISM IN NATIVE SON

SYMBOLISM IN NATIVE SON

The novel Native Son was published by Richard Wright 
in 1940. The book represents the tragedy of Bigger Thomas, 
a black boy raised in the Chicago slums during the great 
depression. Wright uses symbolism extensively in the novel. 
There is even symbolic meaning behind the titles of each of 
the three parts of the novel. It is symbolism that allows 
Wright to explain the entire novel in the first few pages. 
Even though symbols are widely used in the novel, there are 
only three that are very important. The three most 
important symbols are the black rat, blindness, and the 
kitchenette.
One of the major symbols in Native Son is the black 
rat in the first chapter of the novel. The rat symbolizes 
the fate, feelings, and actions of the main character. The 
parallels between the rat and Bigger Thomas are 
unmistakable. The black rat is seen as an invader and is 
killed. The same eventually happens to Bigger later in the 
novel (Lee 50).
Robert Lee argues that the black rat is symbolic of 
several things. According to Lee, one symbolic function of 
the black rat is that it sets up a motif that resonates 
throughout the novel. The rat points forward to the figure 
Bigger himself will become, the part-real, part-fantasy 
denizen of a grotesque counter Darwinian world in which 
human life-his own, Mary's, Bessie's-seems to evolve 
backward into rodent predation and death. Whether in 
pursuit or the pursued, Bigger becomes damned either way, 
just as he victimizes others while doubling as both his own 
and society's victim. These inner meanings of the novel 
also lie behind Wright's three-part partition of fear, 
flight, and fate (Lee 51).
Secondly, the rat is symbolic of the terrified 
helplessness of the Thomas family and Bigger's response to 
it: "The rat's belly pulsed with fear. Bigger advanced a 
step and the rat emitted a long thin song of defiance." 
Bigger crushes the rat utterly and, in triumphant bravado, 
flaunts the bloody corpse in his sister's face, enjoying 
her terror. Lee recognizes the significance of this 
episode of fear, rage, and violent action. He states that 
the entire novel is an extension, with the roles inverted 
of this chilling metaphor (Lee 58).
Finally, the killing of the rat is symbolic of 
Bigger's attempt to assert himself as someone important. 
Lee argues that Bigger actually hated his family. He hated 
them because he knew that they were suffering and that he 
was powerless to help or protect them. The killing of the 
rat represents, perhaps, Bigger's one chance to protect his 
mother and younger siblings as the patriarch of the Thomas 
family (Lee 68).
Edward Margolies views blindness, which affects 
everyone throughout the novel, as the most important 
symbol. He believes that Wright uses blindness to 
illustrate the relationship between the races. His 
symbolic use of blindness illustrates how blind whites are 
to the humanity and existence of black people. Whites 
prefer to think of blacks in easily stereotypical images-in 
images of brute beast, or happy minstrel. They are 
incapable of viewing blacks as having sensitivity and 
intelligence. Even well meaning people like the Daltons 
are blind to the suffering of blacks. The Daltons lavish 
millions of dollars on black colleges and welfare 
organizations-while at the same time they continue to 
support a rigid caste system that is responsible for black 
degradation in the first place (Margolies 45).
To support his belief, Margolies illustrates how this 
symbolic blindness affects all of the characters. Bigger 
is blind to the realities of black life as well as to the 
humanity of whites. Bigger vaguely discerns the white 
enemy as white tides, icy white walls, and looming white 
mountains. He is therefore unable to accept Jan's offer of 
friendship, because he blindly regards all whites as 
symbols of oppression. Mary, Jan, and Max are just as 
blind to the humanity of blacks as the others-even though 
they presumably want to enlist blacks as equals in their 
cause. For Mary and Jan, Bigger is an abstraction- a 
symbol of exploitation rather than someone whose feelings 
they have ever tried to understand. Mrs. Dalton's 
blindness is symbolic of the blindness of the white liberal 
philanthropic community (Margolies 50).
