The Effect of Social Environment
Both in The Native Son and now The Raisin in the Sun it seems that the environment in which each character lives has a profound effect on there actions and behavior in society. The environmental pressures seems to steer how they should perceive themselves in public. From Bigger's act of inferiority around whites and then his subsequent murder of Mary. He behaves in a stereotypical manor that plays into the image that white people have set upon blacks. To the people trying to make Beneatha act and behave like a women of that time. They try to convince her to give up her independent ways and become the typical image of women at this time in history. Even though today we pride ourselves on being independent and focus on uniqueness of the individual; are we still guided and effected by the environment in which we live? When we make a claim of being an original individual, are we really being original or just placing ourselves in another stereotypical group?
2 comments:
I think that the environment in which we live has a major effect on who we are as individuals. The way we want others to treat or view us often affects the way that we act. So although we may want to be completely unique, I think that this rarely occurs in society. Very often people who think they are acting independently, can be stereotyped into a group.
I wouldn't say that people in those stories were shaped by the environment in which they lived, but more by the society in which they lived. The feelings that society held for African American people in the past shaped the personalities of the characters in the stories. Beneatha struggles to make herself different from the existing stereotypes, while Bigger finds himself completely trapped by them, in turn, letting them form him. I would say that the same is true for many people today as well. Although the stereotypes today aren't as prejudicial as they were in the past, they are still apparent in everyday society. Although many people struggle to be different, often times they just come out the same. There is such a wide variety of individuals in the world today that it is hard for any one person to be completely original. I don't think that there is a stereotype for every single group there is, so I think that it depends on the given individual's choices and who they are that decides whether or not they are original or placing themselves in another group.
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