I chose essential questions number two. An identity is shown when a person's feelings are reflected in their actions. The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" is heavily portrayed in Native Son through Mary Dalton. The element that helped create each person's identity was "the village", which are the people he or she grew up around or the community he or she grew up in. Mary was privileged from the moment she was born. I feel that she represents the curious child never took into consideration why she was being warned of something. I bet she was told all her life that black people were as equal to fire: dangerous. However, since she didn't understand why, her curiosity encouraged her to figure that out on her own. Mary's parents and the media have exemplified that the black community was not to be reckoned with because they are inferior. All of these people around Mary have told her who to stay away from, and with no reason to obey because she grew up having everything handed to her, she feels that she must object these warnings just to get what she wants; which is finding out for herself why the black community is dangerous. And because she has been sheltered her whole life by extravagant materials and MONEY, Mary has never acknowledged that maybe everybody was right. Maybe if she decides not to make careless and selfish choices she could find acceptance in people trying to protect her. On the contrary, look what happened, Mary chose to interact with Bigger and it got her killed. Richard Wright's plan to kill Mary played out perfectly because she basically walked into her own doom. I think that because Mary grew up RICH and WHITE she became imprudent and foolish.
I like how you incorporate the known saying "it takes a village to raise a child." And, I also like how instead of writing about Bigger, like everyone else, you decided to talk about Mary. It was a needed change. You did make some good points about how Mary grew up sheltered and how she was basically lied to when it came to African American people. Overall, your blog and this post are really good and I hope in the near future, you write even better, more detailed blog posts!
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ReplyDeleteWhen you diverted your attention to a character other than Bigger, I was like "oh snap." You proved how you don't always have to choose the main figure within a book to analyze, since there are other characters that the author places emphasis on as well. Mary's character serves as an example of the ignorance that people can show. Although she felt like she was being philanthropic in her attempts to support the black community, she was actually treating it as a source of entertainment. Her naiveness failed to make her realize that black people were legitimate human beings. Overall, I got the gist of what you were trying to say but hoped that you spent more time developing your blog post. I recommend inserting clips and videos to spice things up as well. Nonetheless, it was nice reading the insightful thoughts you provided.
ReplyDeleteI love the saying you chose. It’s a pretty well-known saying and I think it is so interesting that you applied it to Native Son like you did. Similarly, while I read the novel I thought Mary acted and treated the people around her the way she did because of the privileges awarded to her at birth. She treated Bigger so poorly and repeatedly antagonized him for the short time she knew him solely because she could. She had power over Bigger because she was rich and white-and she clearly knew it. I really enjoyed this post and I’m excited to see what you say next time!
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