On The Individuation Of Bigger Thomas In Native Son

Richard Wright has been called the father of black American literature, and his representative work Native Son has been regarded as a milestone of black literature. The famous American critic Irving Howe once remarked:"the day that Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever."The novel describes how Bigger Thomas, a poor black youth, keeps searching for self and grows from innocence into maturity.This thesis applies Jung's individuation theory to analyze Bigger's self-realization process. Individuation is a key concept in Jung's personality development theory. It is a movement towards wholeness by integrating conscious and unconscious parts of the personality. According to Jung, to become individuated, one has to experience a series of archetypal contents such as persona, shadow, anima, the wise old man, which Bigger goes through. First, he successfully distinguishes the self from his personas. Next, he assimilates the two shadows into consciousness. After that, he manages to understand his animas. Finally, through his awareness of the wise old men, Bigger gains the pre-existent wisdom, thereby achieving individuation. In a society where he is widely dismissed as a dreg or a beast, Bigger winds up finding the true self.