Identity Theft
Our second AP English reading book is a very interesting novel that makes one think outside of the box, literally. It is definitely a work of Literary Merit and despite the novel not being filled with enormous diction words and complicated text, it is an easy read that any student in high school can manage academically or even for fun and relaxation. Richard Wright infuses issues that his fictional society faces that have existed throughout time and is even relevant today. The Protagonist of Native Son, Bigger, has a fear of many things, including: his family, friends, society, and himself, that makes him pretend and disregard his own identity.
The people from the novel’s society and societies throughout the years including today are blind, and sadly, they are not alert or aware. Society has a way of molding each individual into it’s own likeness. We are told what to do, what to wear, how to dress and also we are told what to say and what not to say. The world professes to be a safe environment where everyone is free to express themselves, but everyone is given a limit and are restricted to be who they are.
As I read through the book, I stumbled upon a passage that explained this issue in a nutshell. Bigger had just woken up and after he had his breakfast, he went to go meet up with his friend Gus. Both men were fooling around and they talked, but soon afterwards, Bigger’s tone became serious. On page 24, Bigger said, “They don’t let us do nothing”, and again on page 25 he explains, “Sometimes I feel like something awful's going to happen to me ”. In Bigger’s case, he believed a lie that society told him growing up, and it became truthful to him, White people are better and superior to African Americans. A lie that is constantly repeated eventually becomes the truth we believe. We begin to adopt society's negative and erroneous view of ourselves and use it to define who we are as a person. We degrade and lesser the value of our life, because society claims that we are not better that a particular group of people, and for Bigger and all of the African Americans in the novel, they were susceptible to attacks simply because of their skin tone. Bigger was aware of the fact that all of a sudden he could be killed while running errands and it frightened him that society had already established his fate.
Throughout time and in today’s present society, we have learned to lesser ourselves because society tells us that we are not good enough and so we believe. We refine our physical and personality traits based on what society deems acceptable. For instance, we dress a certain way not because it fits our taste, but because that’s what's currently popular. We act a certain way in order to fit in with the crowd around us. Nevertheless, that’s not really who we are as a person. We take society’s way of thinking and make it into our own while society steals away our capabilities, originality, and high standards. We have the potential to be great, but society can’t take this privilege away from us, we allow society to do so.
The people from the novel’s society and societies throughout the years including today are blind, and sadly, they are not alert or aware. Society has a way of molding each individual into it’s own likeness. We are told what to do, what to wear, how to dress and also we are told what to say and what not to say. The world professes to be a safe environment where everyone is free to express themselves, but everyone is given a limit and are restricted to be who they are.
As I read through the book, I stumbled upon a passage that explained this issue in a nutshell. Bigger had just woken up and after he had his breakfast, he went to go meet up with his friend Gus. Both men were fooling around and they talked, but soon afterwards, Bigger’s tone became serious. On page 24, Bigger said, “They don’t let us do nothing”, and again on page 25 he explains, “Sometimes I feel like something awful's going to happen to me ”. In Bigger’s case, he believed a lie that society told him growing up, and it became truthful to him, White people are better and superior to African Americans. A lie that is constantly repeated eventually becomes the truth we believe. We begin to adopt society's negative and erroneous view of ourselves and use it to define who we are as a person. We degrade and lesser the value of our life, because society claims that we are not better that a particular group of people, and for Bigger and all of the African Americans in the novel, they were susceptible to attacks simply because of their skin tone. Bigger was aware of the fact that all of a sudden he could be killed while running errands and it frightened him that society had already established his fate.
Throughout time and in today’s present society, we have learned to lesser ourselves because society tells us that we are not good enough and so we believe. We refine our physical and personality traits based on what society deems acceptable. For instance, we dress a certain way not because it fits our taste, but because that’s what's currently popular. We act a certain way in order to fit in with the crowd around us. Nevertheless, that’s not really who we are as a person. We take society’s way of thinking and make it into our own while society steals away our capabilities, originality, and high standards. We have the potential to be great, but society can’t take this privilege away from us, we allow society to do so.
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