Socialist Themes
White Imagery/Symbolism
Societal Pressure
Individualism
Societal Responsibility
100
What is the word Max uses to define the habitual injustice inflicted on a race of people over hundreds of years?
What is oppression?
100
The willowy character that represents the blindness of white society to the true problems of black Americans living in oppression.
Who is Mrs. Dalton?
100
This personal gesture is a source of humiliation and shame to Bigger who has been conditioned to avoid interaction with white society.
What is Jan’s handshake?
100
Although fear is definitely present in this situation, Bigger’s murder of this character to save himself is purely personal and stresses his individual responsibility for his crimes.
Who is Bessie?
100
This man, though he believes he is relieving the burdens of racism in America, in fact directly creates oppression through the segregation of housing on the South Side.
Who is Mr. Dalton
200
Richard Wright’s view that “The white neighbor decided to limit the amount of education his black neighbor could receive ... and to build up a vast, dense ideology of racial superiority that would justify any act of violence taken against him to defend white dominance; and further, to condition him to hope for little and to receive that little without rebelling,” makes evident this theme in the novel.
What is societal responsibility for creating Bigger Thomases? (How "Bigger" Was Born)
200
This animal represents white society and white justice-cold and threatening and omnipresent.
What is the Dalton’s white cat?
200
These men cause Bigger to revert to the stereotype they expect of him?
Who are the reporters?
200
Jackson argues that Bigger’s revolt against an absurd society and fate is not accidental, and therefore he is technically guilty of his crimes, even though where the guilt lies is not important. This factor is the pivot of the plot.
What is consciousness of guilt?
200
This visual medium allows Bigger to glimpse the glamorous lifestyle that he is forbidden to experience.
What is the entertainment industry?
300
Max uses Bigger as this to show the unrelenting hatred of men and how they have stained it like a germ stained for examination under a microscope.
What is a symbol?
300
The animal that represents the predetermined nature of Bigger’s life because of the views of white society.
What is the black rat?
300
The place “where a black who hoped to survive needed a sense of humility more than a sense of dignity, and where Bigger Thomas's story was no more melodramatic, crude or claustrophobic than the times themselves.”
What is Richard Wright’s America? (On Rereading Native Son)
300
Author Kathleen Gallagher argues this point to prove Bigger’s individual responsibility for his actions.
What is that Bigger is able to see that all humans, regardless of race, share certain needs, and that he is included as a human and thus his life has meaning? (Bigger's Great Leap to the Figurative)
300
This medium uses racist images and language to incite white society.
What is the newspaper?
400
Wright came to the discovery that “Bigger Thomas was not black all the time but he was white too and there were literally millions of him everywhere” through his contact with this.
What is the labor movement its ideologies? (How "Bigger Was Born)
400
This religious symbol represents the hatred and racism which has forced Bigger to live in constant fear.
What is the burning cross of the KKK?
400
Wright uses this literary device to show the chiasm white society has created between Bigger and the American ideal of freedom. It is the pursuit of this ideal that leads him to destruction.
What is naturalism (Themes and Construction of Native Son)
400
The protagonist in Native Son.
Who is Bigger Thomas?
400
Who places the blame on the restrictions of black education arguing that it sets him up to hope for greater things, but then doesn’t allow him to achieve these dreams.
Who is Mr. Max?
500
“What is not surprising given the fact that “we conditioned Mary Dalton so that we would regard Bigger Thomas as a kind of beast. And, under the penalty of death, we commanded Bigger Thomas to avoid Mary Dalton. [And] Fateful circumstances threw them together?”
What is one of them is dead and one of them is on trial for his life? (Native Son)
500
The cold white substance that freezes Bigger in a crucified form, representing the ever present force of oppression of white society and the condition in which it places black Americans.
What is snow?
500
Through this, a dehumanized Bigger attempts to prove his existence.
What is revolt through power, crime, and violence? (The American Negro and the Image of the Absurd)
500
Is Bigger convicted for his crimes?
Yes
500
This food item, among others, costs more in the black belt of Chicago than in the neighborhoods inhabited by whites, endorsing the effects of racial segregation.
What is bread?
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