After Julian\u2019s presentation this week, I spent some time thinking about the expression of fear and its relation to the expression of anger in James Baldwin and Richard Wright\u2019s work. Julian spoke about the quote from Baldwin on Native Son, where he points out that \u201c[a]ll of Bigger\u2019s life is controlled, defined by his hatred and fear. And later, his fear drives him to murder and his hatred to rape\u201d (Baldwin, \u201cEverybody\u2019s Protest Novel,\u201d 18). I do not think that it is hatred that drives Bigger to rape. I think it is the sense of freedom, mixed with anger which is instilled within him out of fear, drives Bigger to rape. Bigger is taught since childhood to live in fear of the white men who control his life through their decisions. He is afraid of robbing the white man\u2019s store, but not of robbing a black man. This fear creates anger within him, which has been built up all his life. Suddenly, Bigger experiences a sense of freedom which he has never felt before. After killing Mary, he thinks that he cannot be caught. He has never really made a choice in his life, they have always been made by the white people for him. He wanted to be a pilot, but the white men would not allow a person of his color to get admission in flying school. If he cannot get the job which he wants, he is reduced to resort to stealing from other black men. And, he is made to live on a certain side of Chicago, because the white men have decided that it is where the African American people can live. Over time, there is anger against the world which is built up in Bigger. Not only against the white men, but all the blacks that follow the white men\u2019s lead and allow the white men to make decisions for themselves. Murdering Mary is Bigger\u2019s first self-made decision. The new-found freedom and anger against the world make him think he can do whatever he wishes to. He likes the rush he gets from making his own decisions. I believe, that is why he rapes and murders Bessie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After Julian\u2019s presentation this week, I spent some time thinking about the expression of fear and its relation to the expression of anger in James Baldwin and Richard Wright\u2019s work. Julian spoke about the quote from Baldwin on Native Son, where he points out that \u201c[a]ll of Bigger\u2019s life is controlled, defined by his hatred … Continue reading Fear + Anger<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3921,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}