Margolies believes that in all cases but Mrs. Daltons, 
blindness is psychosomatic. Like others, however, Mrs. 
Dalton has a spiritual handicap as well as a physical one. 
She and her husband, as Max points out, cannot see the 
malevolent condition, which they serve and perpetuate. 
Similarly, Mary and Jan cannot see the emptiness of their 
charity. At different points in the novel Bessie is 
blinded by tears and fright, while Bigger is blinded by 
snow, light and rage. In the presence of Jan and Max he 
feels transparent and invisible. At the end of the novel 
Max groped for his hat like a blind man. The two abstract 
conceptions, love and justice, which inform Native Son are 
also traditionally blind (Margolies 52).
Finally, Margolies argues that only one person, Bigger
overcomes this symbolic blindness. Bigger gains a kind of 
sight in the novel. The sight Bigger gains is distorted 
though. It is made up of images that appear when one holds 
a magnifying glass close to the face, and then moves it 
further and further away from ones eyes until the picture 
reflected in the glass comes in at once clearly and upside 
down. Bigger begins the story seeing everything in a haze. 
The sight, which he eventually achieves, is in sharp focus, 
but out of whack (Margolies 55).
Dan McCall differs from both Lee and Margolies. 
McCall argues that the most powerful symbol Wright uses in 
Native Son is the kitchenette. He views the opening scene 
as symbolic of how people driven so closely together are 
driven violently apart. The kitchenette throws desperate 
and unhappy people into an unbearable closeness of 
association, thereby increasing latent friction, giving 
birth to never-ending quarrels of recrimination, 
accusation, and vindictiveness, producing warped 
personalities. The full recognition of how the kitchenette 
forms Bigger's sensibility-or how it deprived him of one- 
is what makes this symbol so important (McCall 3).
McCall points to the kitchenette as the reason why 
Bigger thought the way he did. The kitchenette constantly 
reminded Bigger that he is black, and that is how he is 
supposed to live. The kitchenette is responsible for 
making Bigger "black crazy." He is incapable of nonracial 
thought. His obsession produces what McCall calls the state 
of exaggeration. This state of exaggeration serves to show 
the emotional intensity with which Bigger attacks ordinary, 
daily problems (McCall 5).
This state of exaggeration is clearly seen in the 
kitchenette, argues McCall. It is seen in the overwhelming 
fear of being looked at that the Thomas family has. On 
the first page of Native Son, when people get out of bed, 
the first words are "Turn your head so I can get dressed."
Day after day in the ghetto that is the call to society; 
and on the second day of Wright's novel, Vera repeats the 
line "Turn your head so I can get dressed." Even when one 
is dressed, the fear and horror of being seen continues 
(McCall 6).
McCall argues that Wright's point is to show that for 
those urban slum dwellers the folk culture was swallowed in 
unbearable closeness. This emptiness and fear of being 
looked at Bigger carries with him all day long. The scene 
which begins the book is present at the very center of the 
crime where Bigger is hysterical at not being able to get 
the entire human form into a tight place. He has to cut 
off the head. Bigger's head, his sensibility, was cut off 
in the kitchenette (McCall 7).
Without the use of symbolism, Native Son would not 
have had the impact it did. Bigger Thomas symbolizes the 
truth about the relationship between blacks and whites. 
Native Son had a huge impact in America because it exposed 
the horrible truth about that relationship. Bigger Thomas 
symbolically represents the consequences of a relationship 
based on abuse, inequality, and fear. However, in order to 
understand Bigger Thomas, one first must understand the 
symbolism behind the black rat, the kitchenette, and the 
element of blindness.
Bibliography
Works Cited
Gallantz, Michael. Barrons Book Notes Richard Wrights
Native Son & Black Boy. New York: Barrons 
Educational Series Inc, 1986.
Bloom, Harold. Blooms Reviews Comprehensive Research &
Study Guides Richard Wrights Native Son. New York:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1996.
Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations Richard
Wrights Native Son. New York: Chelsea House
Publishers, 1988.