Jim Crow laws in Chicago in the 1930s created a system of segregation that prohibited African Americans from accessing restaurants, fountains, and even bathrooms that “belonged ” to white people. In this setting, Richard Wright places his novel, Native Son, with one of the most monstrous characters ever derived from the oppressive Jim Crow system, Bigger Thomas. Whites used the Jim Crow system to force African Americans, like Bigger Thomas, into inferior socioeconomic positions. Jim Crow socio-economic conditions also dampened the opportunities of African Americans compared to white citizens, which is a depiction of how an environment of oppression and inferiority, controls and oppresses the violent desires of individuals like Bigger Thomas, with threats of violence . The critic Foucault describes panopticons as: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "Those in authority govern through surveillance, observation, an evasive cultural observation that leads us to internalize the discipline of surveillance and to regulate, the police, ourselves." Critic Michael Foucault's sense of the panopticon as a surveillance system can be extended to an analysis of how Jim Crow was used as a form of surveillance to surveil the black population of 1930s Chicago. This is where we begin to recognize not only does Jim Crow operate in a surveillance society, but it also forces victims, like Bigger Thomas, to police themselves by internalizing feelings of alienation, shame, and inferiority, thus forcing the victim into a dangerous state of mind . Before readers' awareness of Jim Crow as a system of internalized surveillance occurs through Bigger's discussion of his recognition of how that very system is used to maintain his position of poverty and inferiority in society, as he metaphorically looks through the hole in the fence. At the beginning of the novel, when Bigger talks to his friend Gus about how he is socially handicapped in society because of his black skin. The oppression and awareness of his inferiority are manifested when he says: "Every time I think about it I feel like someone is shoving a hot iron down my throat." Damn it, look! We live here and they live there. We are black and they are white. They have things and we don't. They do things and we can't, it's just like living in prison. Half the time I feel like I'm on the outside world and peeking through a hole in the fence.' (20). His use of the phrase "stick a hot iron [down his throat]" signals his internalization of the panopticon, resulting in constant fear of being watched by white society and forcing him to constantly fear violating social ravens. of Jim Crow. Therefore, Bigger's feeling of alienation only intensifies when he says that "white people live in his stomach", revealing a deep sense of inferiority and feelings of fear that literally live inside him. Interestingly, Bigger and his friends have internalized not only the fear of offending white society. but also the fear of the consequences of a crime committed against a white individual like Mr. Blum. Not only does Jim Crow, Bigger acknowledges, operate externally as a system, but Wright reveals that it is something that has been internalized in African Americans like Bigger and Gus that programs them to be afraid of robbing someone like Mr. Blum due to racial punishment . A great example of this knowledge of white society and self-surveillance of Bigger's actions is when Bigger says, "They always robbed niggers. They felt it was easier and saferrob their own people, because they knew that white cops never diligently look for blacks who commit crimes against other blacks, [yet they terrorize and publicly shame blacks who commit crimes against whites] for months they had talked about robbing Blum, but they weren't managed to do it. They had a feeling that Blum's theft would violate an absolute taboo; trespassing into a territory where the wrath of an alien white world is unleashed' (15). Wright reveals the internalization of the panopticon in Bigger's self-surveillance through his fear of Mr. Blum. Furthermore, it is important to demonstrate that the man, Blum, who they are talking about robbing represents not an individual but a white society that will want racial punishment for defying the panopticon or the “white world” (14). The power imbalance between white communities and African Americans reveals that such oppression is necessary to deny opportunities for socioeconomic freedom and to maintain power over the black community. Another example is when Bigger enters the Dalton house and while sitting in this “white house” (45) Bigger connects this world with what he said earlier about passing through the “knot in the fence” to enter white society. When sitting in the Dalton house, Bigger retains feelings of distrust which are exemplified when he says how the "strange objects challenged him" (46) inside this white house. Bigger then has a sense of realizing that this "world would be so completely different from his own that it would intimidate him" (45). Now Bigger isn't looking through the knot hole in the fence, he's metaphorically in the white world. Bigger's fear of this world is used against him when Mr. Dalton reads Bigger's mind and reads that fear as a sign of respect. Mr. Dalton is now watching, reading Bigger's body language and thinks Bigger is showing proper deference. Bigger then notices how fear has overwhelmed him and says, “Why was he acting and feeling this way? He wanted to wave his hand and erase the white man who was making him feel that way. If nothing else, he wanted to cancel himself. She hadn't raised her eyes to Mr. Dalton's face since he'd been at his house. There was an organic belief in him that this was the way white people wanted him to be when they were in their presence” (47-48) Bigger's internalized fear and belief in submitting to the white presence also reveals that Mr. Dalton's surveillance of Bigger and self-surveillance of his own actions further prove the panopticon system under Jim Crow. Finally, the burning of the cross is a representation of the panopticon at the highest level. The Christian cross traditionally symbolizes compassion and sacrifice for the greater good, and indeed Reverend Hammond means just that when he gives Bigger a cross while he is in prison. Bigger even begins to think of himself as Christ, imagining that he is sacrificing himself to wash away the shame of being black, just as Christ died to wash away the sins of the world. Later, however, after seeing an image of a burning cross, Bigger can only associate crosses with the hatred and racism that have paralyzed him his entire life. He begins to feel betrayed, which is demonstrated when he says, “He felt betrayed. He wanted to tear the cross from his throat and throw it away. [….] he felt the cross touching his chest, like a knife pointed at his heart. His fingers arched to tear it away: it was an evil, black spell that would surely bring him death now.”(338) This reveals that Bigger has come to a point where the white world has crippled him with racism and oppression at one level emphasizes that he distrusts the cross and believes that.