I am interested in the relationship between writing, memory and identity. In my paper, I will look at how cultural production is made exclusive by access to writing, and how this in turn gives white cultural production dominance in the collective memory of black individuals. In response to this, compare the ways that Richard Wright and Washington from Hager’s piece write about the black individual, thereby creating a new historical identity.

I will argue that though Native Son, Richard Wright renegotiates the black individual as a complex and multifaceted identity, that does not conform to neither the ignorant, illiterate slave or its antithesis. I will include analysis of Mary, who stands in for the dominant white cultural contributor and consumer. I will engage Gates’s discussion of the role of writing in creation of memory and identity both through its role in the plot in Bigger’s writing of the ransom note and meta textually in Wright’s creation of Bigger. While Wright conforms to the medium and vernacular of white Western literary traditions, the character that he creates is unexpectedly not an ideal version of himself. This offers an Andalzuan Mestiza consciousness that avoids a  counterstance, which would confine Wright to the white created duality of racial difference.

In a paper about white production of black self perception I think that it is necessary to engage DuBois’ double consciousness. I will show how Wright complicates the idea of race as the deciding factor in this, through discussion of Bigger’s perception of blindness in both Mrs. Dalton and his family.

Sources:

Gates, “Writing ‘Race’ and the Difference it Makes”

Hager, from Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing

E. B. DuBois, from Souls of Black Folk

Wright, Richard. Native Son

Eric Nieves

Professor Allred

Eng 321

10, April 2019

Native Son: Movie vs Novel

          In my paper I am hoping to discuss the differences in both the movie and novel of the story “Native Son”. Our world has changed drastically, meaning what was ok in the early 2000’s, would most likely not fly today. That being said with “Native Son” may be very different than how it was in the novel. One example is the death of Mary in the novel, will it be treated differently in the film? Not to mention characters, plot, and the theme of the story may vary to both variations. I hope to see the differences in both these forms of media and hopefully focus on how time can impact how you see a particular story. Unfortunately, I do not have all the tools needed to create such a paper yet such as I have not seen the film, nor have I completed the novel. Once these things are establish where I feel confident in both works will I delve deeper in these ideas.

For my final paper, I would like to explore how writing in certain roles, using certain tools, can help the author achieve different things. This can be seen in several works that we read throughout the semester, but I would specifically like to focus on the authorship of Charles Chesnutt and Faulkner’s Ringo.

Through inscription, Charles Chesnutt and Ringo went through a bit of role reversal in terms of their race. Chesnutt was a black man who wrote in a mostly white genre, and challenged that genre by writing the Conjure Tales. Similarly, Ringo, a slave, disguised himself as a white officer to write orders for mules, through the use of business writing. These roles made their writing a more difficult achievement, if not physically, then mentally. I would like to bring in Flusser over here in order to pronounce the significance of writing that comes as a product of difficulty.

Chesnutt’s use of stenography in addition to his writing is also significant in this aspect.  “Stenography, as a writing system that claims to record and preserve the inflections of human speech, and literary realism, a form of writing that claims to register the vicissitudes of human experience, both participate in a form of mimesis that was, by the end of the nineteenth century, the primary site of critical discord surrounding American fiction” (Sussman). This can be contrasted with the business writing that Ringo did, and I’d like to find some sources that speak about the growth of business writing and its significance. I also want to do some research on pokeberries which Faulkner’s characters used as ink, to see if there’s anything especially significant about it (I don’t expect to find much on that end, but if I do, that would be cool!). I would also love to find some sources that speak specifically about Ringo playing a white author, which may be difficult to find, but interesting and important for my argument if/when I do.

I may also want to make a note comparing Julius to Ringo, by (once again,) comparing and contrasting stenography and business writing (and their functions and goals).

Sources:

The Unvanquied by William Faulkner

Does Writing Have a Future by Vilem Flusser

Sussman, Mark. “Charles W. Chesnutt’s Stenographic Realism.” MELUS, vol. 40, no. 4, Dec. 2015, pp. 48–68. academic-oup-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu, doi:10.1093/melus/mlv045.

McElrath, Joseph, Jr. “To Be an Author” Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905. Chesnutt, Chesnutt,. Princeton University Press, 2014. Open WorldCat, http://www.myilibrary.com?id=629662.

Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), et al. Charles W. Chesnutt Essays and Speeches. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1999.

Gitelman, Lisa. Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era. Stanford University Press, 1999.

In Richard Wright’s “Native Son,” one can note the intense self consciousness associated with protagonist Bigger Thomas. Reading the book with a Du Bois lens, we can assume that Bigger transcribes the feelings associated with double consciousness onto himself. He knows who he is, and how he acts around his friends and family, but when he goes out into the world, he is also incredibly and constantly made aware of the stereotypes etched onto him because of his blackness.

