Diving Into African American Literature

When I was reading the chapter where the narrator in Invisible Man meets Brother Jack and gets recruited to their so-called Brotherhood, I couldn’t help but think of Bigger and Jan’s interactions in Native Son. Both seem to be examples of self-proclaimed white liberals approaching Black men and asking them to join their cause that the men may or may not even know anything about or support.  One thing that stood out to me as a parallel between the two situations was the way that Brother Jack and Jan talked to the narrator and Bigger. Without ever having met them, they immediately spoke in overly friendly tones and made claims about being “on their side.” Brother Jack repeatedly referred to the narrator as “Brother,” which made him very uncomfortable and uneasy. Jan spoke to Bigger in similar ways, demanding that Bigger call him Jan and not “sir,” and pretending to be his friend. We can see a trend of white leaders of some sort of liberal organization approaching black men and i...

Native Son by Richard Wright is divided up into 3 books rather than the conventional style of shorter chapters. The first book is titled “Fear,” and when reading the novel for the first time I did not really think much of it, or really even remember what it was called. However after finishing the book it is clear how fitting of a title “Fear” is and how Bigger Thomas, the main character, is completely controlled by fear in almost every aspect of his life.   One of the first big instance where we can really see the impact fear has on him is near the beginning of the book when he is with his friends. Bigger talks about how he and his friends have robbed various black people, but that they had never robbed a white man before. They had talked about robbing Blum’s, a store owned by a white man, and were debating whether or not to go through with it. When they all get together and decide they might actually do it, Bigger gets scared. He was relying on his friends to say no to going t...