Notes to a Native Son Notes of a Native Son Essay On Native Son Essay On Native Son Notes Of A Native Son

1. Notes to a Native Son
1) From the last paragraph in the biographical section on page 51 that starts with "In 'Notes of a
Native Son,'" was most useful to my understanding of this essay because it gives a brief summary
of Baldwin's essay. However, the first couple of sentences on page 49 gave me an idea of what
kind of writer Baldwin is: "took on the responsibility of speaking as a black American about the
'Negro problems in America.'" 2) Baldwin's father is a minister whom he never gets to know as a
true loving parent. There are few instances where Baldwin says his father said something nice. His
father complimented his brilliant choir boy voice in church, which brought much joy to his father.
Baldwin says, "I remembered that he had always been grinning...show more content...
In the end, he realizes "the dead man mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter." (p.67) His
comforting tone puts the reader in his position, and allows one to become a part of him and his
history. As a young child, I think it was hard for Baldwin to relate to his father. His father's hatred
and detachment from, not only society, but from his family, caused confusion for Baldwin. He didn't
understand why his father thought, "white people would do anything to keep a Negro down" (p.56),
and why the presence of a white person in his house was a violation. It was in his innocence that
he denied his father and his views. Lack of education made it hard for Baldwin to fathom reality,
his innocence became ignorance, and it was not until he was placed in the "read world" that he
saw what caused his father to be so bitter for so many years. The discrimination he was faced with
made him "colder and more murderous than ever." (p.58) He was no longer naГЇve, and he carried
hatred in his heart. Baldwin soon realized that "hatred itself becomes an exhausting and
self–destructive pose." (p.67) Growth and the acquiring of knowledge over time allowed Baldwin
to see the "big picture" more clearly. He learned ideas of acceptance and equal power. It's as if his
perception of life completely changed, he didn't want to die like his father, bitter and
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2. Notes of a Native Son
Notes of a Native Son
"Notes of a Native Son" is an essay that takes you deep into the history of James Baldwin. In the
essay there is much to be said about than merely scratching the surface. Baldwin starts the essay by
immediately throwing life and death into a strange coincidental twist. On the 29th of July, 1943
Baldwin's youngest sibling was born and on the same day just hours earlier his father took his last
breath of air from behind the white sheets of a hospital bed. It seems all too ironic and honestly
overwhelming for Baldwin. From these events Baldwin creates a woven interplay of events that
smother a conscience the and provide insight to a black struggle against life.
"He had been ill a...show more content...
All the children were frightened of the man. They only knew that he was a cause of unexplainable
turmoil, "the child always became fretful and began to cry" (64–65) whenever their father tried to
help or explain with anything. The father was known as a force to be reckoned with. He never
failed to disappoint, intimidate, or curse a child for being as menaced as him. His father even
distrusted school so much because of the white people who taught the schools. He didn't believe
that there were any honest people in the world at all. He completely disregarded all attempts made
to help his family as well. It was his pride that further pressed the world away from him. It was as if
he was waiting for life to be over and trying to remove himself from it all at once.
A year before his father died, James left home. He was living in a world where he was hated and
mistreated for the simple color difference in his skin. He pushed himself into predicaments he
knew would make things more troublesome. He repeatedly went into diners where they refused to
serve black men or women. He constantly put his life in the way to make a point to someone that
he was unmoved by the simple signs and prejudices. It was however, that he would catch a couple
of near death experiences for his unrelenting fervor to take a stand. One instance that relinquished
the fear within him was when he threw a glass of water at a
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3. Essay On Native Son
A Flower Blooming in a Dark Room: Rethinking Native Son "If I told you that a flower bloomed
in a dark room, would you trust it?" Kendrick Lamar presents the question of whether or not you
could trust someone raised in a lousy environment; in Richard Wright's 1940s novel Native Son
and Jerrold Freedman's movie adaptation of said novel, a similar question is asked of whether or
not a dark room can produce a flower to begin with. The question is asked through the character of
Bigger Thompson when he commits a murder, the audience is forced to ask themselves whether he
was guilty or just a product of the of the poor environment he was raised in. The film shows that
Bigger Thompson is a guilty man, that is proven and exposed through his lack...show more content...
