Native Son “Fear”

“Sometimes I feel like something awful is going to happen to me” (21). Bigger is 20 years old, lives with his mother, brother, and sister in a one room apartment. They struggle because of their lack of money. Bigger often wonders why things are they way they are. He is in a state of confusion. He is trying to figure out himself and things around him, trying to understand why the whites have everything. The reason why Bigger is this way is because he was oppressed for so long that he would eventually have to let it all out.

When Bigger goes to the Daltons home for a job interview, he was scare out of his mind. He had never been around so many white people at once. “He was sitting in a white home; dim lights burned round him; strange objects challenged him; and he was feeling angry and uncomfortable” (51). This shows the fact that Bigger hates whites for having what he doesn’t, how uncomfortable he feels being in a white persons home. He also feels jealous but that the same time he is amaze by all the beauty he saw around him. Bigger being oppressed for so long makes him hate the fact that the whites have everything once his working in the Daltons home.

Although Bigger is afraid of many things he doesn’t show it. While being in the poolroom, he acted really brave around him friends. He made several remarks about white people. For example when they ask him where he got all the money from. He acts like he controls them when it’s actually the Daltons that control him. When his around the Daltons he acts shy, respectful, and afraid. That proves how afraid he is to show who he really is and how he actually feels.

Bigger doesn’t understand why he can’t have what the whites have. He acts tough and brave around his family and friends. But deep inside his confused and trying to figure out whom he really is. Always feeling scare of what might happen. Not having money around the house is hard for him and his family. Being in a state of confusion makes him see things different. And it’s hard for him to comprehend everything that goes around him.