Charlie Hechler Blog

Before the narrator's fateful change of personality in chapter 11, the narrator had shown few signs of development. He has been entranced by the reward of becoming successful in a white man's world to the point that he ignores how he is treated. He accepts insult after insult, torture after torture, only for the approval of those in power, who are mostly white. He refuses to believe the words of his grandfather, that he must be "a spy in the enemy's country". However, this slowly changes throughout the chapters we have read so far. Through a harsh series of events, he is finally able to realize the lesson that he had known from the very beginning, but had never believed: his grandfather was right all along. We have only seen a couple characters recognize this odd behavior and warn against it. Those being Dr. Bledsoe, the Vet, and Young Emerson. Dr. Bledsoe and the Vet being the only ones that have invisibility. The Vet is the first one to introduce the fact that n

One of the biggest mysteries of the novel Native Son  is the cause of Bigger's emotions around Mary and Jan. Of all the characters in the story Mary and Jan are the ones that try to be the least racist. However, their good intentions somehow lead to Mary's death. Even Bigger himself is perplexed by this, he knows that it was because of the way that Mary acted that made him kill her, but he cannot explain why. Mary and Jan try the hardest of all the characters to not be racist, maybe even trying to hard. Jan insists on making sure that Bigger is not speaking in a way that would give Jan or Mary too much respect. When Bigger calls Jan "sir", Jan corrects him multiple times which is an odd and awkward moment. It seems clear that Bigger is not really comfortable with calling Jan much of anything except "sir". It's ironic that despite Jan trying to treat Bigger as an equal, he still orders him around. It is clear Jan is still treating Bigger differently than