When Bigger went to the movies with Jack, he begins to get enthusiastic about his new job. He starts to daydream about the Dolton’s daughter, Mary, and how maybe one day she’d like to “come to the South Side and see the sights” (34). He gets excited about this, and he and Jack talk and fantasize about the possibility of him and Mary sleeping together, and about how he now has the opportunity to learn from the Doltons. However, when Bigger first walks into the Dolton’s home, we see that his fantasy and conversation with Jack were mostly locker room talk. Bigger’s eagerness and aggression is replaced with timidness and submissiveness, as he soon remembers who he is, and how he looks from an outside, white perspective. He is quickly fearful of the Doltons and of the unfamiliarity that comes with being within a white home. Even when Mary acts as she does in his daydream, and asks to visit the South Side, rather than excitement, Bigger feels discomfort and fear. He feels cornered– both literally, in the front seat of the car, and figuratively, when in conversation with Jan and Mary. He becomes suspicious of their motives and uncomfortable by their insistence of inclusion.

While Bigger’s timid actions don’t change much in the second book, his mindset certainly does. Although on the outside, he still maintained the submissiveness associated with double consciousness, he now found those stereotypes useful in asserting his innocence. He became convinced that all saw him as a helpless black man, too stupid to commit murder, or kidnap, or hurt Mary in any way. He used his submissiveness to blend into the shadows around him, to play stupid, to play innocent. On the inside, however, Bigger became confident and cocky about the murder that he committed, as though it had fed a fire that he did not previously know he had inside of him. The way that others viewed him, which for so long had held him back quickly became an important aspect of his survival.

As Bigger’s innocence depended on the maintenance of the facade that he upheld, he needed to point the blame onto another. Not any other, though, but rather, another color. The second book often speaks of contrasting colors, in which Wright juxtaposes the colors white and black. “He saw her breath as a white thread stretching out over a cast black gulf.” (236) He speaks of the room being “black-dark” and the city as “white, still” (235,241). These contrasting colors make it clear that the world was mostly black and white. From Bigger’s perspective, all of the people who were white were immediately innocent, while black people didn’t stand a chance. However, with the introduction to Jan, Bigger meets a new color, and one that is capable of standing out in a stark contrast from the black and white world. When signing off the ransom note, Bigger essentially spells out that a Communist took Mary. He could have simply signed it “–The Communist Party.” Rather than doing that, however, Bigger used the color associated with the Communists, which is the color red. The color red allowed Bigger to slip away from the spotlight, and propelled the reader of the note away from him and toward the new color, and the new threat.

One of the things that struck me most about book 1 of Native Son is how Richard Wright approaches his audience. Since Wright was active in John Reed Clubs and Communist Party organizations in Chicago and New York, it is particularly interesting to see how he approaches the left. Throughout book 1, Wright makes it clear that the relationship between race and class is a defining part of black life in America. Bigger and Gus, for example, associate whiteness with wealth and power. When they “play white”, Bigger and Gus assume the roles of the most historically identifiable figures of American capitalism; J.P. Morgan, the president, and the secretary of state. While their skit is tongue in cheek, it provides a remarkably faithful interpretation of the relationship between political power, finance capital, and domestic and international repression:

“Hello,” Gus answered. “Who’s this?”
“This is the President of the United States speaking,” Bigger said.
“Oh, yessuh, Mr. President,” Gus said.
“I’m calling a cabinet meeting this afternoon at four o’clock and you, as Secretary of State, must be there.”
“Well, now, Mr. President,” Gus said, “I’m pretty busy. They raising sand over there in Germany and I got to send ‘em a note. . . .”
“But this is important,” Bigger said.
“What you going to take up at this cabinet meeting?” Gus asked.
“Well, you see, the niggers is raising sand all over the country,” Bigger said, struggling to keep back his laughter. “We’ve got to do something with these black folks. . . .”
“Oh, if it’s about the niggers, I’ll be right there, Mr. President,” Gus said.

Since Native Son was published just six months after the Nazi invasion of Poland, Gus’ fictitious Secretary of State is preoccupied with the fascist menace abroad. As President, Bigger only needs to mention “black folks”-the enemy within- to draw Gus’ attention back stateside. White liberals like to think that Donald Trump’s racism is an anomaly, a defect that renders him unfit to serve in such a high office. This conversation between Bigger and Gus, however, echoes the reality that racism and a penchant for violent repression are virtues within the American system. For example, after Dwight Eisenhower dispatched hundreds of thousands of black Americans to Europe to fight the Nazi hordes, he was eager to preserve fascism at home; before the Brown v. Board of Ed decision, President Eisenhower defended segregationists to Chief Justice Earl Warren, saying, “All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes”. Lyndon Johnson, who continues to be lauded by liberals despite his international and domestic crimes, famously called civil rights legislation “n-word bills”.

