Overbearing Mother in Richard Wright’s “Native Son”

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When an author strives to render his or her message to the audience, he or she considers the smallest details of how to do it. Everything is carefully thought over: appearance of the characters, their manners, the settings in which they act, etc. Special attention is taken to depicting the minor characters of the work. And there are good reasons for it: the role of minor characters is really significant, as they help the author to reveal the main characters’ behavioral patterns, ways of thinking and the like and often play a crucial role in plot development. The current paper is focused on the minor character from the novel Native Son by the American author Richard Wright, Mrs. Thomas.

This woman is the main character’s mother. The reader gets to know her from the first pages of the novel. The Native Son opens with a scene of awakening in the Thomas’s house. The very title of the first book does not promise anything good to happen: the atmosphere of fear reigns in Bigger’s house. The constant cry of Mrs. Thomas contributes to the feeling of something horrific vapouring in the air. If she happens to talk and not cry, this sounds as a command of severe general who does not seem to ever have experienced the human feelings of love and caring for others.

I believe that the woman’s determination to kill the rat that sneaks into the room speaks for her resolution and abilities to act without hesitation if needed. Still, the author admits her “shaking figure” and eyes “round with fascinated terror” (Wright 8) that suggest that the woman has experienced a lot in her life and her experiences were not that pleasant ones. Moreover, the fact that “The woman screamed and hid her face” at seeing the rat might speak for her being an ordinary woman to whom nothing human is alien. When the woman saw the dead rat she started weeping and appealing to God. This episode shows that Mrs. Thomas was constantly on edge and every minute her emotions could be released in various forms. Her appealing to God implies her devoutly religious nature.

The scene we described above reveals the woman’s relationships with her children: not of them are willing to obey her. Bigger does not react for his mother’s appeals to act properly. She wonders what makes him act like he does (Wright 11) and cannot find the answer to this question. The dialogue between Mrs. Thomas and her son that comes below demonstrates mother-son relationships:

“Boy, sometimes I wonder what makes you act like you do.”

“What do I do now?” he demanded belligerently.

“Sometimes you act the biggest fool I ever saw.”

“What you talking about?”

“You scared your sister with that rat and he fainted! Ain’t you got no sense at all?”

“Aw, I didn’t know she was that scary.”

“Buddy!” the mother called.

“Yessum.”

“Take a newspaper and spread it over that spot.”

“Yessum.”

In a despair Mrs. Thomas confesses that she does not know why she had gave life to her son. She blames her son for not helping the family to get out the garbage dump they live in. She says that Bigger cares of his own pleasure only and would not even grief for her sister if one day he saw her dead. From her exclamations the reader finds out that the young boy starts working only when he realizes the threat of starvation. He calls her son “the most no-countest man” she ever saw in her life (Wright 12).

Though no one is empowered to judge others, I believe that Mrs. Thomas’ reluctance to act herself instead of constant reproaching her son was not the right way to live. I suppose that the woman should not have accepted her precarious impoverished position in life so fast, instead she should have fought with difficulties that the destiny prepared for her.

Now being aware of Bigger’s degradation I can suppose that his mother’s failure to influence him, in part, was a reason for it. Yes, at the beginning of the novel Mrs. Thomas told her son that he would met a bad end if he failed to change his ways. But this warning has never influenced the boy and his attitude to life. Only the boy’s acts of violence, not his mother’s cautions helped him feel the sense of freedom and identity he strived for.

Thus, I can see that though the character of Mrs. Thomas does not seem that significant at first sight, she enormously contributes to depicting the main character of the book. This character does not only help the author to reveal Bigger’s nature but also makes the reader think over once more the significance of the influence that parents might have on their children.

Works Cited

Wright, Richard. Native Son. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005.

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Overbearing Mother in Richard Wright’s “Native Son”

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