Being only nineteen he does not properly express his feelings nor does he understand other
people's feelings. This could be seen when he kills a rat for the family and then presents it to his
mother and sister; he forces his sister to look at it despite knowing that she has previous trauma,
the audience knows this because his mother says "You stop that boy, you know this child's been
bit twice before in her life by rats, suppose she wake up one morning dead... Nothing like that ever
seemed to bother you" (Freedman, Scene I). This is very important to the film due to the fact that
it communicates the audience two extremely important things about Bigger's character. The first
fact being that he isn't concerned with how other people feel and the second being that the
thought of death doesn't affect or bother him. In the same fashion Bigger does another thing to
solidify that he does not have empathy or value human life. Inked in the pages of Native Son, but
left out of Jerrold Freedman's film, Bigger commits more than one murder. In the book Bigger
murders and rapes his then girlfriend Bessie. As Jared Rosenbaum puts it in his article, "Bigger
Thomas: Guilty or Innocent", he states "Already into the second book, Bigger Is free from the
grasp of Jan and Mary, and he is making his own choices... In my eyes, one of the few choices that
Bigger
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4. Essay On Native Son
Native Son is a fictional book written by Richard Wright and was published in 1940. To truly
understand the meaning of a book, I believe it's important to understand the author. Upon further
research, Richard Wright was a black author with a fascinating past. He was born into extreme
poverty in the southern state of Mississippi. At one brief point in his life, he was forced to stay in
an orphanage and he even dropped out of high school. One of the most fascinating pieces of
information that I learned about Richard Wright was that he was apart of the communist party
before he began to write novels. Wright even wrote articles and stories for communist magazines.
The book that I read, Native Son, was written with the help of the Guggenheim...show more content...
Another clear metaphor of the poverty that engulfs the Thomas's was displayed when a large black
rat scurried across the floor, startling Vera and Mrs. Thomas. Buddy and Bigger chased the rat
down, but the rat refused to go down without a fight. After the rat attacked Bigger and bit a hole in
his pants, Bigger smashed the rat's head with a shoe. After these un–relatable events took place in the
Thomas apartment, I believed that this would be a story of conquering and overcoming poverty
and racial norms that this family had to go through. However, I was not prepared for what would
actually occur in this story. Bigger's mom, as with any concerned mother, tells Bigger that he needs
to help his family with their financial situation by getting a job with Mr. Dalton, a rich, white man
who owns the apartment building that they stay in. She also warns him to stop affiliating with his
gang, because she feels that he is being selfish and wasting his time instead of helping his family.
However, as with any twenty–year old kid would, he refused to listen to his mother at first and
instead meets up with the members in his gang. The members of Bigger's gang are Gus, G.H, and
Jack. Bigger explains that he has a plan to rob a deli owned by a white man named Mr. Blum.
What intrigues me about this novel the most is how much it has taught me about the thought
processes of a black man of the early 1900s. For example, the robbery that Bigger and his
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5. Notes Of A Native Son
Notes of a Native Son
In the article "Notes of a Native Son," James Baldwin explains how racism has an effect in his life
and how he would deal with racism in his life. Mr. Baldwin tells three events that occurred during
his time with his father when his father was still alive. Baldwin shares the story of how proud his
father was before he died and how he was of the first generation of freemen. Baldwin also shared
the story of the Harlem riot he witnesses. Baldwin explains how the white world was too powerful for
black people to handle or overpower. I believe that Baldwin is very effective to his readers by
using personal memories and personal experience to teach people to move on from whatever
have happened to them in the past. Baldwin's essay is effective to his readers because he uses his
personal memories as example. One of the memories is when Baldwin explains how his father is
never proud of his skin color, which explains how black people think of themselves. "With his
blackness and beauty, and with the fact that he knew that he was black but did not know that he
was beautiful" claimed Baldwin (85). Some black people don't really like their skin color,
because they believe blackness is ugly. Today, some black people bleach their skin especially
black women. They bleach their skin just to let their skin white and it common in Africa. Therefore,
what Baldwin is trying to pass out to his readers is the color black is beautiful. Baldwin father
blackness have had so many
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