By reading the principal’s speech, Richard was saying what the white power wanted him to say and to Richard this would be giving in to the very thing he hated so much. Richard was willing to leave school without a diploma instead of this. White people alienated Richard from his environment because he did not accept the way of life that other black people did. Richard’s relatives never understood Richard and because of this he was alienated from his family and his own people. Shorty is the young black boy who gets beat by the white people and jokes about it.
The prologue introduces us to a nameless narrator who is living on the edge of society as a proverbial “invisible man.” The narrator’s central struggle revolves around the conflict between how others perceive him and how he perceives himself. He becomes obsessed with the past, allowing it to define him in the present. The narrator tells us of his previous efforts to be a part of society, by paying bills, working, etc, only to be continually judged and viewed by others as somehow less than human. Racism is prevalent at the time the story is written. The story portrays how other members of society view him in terms of racial stereotypes—as a mugger, bumpkin, or a savage.
Even though he is innocent, because he is black, there is almost no chance he will win. As Atticus says, "In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins" (Lee 249). Tom has a right to justice too, but society thinks he does not deserve it because he is different. Next is the Finch family. They are not black and are well respected by the community, until Atticus is assigned to defend Tom.
Thus the racist social values of Maycomb County are responsible for the failure of Atticus Finch’s defense for Tom Robinson. When hate and racism start controlling people, that hate will be factored into each decision they make in life. For example, defending someone who is guilty and criticizing someone who is innocent. As a result of hate and racism controlling the witnesses of the trial, they are another factor that cause Atticus’ defense to fail. There are several characters involved in the justice system of Maycomb County.
There is much intra-race conflict; the narrator as to fight Tatlock. The narrator started fighting automatically, without a solid purpose, fighting against members of his own race. He must prove himself to the ’white men’. Left in the ring is the strong versus the weak, educated against uneducated. All tat lock wants to do is rip the narrator apart, maybe
Summary of “Social Demarcation and the Forms of Psychological Fracture in Book One of Richard Wright’s Native Son” Matthew Elder says that in Wright’s insight in Native Son defines the psychological and sociological problems that damage African-Americans in a world that “whites work to maintain and blacks are forced to accept” (31). Book one, “Fear”, in the novel Native Son by Richard Wright takes the reader through the rough life of Bigger, an African-American trying to make it in a white world. The actions and mental state of Bigger in the first book play a large part in determining his fate. Bigger’s psychological state is influenced by the social fractionalization displayed within the novel. Bigger’s actions and thoughts were driven by a fear that was established by psychological and sociological damage.
For Atticus Finch, a white, well-known lawyer in Maycomb does not wish for any self-benefit out of what he is doing. He is chosen to protect Tom Robinson for there may be a possibility and chance for Tom in court. Atticus does nothing more than to fight for what is right and to prove that “the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie” (217). As expected, a majority of the citizens in Maycomb are not impressed nor support the action being taken by Atticus.
Rather than being a judge of his people, he was merely a citizen complaining about social injustices in his country. Paton’s condescending tone when speaking about the white people’s unfairness towards the blacks adds to his argumentative diction. For instance, Arthur writes, “We shift our ground again…and feel deep pity for a man who is condemned to the loneliness of being remarkable.” The words “deep pity” and “loneliness” contrast “remarkable”. When something is remarkable it is held in high esteem. The white people’s view of a black man was so low that even if he was more successful than one of them, he’d still be at the bottom of society.
This is the story shown in the exact text. The real story is the adventure of an unsuspecting man into the hypocrisies and atrocities that darken the legacy of man. The captain learns quickly that “white man’s burden” is not one of good will, but one of torment to the natives of the conquered land. Kurtz is a god to the Africans; even the main character sees him as such until they meet. This great build up of yearning to meet the malevolent and kind man known as Kurtz only to learn that he is a sickly old man that has been broken by white man burden is one of Conrad’s displays of modernism because this technique shows how man anticipations can twisted.
Richard, unlike his community and family, indomitably stands against the black tradition of acquiescing to the embedded racism. “No matter how often I witnessed it,” Richard says, “I could not get used to it. How can they accept it?” Richard’s ability to stay immune to such oppression makes his struggle that much more formidable. Thus, standing headstrong in the unyielding face of adversity, not only from white supremacists, but also from his own community. Wright defines his young character through the culmination of many events in which Richard chooses to resist being stuck by the limitations set by everyone above him: age, class, standard, and knowledge.