Blind Justice? Alienation Within the Law in Richard Wright's Native Son

Veramendi 1 Blind Justice? Alienation within the Law in Richard Wright’s Native Son and Susan Glaspell’s ‘A Jury of Her Peers’” An Honors Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English University of Florida By Melanie Veramendi April 15, 2019 Veramendi 2 I. Introduction Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) is designed around the color line, molded and warped around it through its characters and racially driven situations. The novel centers on Bigger Thomas, an African American man living in Chicago’s Southside in the 1930s and the almost inescapable presence of crime on his life. Susan Glaspell’s short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917), features a crime of passion that illustrates the separation between men and women when investigating a murder, revealing the distinct disparities in their understanding of the crime, and how perceptions of justice can vary between groups. At first glance, “A Jury of her Peers” and Native Son seem to have little in common in terms of subject matter or content. Nevertheless, both deal with the ramifications of societal persecution in our legal system and how individuals can suffer from institutions that do not recognize the challenges of underrepresented communities. There is a type of focused intensity that accompanies trials and investigations that attempts to uncover the motives and intentions of one sole individual. It is an extremely alienating and discomforting process, and this is only exacerbated when intersected with prejudice and discrimination. Thus, in this essay I want to highlight the deterioration of self and the dissociation that arises in works of fiction when characters are put in legal scenarios that decide their fates without considering who they are, only what they represent. II. Deconstructing Marginalization in the Modern Day It is crucial to understand and delineate the idea of a trial before taking a deeper examination of both texts. The literal trial scenes in Native Son are no doubt important to the overall meaning of the novel and deserves to be highlighted and dissected in any discussion of the novel’s representation of the legal system. However, I would argue that the physical trial in Native Son is not the only kind of “trial” present in the novel, and that Bigger has metaphorically Veramendi 3 been on trial since he was born. Instead, the narrative also consists of informal trials. This is similar to Glaspell’s story, which does not portray an actual trial, but presents an informal case to a metaphorical “jury of her peers.” This point is especially significant because informal trials often bleed into real ones with sometimes frightening results. The media and society at large can play a huge role in what happens in a courtroom and both Wright and Glaspell are questioning the impartiality of the justice system in the face of these common and unofficial trials: trials that often center around historical forms of marginalization like racism, sexism and classism. In fact, their joint commentary on these phenomena of marginalization as issues that have remained ever present in our society since its founding is especially interesting as these are issues that are resurfacing in our own world. Arguably the most significant movements of this generation have been the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo campaigns, which have respectively targeted the systemic existence of racism and sexism in our society. The Black Lives Matter movement began after the acquittal of George Zimmerman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a young black teenager (Bates). Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch patrolman, killed Martin during an altercation in, which he mistook Martin for an older and more suspicious individual (Bates). Public outrage began quickly from the moment of his arrest as many advocates pointed out that Martin was a victim of racial profiling and was murdered for it (Bates). The Black Lives Matter movement took inspiration and direction from past actions like the Black Power Movement,1 also attempting to move away from traditional ideas of activism and usher in a new civil rights era. One of the most 1 The Black Power Movement began during the civil rights era of the 1960s to promote autonomy, racial equality and disrupting systematic institutions of oppression. The movement inspired other actions and groups like the Black Panther Party, which directly addressed issues like police violence and institutionalized racism that the Black Lives Matter movement is now confronting (Burnett). Veramendi 4 central aspects of this change is through the use of social media in the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo campaigns. The importance of social media in these movements cannot be understated as it is used as both a tool to mass distribute information and as a way to make the movement interactive and personal. Video recording and live streaming have become extremely powerful tools for the campaign as individuals now have the power to connect with others in the movement in real time to broadcast the injustices they are facing in their lives. What is especially compelling about both movements is how focused on story telling they are as they draw power in bringing individual stories out and highlighting them as representative of large-scale issues. Both movements allow people from all kinds of different backgrounds to share their stories regardless of fame or social status. The #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements allow for anyone with access to the internet the opportunity to use social media and talk about their history with sexual harassment, sexism, discrimination, and so forth. Owing to the use of social media each campaign has had rare successes that set them apart from previous movements that did not have access to it. The #MeToo movement in particular has been able to locate and denounce several individuals in high ranking positions in order to target institutional forces that uphold discrimination and prejudice. Furthermore, one notable example of the #MeToo movement’s influence on institutional forces is how it has exposed several different kinds of powerful individuals in the media industry like Harvey Weinstein.2 Perhaps what is so fascinating about this movement is how it demonstrated how incredibly common sexual 2 Harvey Weinstein is arguably the most infamous of those implicated as a sexual harasser by the #MeToo movement. He was the co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, both successful movie studios, and was an influential person in the film industry. In 2017, a significant number of women, including several famous actresses, made sexual harassment and assault allegations against him. There were many people in Hollywood who were aware of Weinstein’s, and others’, behavior against women, but who felt completely powerless to stop it: “silent co-conspirators: dozens of people, over dozens of years, who knew what was going on but did nothing” (Bennett). Following his naming several others in Hollywood, like comedians Bill Cosby and Louis C.K, came under scrutiny for their own sexual harassment claims (Bennett). Veramendi 5 harassment and sexism is in the world. There were so many people who had stayed silent on their experiences for so long because they thought that they were the only ones who had been affected by sexual harassment. This movement, which focuses on solidarity allows people with similar experiences to break through the silence and take action in their lives and reach out to those they know and to create an actual impact in the world. Perhaps the most visible impact of both the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo campaigns are these movements’ ability to at times circumvent the legal system in order to enact concrete change. There are difficulties associated with the prosecution of nearly every type of legal case, but sexual assault and harassment are very difficult, because it often becomes a battle of different stories and allegations. If there is a lack of physical evidence, which there often is it can be challenging to actually prove that any misconduct did occur. These cases are also, historically very hard for victims to have to undergo especially if they must testify. The experience itself is traumatic, but reliving it in front of a jury can sometimes amplify the trauma for the victim. The movement itself is not able to pass legal convictions or penalize the transferors in a court of law, but as seen with cases like Harvey Weinstein’s they are able to pass judgement in court of public opinion and enact a tangible difference. What is fascinating is how similar these movements goals and tactics are to Glaspell and Wright’s works which use their storytelling to uncover systematic injustices in society and in legal institutions. III. Uncovering Sexism in “A Jury of Her Peers” Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” delineates a clear gender hierarchy of early 20th century American society, which has a significant impact on the characters in their intentions, motivations, and perception of crime. The death of Minnie Foster’s husband John Wright under suspicious circumstances is the starting point of the short story. Yet it is what happens after the Veramendi 6 death that is the true concern of Glaspell’s story. The investigation is crucial in understanding the text, and before it even begins established gender dichotomies are readily apparent to the reader. The beginning lines bear no mention of any crime or misdeed. Glaspell instead writes, “Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind…As she hurriedly wound [a scarf] round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen.” (Glaspell 1). The first woman that exists within this short story, her first interest is given to the kitchen, the heart of the home and the central space of the domestic paradigm.

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