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Showing posts from September, 2021

The Effect of the Grandfather's Dying Words in Invisible Man

In Invisible Man  we see the narrator go through a variety of changes over the chapters, with the narrator starting with this idea that if he works hard and pleases enough people he will be a successful person. But as time goes on and he moves to New York, he begins to develop more ideas of rebellion, free thinking, and thinking past just pleasing the white man. Bledsoe's betrayal of the narrator is what ultimately sets this off, and he thinks completely different after the "Liberty Paints Incident", where he is almost rebirthed as a completely different man. However, this whole transformation can be related back to one quote which has shaped the narrator's entire life. The narrator explains that his grandfather's dying words were "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstructi

The Idea of Naturalism within Native Son by Teo Chemla

  Native Son by Richard Wright is a novel published in 1940 about a 20 year old young African American man named Bigger Thomas living in the poor suburbs of Chicago. The novel provides social commentary on systemic racism and how it negatively affects the lives and the choices of African Americans. What happens to Bigger is seemingly a result of the systemic racism that he faces, almost giving a sense of inevitability to the crime that he commits. This is where the idea of naturalism comes into play. Naturalism is the philosophical belief that that everything happens because of natural causes and that animals and humans react to these natural causes and that leads to the decisions they make. This is perfectly exemplified in the story of Bigger Thomas. Bigger lives in a completely run down and rat infested one room apartment along with his mother, his younger sister, and his younger brother. He is very poor and resorts to crime to make most of his money. Because of his significantly les