It is not just the white financial and political establishment that Wright is railing against, however. Indeed, his critiques of capitalism and racism are far more nuanced than that. In his depiction of Jan, Wright makes plain his frustration and disillusionment with white leftists. In spite of his self-congratulatory progressivism, Jan treats Bigger with the same strain of paternalism as his colonial forebearers. Despite admitting to not actually knowing any black people intimately, Jan is saccharine in his praise, exclaiming (ew), “They have so much emotion! What a people! If we could ever get them going….” Such condescension plays upon the familiar tropes used by slave owners, colonialists, and the imperialists of today; that black people represent a chaotic and disorganized mass, hampered by their infantile emotions and poor work ethic. This sort of approach shows that Jan’s class analysis is superficial and undialectical. His motivations also come across as self-serving, saying “We can’t have a revolution without ‘em [black Americans]. They’ve got to be organized. They’ve got spirit. They’ll give the Party something it needs.”

#Wright #Race #Class #Liberals #Leftists #Colonialism

In Native Son Book One, Richard Wright shows how fear works in similar ways to institutionalized racism. Specifically, what turns Bigger against his friend Gus is his fear of getting caught robbing a white store owner. Bigger also says that crimes committed by black men are often also against black victims, because the police will not investigate these crimes. Lastly, this fear is also what drives him to accidentally kill Mary. Bigger’s  awareness of blackness disrupts his personal relationships, which serves as a parallel to the lack of black community in his neighborhood. Through each of these instances, fear because of his blackness makes Bigger to become the stereotype of the poor black man who is prone to crime and violence.

Bigger plans to rob the store because he is expected to provide with his family. This is directly tied to his race in that it is because of his blackness that his father was killed, leaving him as the sole breadwinner. Bigger hits a “wall” of anxiety whenever he thinks of what he can do to get out of his situation, and robbing the store seems like a solution. In other words, to get out of the circumstances that he is in because of his race, he has to conform to and perpetuate the stereotypes of his race.

Bigger loses his friends because he is afraid of the consequences if he, and black man, is caught robbing the white store owner. By fighting Gus, he avoids robbing the store without losing face. Getting caught is more likely than of he were to assault a black man, because the police would look into it. This shows the way that law enforcement pits black people against each other. This is highlighted also when Bigger states that he doesn’t like communists because they are white poor, and when he is suspicious of the irish housekeeper. Specifically, the communists would offer a way for him to fight for racial justice, and he could find solidarity in the irish experience, but he is distrustful of these groups because of his experience as a black man. Thus his blackness disrupts and in some cases prevents his personal relationships.

Bigger kills Mary because he is afraid that he will be found in her room, where he is not supposed to be. His fear comes from the fact that if he loses the job, he will no longer be able to provide for his family. Further, everything that he does in killing her and disposing of her body is practical, in that they are first to keep his job and then to avoid getting killed. He knows that because he is black, there will be no lenience in his punishment is he is found.

As I read Part One of Native Son, I was struck by the way Bigger’s character understands himself and his positioning in society and the relation of that positioning to his displays of Masculinity. Bigger is a complex character who has an awareness of the oppressive forces that limit his ability and freedom to be in the society he lives in but is haunted by and runs from awareness. Although he sees the structures, he does not see how to dismantle them and turns to violence and escapism to avoid consciously negotiating with this aspect that controls much of his path in life.

After the scene where the family encounters a rat in their dwelling that bigger must kill, there is a passage that directly centers on this conflict within Bigger.
“He Hated his family because he knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them. He knew that the moment he allowed himself to feel to its fullness how they lived, the shame and the misery of their lives, he would be swept out of himself with fear and despair. So he held toward them an attitude of iron reserve; He lived with them but behind a wall, a curtain. And toward himself he was even more exacting. He knew that the moment he allowed what his life meant to fully enter into his consciousness, he would either kill himself or someone else. So he denied himself and acted tough” (Wright)
This makes it clear that Bigger is overwhelmed by the rigid way he is forced to navigate the world due to his positioning as the oldest living black male in the family. He sees his family suffering and living in squalor, and is aware that a system has placed them to live in this way. As the oldest living male the responsibility of fix this suffering is thrown upon his shoulders and he is unsure of how to begin to untangle the problem. Bigger feels the powerlessness that comes with being a black male and overcompensates for his inability to “complete his male duties” through shows of toxic hypermasculinity and violence. He displays this when he crushes in the rat’s head in an act that is more gruesome and violent than necessary for the task and ultimately in the strangulation.
Additionally, Wright Complicates the narrative of Bigger further and tells a more deep and complete story by making Bigger more than a victim of the system. Although Bigger is the protagonist that we are made to understand and view the narrative through, he is very flawed and violent. There are moments when the reader does not root for the main character and his actions and situations are not some thing that creates a simple sense of sympathy. With Bigger there is no consolation of tears, but a deeper story being told that asks for more consideration about the experiences of African American lives.

