The historical fact shows African-Americans lived under white domination. In the past time, they were
enslaved by White Americans. When the slavery was abolished after the Civil War, the black people were
regarded as inferior citizens; they have still been treated unfairly by the white people The spirit of
independence has been marred by Americans enslaving the black people in the era of slavery and
dominating them in the following eras. This paper will discuss reflection of African-American
experiences in literature. The intended experiences are those happened in the Independence Era reflected
in Native Son 1940 by Richard Wright. This paper tries to answer the question : “ How were the black
people socio-culturally dominated in Native Son?. The discussin shows that (1) the black man (Bigger
Thomas) as the representation of Black people (African-Americans) was always in a dilemmatic
condition leaving him without any options. Whatever he chose, will have negative consequences, (2) the
struggle for ‘equality’ through ‘violence’ will result in a ‘tragic fate’, and (3) the novel reflected the black
people who yearned for freedom from white domination and expected to have good education, good
employment, and equality in political opportunity, law enforcement/law protection, and in other
sociocultural life.
Keywords: African-American, dilemmatic condition, good life, and tragic fate
11-10-2016-awej-african-american-compressed
