Socratic Seminar On Native Son 3/30/09

Questions:

1. How did you like the novel?  Did you anticipate the ending?
2. Do you believe the novel accurately portrays race relations in the 1930s?
3. Obviously, our society has been integrated publicly and minorities now have equal rights, but is there still social discomfort and disliking with regard to different races?
4. Has Racism subsided or has it merely changed forms?  Has it just become more covert?
5. Do you think people will ever overcome racism and live as one?
6. Would Bigger's trial have been as large an event if he had been white?  Would it cause so much uproar?
7. Do you think Bigger's murder of Mary was inevitable due to the suppression of blacks by white people?  Are white people to blame for this incident as much as Bigger?  By suppressing a whole race, does this not increase their feelings of estrangement and lead to and inevitable rebellion?
8. If society had not been segregated, and blacks and whites interacted on a regular basis, would all of these events take place?
9. Is this all Bigger's fault?
10. What do you think of Mr. Dalton?
11. What was the purpose of the communist part?