Depictions of Black Women in Native Son
N Native Son speaks to a lot of issues: a rigged judicial system, police misconduct, individualism, biased media, and even housing inequality. However, the book fails to depict black women as anything more than stepping stones for Bigger and the rest of the plot. The only two prominent black women in Native Son are Bessie, and Mrs. Thomas. Mrs. Thomas’s only purpose in the novel is to nag Bigger about chores and work, and progress the plot to get Bigger working at the Dalton’s house. Bessie exists only to be raped and murdered by the “enlightened” Bigger. This gruesome act of murder is barely even mentioned after is happens, only as evidence in the case of Mary’s murder.
One might argue that Richard Wright was aware of the one-dimensionality of his black women characters, and making a point about how they are treated and ignored in society. However, not much in the book points to this. Not even Bigger thinks much of raping and murdering Bessie when he is reflecting on his situation and his actions. Even more so, does it really even matter what Richard Wright intended when writing the characters of Bessie and Mrs. Thomas. At the end of the day the writer’s intentions no longer matter, and the only thing that’s left is how readers interpret the book. For example, in our class of 20+ students, there was a long silence when Mr. Mitchell asked if there were any shortcomings, and it was only after several repetitions of the question that one student brought up the topic of black women being underrepresented and written off as plot devices. I can’t speak for everyone, but this was the first time I thought about this issue in relation to Native Son. This may just speak to my ignorance, but it seems like it was a similar experience for many others.
Even with 71 years of societal progression since Native Son was published, the underrepresentation of the black woman’s experience was not brought up when we initially discussed Bessie’s murder and the rest of the book. Now think about how much more ignorant many readers at the time would have been, especially if the book was targeted at white liberals such as the Daltons. No matter what Wright’s intentions may have been, the majority of readers likely didn’t consider the misrepresentations of the black woman’s experience. At the end of the day, although Native Son discussed many social issues, it did nothing to speak on the true experiences of black women, and used it’s only black women characters as stepping stones for Bigger’s story.
Yeah, I totally agree with you, especially about how the writer's intentions are no longer important when people start interpreting the book. The poor writing of black women definitely would have gone over reader's heads, and I think there were many opportunities in the book to build their characters and paint them in a better light than what Wright actually did.
ReplyDeleteI like how you organized your blog post and how you brought up points that we made in-class for this post. However, I don't agree with the idea that black women were unrepresented in the book 'Native Son'. Moreover, I don't agree with the notion that black women needed to be represented in this book because the book was not meant to directly highlight the struggles of black women. Richard Wright was revealing issues that black men have to deal with (although struggles of black men and women are intertwined with one another). I think that Richard Wright was pretty spot on with the depictions of all the female characters in the book and the way black women are viewed. I think that you can write an entire book about the struggle of black women (especially since there are books that already do so), but to include them in 'Native Son' would steer the reader away from Wright's main message he is trying to tell us.
ReplyDeleteI agree that by sort of brushing aside the experiences of the black female characters, Wright does further center Bigger's consciousness, and perhaps taps into Bigger's trait of undervaluing and/or objectifying the women in his life, which is just another confusingly negative attribute of his. However, I think it's still fair game to criticize Native Son for not being perfect in this regard. Without reading multiple works by Richard Wright we might not be able to tell whether the one-sided female characters in Native Son represent a flaw of the author's writing or the result of us seeing the world through Bigger Thomas's eyes, so we kind of relied on Mr. Mitchell's take on Richard Wright's black female characters during our discussions.
DeleteI agree that Native Son is very flawed in its representation of black women. I think Wright does try to make a point about how Bessie is dehumanized as a black woman with the scene of her body being used in court, however this is such a small piece of the novel and just one of the many ways Bessie is mistreated. The other injustices she faces and the flat depiction of her character are not really adequately addressed, so the novel kind of just depicts them without making much commentary about them.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how you connected the underrepresentation of black women in this book to modern views on the topic. I guess it kind of makes sense that Bigger didn't even think much of Bessie when reflecting on his situation since the state of society at the time made it so that Mary's murder drastically overshadowed Bessie's. Similarly, I found it interesting that Wright's depiction of Mary's murder seemed so much more intense and significant than that of Bessie, but considering the societal ramifications of each murder, Mary's was definitely more significant and that was reflected in the way they were depicted in the trial. I think Richard Wright might have intended to emphasize the subordination of black women in some parts of the book but he probably didn't realize how one dimensional the roles he gave them were in the context of the entire story.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, especially because there are other literary ways to show that a group is being overlooked outside of actually overlooking them. The black women depicted in this novel are one dimensional and fall into simple and damaging archetypes. The nagging black woman who's never satisfied, the tag along that is easily swayed by money and gives up her body in return, these characters roles are really disappointing, and it speaks to how even black men have historically cast black women aside and undervalued them.
ReplyDeleteI found the usage of Bessie as nothing more then evidence in the grand scheme of things to be rather shocking. She never got the justice she deserved, and perhaps this was realistic given the time period. Near the beginning of the story Bigger's gang even mentions that they would prefer to rob black people because the police won't care about what happens to them. Perhaps this was Wright's way of calling back to the injustice that he highlighted at the beginning. However, your point about the writer's intention no longer mattering does apply. If Wright intended for his characters to be interpreted this way, why did he not emphasize it more or make it more of a focus than before. At the end of the day, there are multiple answers to this question, including your blog post. Overall, great post.
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