An Analysis Of Identity In Native Son From The Perspective Of Cultural Hegemony

Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony is always a hot topic in this age of globalization,In the process of economic and cultural exchanges,the group of weak culture makes a comparison between its culture and strong culture,and it finds the similarities and differences.Under the impact of strong culture,the group of weak culture may lose itself,weaken its distinctive cultural characteristics.The strong cultures threaten the survival of the weak cultures,as far as possible to impair the weak cultures so as to achieve cultural leadership.African-American writer Richard Wright suffers from racial discrimination from birth,and his works write about life and expose the contradiction and dark side of society,so he is one of the founders of the so-called Protest Novel.His representative novel Native Son fully interprets the social-cultural changes between the contact of the white American culture and African-American culture,and it studies the culture shocks of African-American culture and what they have suffered in the process of cultural hegemony,and the difficult course of the maintenance of the African-American national culture.This paper consists of three parts,introduction,the main body,and conclusion.The first part is the introduction.The introduction gives a brief description of the writer Richard Wright and his novel Native Son,and the research background at home and abroad.It points out that this paper analyzes the black’s identity problems in Native Son from the perspective of cultural hegemony.The second part is the main body,which is divided into four chapters:Chapter One introduces the theory of cultural hegemony which belongs to the theory of post-colonialism,the meaning of cultural hegemony is that the side of strong culture takes advantage of acculturation to discipline the weak side,not the violent methods.And it introduces the relationship between Native Son and theory of cultural hegemony.The black nation in Native Son suffers from oppression from the white society,and the implementation of cultural hegemony makes the loss of the black’s identity and values,so this paper analyzes Native Son from the perspective of cultural hegemony.Chapter Two concentrates on the black’s identity crisis under the impacts of cultural hegemony,and the black’s identity crisis is mainly representing in individual level andsocial level.So it appears the submissiveness and approval of identity of the black,and the alienation and disorientation of identity of the black.Identity crisis in social level mainly reflects the characters’ social racial perception and the aesthetic value concept.Through all kinds of methods of racial segregation,the white society poses restrictions on the black’s social life and deals with criminal cases according to the black’s identity,and the black are submissive to their identity and values.Chapter Three analyzes the causes of the black’s identity crisis,in order to protect interests of the class,and the white society firstly wants the black to achieve self-discipline through all kinds of surveillance methods.Then through the bonding effect of education and religion,they paralyze the black’s revolting thoughts.The media controls the black’s cognition and way of thinking,and it controls the black’s independent thinking and judgment.The black’s identity crisis is also caused by cultural hegemony on social norms,and cultural hegemony is functioning through the compulsory norms like the prison,army institution and non-compulsory norms to achieve self-discipline,and economic oppression and racial segregation are also causing the black’s identity crisis.Chapter Four focuses on the reconstruction of the black’s identity and social values.The black are living miserable lives under the influence of social racial perception and the aesthetic value concept,and the white discriminate the black.Under this kind of oppression,some blacks like Bigger detach from the struggle of double consciousness,and they develop the triple consciousness,find the real self.They get rid of the bondage,reconstruct self-identity and the black’s social values.Only if the black nation gets united together,can they protect their national culture,and reduce the negative effects of cultural hegemony as much as possible.The last part is the conclusion,which gives a summary of previous discussion and the writing significance.Nowadays,under the impact of globalization,the cultural communications between each country become more and more frequent,and it is necessary to develop national culture and protect national culture.The study of African-American’s survival of culture helps us think how to protect national culture and improve the cultural soft power and strengthen cultural consciousness.