Chance: noun; a force assumed to cause events that cannot be foreseen or controlled. By chance one can acquire riches beyond their wildest dreams. The lives of two people mysteriously intertwine, finding love by pure coincidence. A man driving in his car looks down to light his cigarette at an inopportune moment, missing a stop sign and crushing the bones of an innocent pedestrian. In Richard Wright's "Native Son", Bigger Thomas is the unfortunate victim …showed first 75 words of 597 total…

…showed last 75 words of 597 total…to go back to the past and be prepared for events that had previously taken them by surprise. One of the major motifs in Native Son is chance. Native Son charts a series of events that are manipulated by Bigger's bad luck, the final event being his execution. His life is tossed around by chance, sometimes forcing him kill, and other times condemning him to suffer from a life filled with the oppression of prejudice.