The Stockholm Syndromes Of The Blacks In Native Son

Richard Wright,a famous African-American writer during the period of “Harlem Renaissance”,has exerted a great influence on the subsequent African-American writers.His masterpiece Native Son is regarded as a milestone in the history of African-American literature and shocks the American literary world.In this novel,Wright indicates that the images of the black characters are the production of the social institutions in America,especially the racial segregation and discrimination.As a term,Stockholm syndrome was coined by Nils Bejerot who is a Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist from a bank robbery in Stockholm,Sweden in 1975.Stockholm syndromes refer to the condition in which the hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy.This condition usually makes the hostages(victims)generate good impression of the criminals(perpetrators)or even in turn help the perpetrators to commit crimes.The hostage-taking case happened in Stockholm,Sweden attracted great attention from psychologists such as Marion Ledwig and sociologists such as Leo Panitch,David Kupelian and so on.The psychological descriptions and behaviors of the blacks for survival in Native Son conform to Stockholm syndromes.Therefore,this thesis tries to use related theories of Stockholm syndromes to analyze Richard Wright's Native Son,in hope of further exploring the survival crisis and psychological dilemma of the blacks in Native Son.This thesis is composed of five parts: an introduction,a main body of three chapters,and a conclusion.The introduction first presents a simple presentation of Richard Wright and the basic content of Native Son.Then it states the literature review related to Native Son at home and abroad.Next,it gives an account of the genesis of the Stockholm syndromes and its several theories as well as a conception about it.Lastly,it shows briefly the research significance and the structure of this thesis.Chapter one mainly analyzes the Stockholm syndromes in Richard Wright's Native Son.it firstly analyzes the victims' blind gratitude and loyalty to the perpetrators.In Stockholm syndromes,the victims will show their blind gratitude and loyalty to the perpetrators if the perpetrators give some benefits to them.In a racial society,the blacks usually devote everything they have to rewarding the whites because of the petty favors they get from the whites.And it then expounds the victims' pursuits of self-protection.In Stockholm syndromes,the victims have no chance to escape.And there are boundaries between the whites and the blacks,and the blacks will be punished or killed if they dare to traverse those boundaries.At first,the blacks hate it,and then they adapt themselves to it,finally,they rely on it.This is the institutionalization of Stockholm syndromes.Therefore,under this circumstance,the blacks seldom dare to rebel against the whites.Chapter two interprets the causes of the blacks' Stockholm syndromes.On a micro level,according to the related theories of Stockholm syndromes and the behaviors and psychological states of the blacks,this thesis firstly discusses the perpetrators' brainwashing or re-socializing means in Stockholm syndromes.In Native Son,in order to brainwash or re-socialize the victims,the perpetrators adopt every possible means,including religion,media,values as well as education,to control the victims or to punish them.Hence,the blacks not only can't get useful information or knowledge but will be punished if they do something which violates the social regulations between the whites and the blacks.What's more,the blacks have to depend on those brainwashing means to live in their daily life.As is known to all,literature is rooted in real life and Native Son isn't an exception.Hence,on a macro level,it can be said that the formation of the blacks' Stockholm syndromes in Native Son also have certain reasons which include the influence of American slavery and the social background in Wright's time.In fact,as early as in the American slavery period,the blacks began to live in Stockholm syndromes because of the extreme inequality between the black slaves and their white masters,which also impacts greatly the behavior choices and psychological state of the later generations of the blacks.In addition,the blacks still lived in Stockholm syndromes in Wright's time for all kinds of reasons,including political,economic and cultural inequality.And there are many manifestations in Native Son.Chapter three discusses the reactions to Stockholm syndromes,which include the protagonist Bigger's passive rebellion and the communist Max's positive endeavor.In this chapter,this thesis first narrates the protagonist Bigger's rebellion as well as the measures he takes.And then it analyzes the reason why his reaction ends in failure.Next,this thesis narrates the communist Max's positive endeavor which also ends with failure and analyzes the limitations of his endeavor.It can be said that the failure of Bigger's rebellion symbolizes the failure of the blacks' rebellion while the failure of Max means that of the American Communist Party.The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis.It points out that the Stockholm syndromes are rooted in imbalanced racial relationship.Meanwhile,the following two sides should also be seen: on the one hand,there exists a positive power though the black people are still bothered by the dilemma of Stockholm syndromes.On the other hand,the blacks' status has been greatly improved since Wright's time.Hence,it can be concluded that the thorough liberation of the blacks will be realized in the end with the joint efforts of the blacks and the whites,but what needs to be emphasized is that it is a gradual progress.