Second Stop: Business trip (sorry no vacation this time)

What are you afraid of? For me the biggest thing i’m afraid of in this world is death, but there are also little things, like being afraid of closing my eyes in the shower. When traveling I get anxious about not having everything that is essential I need for the trip or about I losing something important. My next stop, sadly, is not Asia like I hinted last time, but America. I was assigned a book in AP Literature and Composition, the first book of the year, Native Son by Richard Wright. Call this stop a business trip I guess. As I go through my first business meeting, Book One: Fear, there was a lot of fear in the character Bigger (hence the title). The protagonist, Bigger, acts tough and vicious just to cover up his fear. He does not want anyone to see it or he will appear vulnerable. In the book it is revealed that for Bigger “the moment he allowed what his life meant to enter fully into his consciousness, he would either kill himself or someone else” (12). Bigger does not want to realize the world he lives in. He does not want to acknowledge his fear of white people and his fear of having no power or control in his life. Bigger was the head of the house since his father had died, and is pressured by his family to be the breadwinner. In a world where black people have no power, Bigger must be furious that he can not control his own life. Violence and aggression is the only way Bigger is able to hide his fear and set it away. In a scene where he fights his “friend” Gus, he fights because he did not at that time want to show that he was afraid to rob a white person. Many of us never want to show our fear. We want to feel that we want to feel control and free in our life, and some of us like Bigger use aggression, others use any coping mechanisms they can to not show their fear. This shows what fear can do to someone.
Fear can make you do unthinkable things. With Bigger, he did the unthinkable by killing. He was so afraid to get caught in the scene that he ends up killing and even more frightened that he killed someone, he became more paranoid that he will get caught and eventually ends up mutilating the character. Bigger went on an extreme that he did not have to do at all, but his fear drove him to that point, his fear did the unthinkable for him. Our fear can drive us out, can make us do terrible things. We fear many things little things and big things, but we should not let that fear take control of us like it did to Bigger. What happens next to him? Well that is the second meeting, book two, of my business trip.