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The central theme of Native Son is the central theme of most black American writing, the duality of black existence in the United States. In particular the novel explores the stifling limitations imposed on blacks. Bigger expresses his sense of exclusion as he and his buddies stand idly on a street comer watching a plane fly overhead: "They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like living in jail." As in Uncle Tom's Children, the central movement of Native Son is toward the development of self-awareness. Bigger's development is perverted by environmental pressures that make him feel that violence is his only way to self-realization. Native Son is a psychological as well as a sociological novel, and Bigger's development is outlined by the three sections of the novel: "Fear," "Flight," and "Fate." "Fear" documents Bigger's condition, living a life of poverty and hopelessness with his mother and sister. His entire existence is based on fear and his greatest fear is to let this fear show. "Flight" shows Bigger's sense of self increase as his personal danger increases. He enjoys the independence and power of confusing the white authorities, and his brutal murder of his girlfriend Bessie Mears exhilarates him because, unlike his accidental suffocation of Mary Dalton, it is a consciously willed action that earns him the freedom to "live out the consequences of his actions." In "Fate," the novel becomes more expository. In his lengthy summation, Bigger's lawyer Boris Max argues that all of society shares the guilt for Bigger's crimes, and Max's efforts awaken a desire for human trust in Bigger. But Native Son is not a simple rejection of white America, for the novel shows that behind Bigger's violence is a desire for acceptance. The real trag edy of Native Son is that Bigger can find no other way to express his potentially healthy desire "to merge himself with others and be part of this world, to lose himself so he could find himself, to be allowed a chance to live like others, even though he was black."
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