At the beginning of Wright’s work, protagonist Bigger, and his family are startled by an unwelcome black rat. The rat is seen skittering all over the one room apartment by the family, searching for a place to hide.

In many ways Bigger is symbolic of the rat. He is described as black by his mother in a negative way after causing his sister Vera to faint: “Just plain dumb black crazy” (Wright). Bigger is described as deranged and unintelligent by his own mother. His behavior is similar to the behavior of the rat while it was being chased. Bigger is also quarantined like the rat, and acts out because of the isolation in his own community. When the rat is trying to hide, it fails every time because 4 pairs of eyes are watching it. This heavy radar makes it impossible for the rat to escape. The same is with Bigger, as he wants to escape his fate of being a poor and worthless black man who cannot provide. He tries to hide his fears by being cruel to his family and shutting down everything they have to say, but they continue to ask him questions about his job offer and keep a close eye on his daily activities. Constant interrogation carried out by Bigger’s family causes him to get anxious. He feels that he has no way out because if he takes the job, he knows that he will still be unhappy and fail to support his family as the man of the house.

Bigger starts to have suicidal thoughts, believing that he has no other options but to work a poor paying job where he is treated poorly, or to steal with his gang. When the rat is described after being killed, he is described as black, big, and flat. Not only is Bigger dark skinned and tall- being the eldest son, but the way he expresses himself to others is flat. He does not care about anyone but himself, and his flat personality is simply a defense mechanism to block out his fears of being worthless. Although visibly dead Bigger used a shoe to squash the rats head down even more, cursing wildly while doing so. With low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts, Bigger thinks of himself as the rat. He loathes himself, and because of this self-hatred he is unafraid to hurt others because he feels that has nothing to lose.

Bigger sees his life as that of a rats life; worthless, and often taken with traps carefully set.       

Faulkner complicates the body as a site of inscription in the branding of the mules and through the bodies of Drusilla and Grumby. The branding of the mules is a traditional way of inscription, for order, that is revealed to be malleable, and is further used to misguide. The body of Grumby is used as a signifier of threat, while his hand on Granny’s grave represents justice and the restoration of order. Drusilla struggles to take authorship of the significance of her body through becoming a soldier, but is ultimately the object of readings. The response to her actions results in marriage to Sartoris, to restore order to her family. Through these different instances of inscription on the body, Faulkner shows the dialectical creation of meaning and the transience of this meaning, especially in instances of signifying order. In this, he reaches a conclusion that is in a sense unresolved, in that it is neither the signifier or signified that creates meaning.

The branding of the mules is a system by which in theory the owner of the mules would be apparent right away, and thus retain order. The scheme ran by Granny however shows that this inscription on the body is easily altered. Faulkner uses the inscription on the mules as a literal introduction to the more figurative significance in the bodies of Grumby and Drusilla, who are also inscribed upon, and whose meanings are also unstable. The body of Gumby represents order in that his death is vengeance for Granny’s death. By fastening the physical hand onto Granny’s grave, Bayard restores order in that “now [Granny] can rest good and quiet.” Bayard is later however hesitant to take the guns from Drusilla for the same principle of vengeance.

By Patricia Yaeger’s argument, Drusilla makes her body grotesque by diverging from the expected feminine southern widowhood and instead dressing and acting as a soldier. As Yaeger argues, this “gives her power…[but] is also a sure path to social death: to ostracism psychic exile, and sexual segregation.” Drusilla however is autonomous in this social death. What takes away the authorship of the significance of her body rather is the marriage to Sartoris. This restoration of order coincides with the change of her body as a sign to the object onto which meaning is projected. In Yaeger’s words, Drusilla’s body is ultimately the “site of transference” and “battlefield for the race and class struggles.” This suggests that as a woman Drusilla cannot assert meaning without being marginalized. However, her strongest moment is contrary to the masculine performances of her former self as well as those of Granny’s, is one in which she is feminine and physical, specifically when she gives Baynard the guns. Drusilla serves as the final culmination of inscription on and through the body, because her power is in her “hybridity.” She is not the passive mule or Gumby that is used, but she is also unable to assert herself without being marginalized. As an afterthought – the pun on “order” in the story is similar to differance, and the possibility there that is greater than in fixed meaning.