The Chemical Reaction of Culture

Culture and identity serve as two peas in a pod. However, before abruptly delving into the ways that culture can help or hinder someone's identity, I first want target the meaning of the word culture. To some, it is defined as the traditions inherited by one's own nationality, ethnicity, and family. It can include belief systems, the media, as well as a combination of morals and goals influenced by our surroundings. I view culture through an interesting perspective: a scientific lens. If you are not a lover of biology then please bear with me...

Culture is just like an enzyme—you know the biological molecules that act as catalysts and help complex molecular reactions occur in life. For some people, culture serves as the catalyst for the way in which they act. This is true for the character Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's novel Native Son. In fact, Bigger's life exemplifies the enzyme-substrate complex. Bigger, as the substrate, binds to the societal enzyme. If you know your science, you know that in any chemical reaction a product is formed. In this case, the product is a "native son"—an individual whose life is shaped by his/her environment and is told since birth who he or she is supposed to be.

Bigger's identity is hindered by his setting in a racially divided culture. As a result of growing up in Chicago during the 1930s, he is exposed to racial oppression. The color of his skin deems him inferior and strips him away from the same opportunities offered to whites. Not only is Bigger a black man, but he is an impoverished one as well. His family resides in a rat-infested apartment in the “black belt” of Chicago—the area in which black citizens are confined to live. Such conditions lead him to fall into the violent, aggressive black man stereotype fabricated by society. Flying airplanes, joining the military, and attending college are all the things that he is taught only white people are capable of doing. This ideology lends him to his participation in petty crimes with his gang of friends. For this reason, his rape and murder of Mary Dalton and Bessie serve as no surprise, since it was society that formulated the recipe for a criminal. Without realizing it, Bigger's irrational behavior served as an obsequious bow to the way society wanted him to be. Rather than being able to create an identity of his own, society practically handed him a false one.

So how exactly did Bigger's culture help his identity? Well...it sparked his quest throughout the novel in the first place! Bigger’s actions were triggered by his experiences as a black male in American society. Although he was given a death sentence for his crimes at the end of the novel, the trial itself led him to his conversation with his lawyer, Boris A. Max. This was a significant moment in the novel since Max helped Bigger realize that he was a product of his environment. In addition, the murders that society triggered Bigger to commit enabled him to uncover more about himself. This is expressed when Bigger made the declaration that what he "killed for must've been good". His ability to hide his murders for a period of time helped him realize that he is just as smart as whites and that he has the ability to assert himself against their oppression.

Sadly, Bigger ended his journey in the state of feedback inhibition. Despite finally coming upon a new understanding of his life, the end product of all his actions will be his death. He no longer has the chance to start over in order to formulate his new sense of identity. In feedback inhibition, the end product of a reaction deactivates the enzyme and limits its activity. Although Bigger will face death, he can die knowing that he will not blindly continue his life as part of society's formula for the production of native sons. This realization in itself lends Bigger Thomas to murmur the words "I'm alright now" at the novel's close.