Sara had a hard time trying to fit her own definition of being an American because she started her journey in another country. She felt like an outsider in America from the very beginning of the novel. Bigger from Native Son had a hard time fitting into society for a completely different reason. Bigger lived in a time of legal racial segregation. African Americans were forced to live separate from the white people. The black community was forced to live in separate communities away from the whites. The black communities were lower income and very run down. Bigger struggled to fit into the society around him because the society around him refused to accept him. Although both protagonists lived in a large, segregated, urban, low-income communities, they felt like outsiders. .
Sara was forced to grow up really fast due to get horrible father. Sara's father was a tyrannical, selfish man who did nothing but sit in his study and tell his girls what to do. Unlike Bigger's mother, Sara's father never worked. Bigger had a hard working mother who was barely able to support their family. Bigger and Sara came from two entirely different home lives but end up in the same situation. They were both born into a low economic status and are forced to try and climb their way out of the hole they were born into. The two adapted to their situations in near opposite ways. Sara and her sisters had to bring in all of the income for the family. Bigger had a hard time keeping a job. This made it difficult for him to make money in a traditional way. Between jobs, Bigger spent most of his time hanging out with his friends getting into trouble until he went to work for the Daltons in his mid-20's.
In Sara's early adulthood she decided to begin her own journey, Sara had enough of her father's tyrannical rule. She left her mother and father for a tough road ahead of her. She then began her quest to try and fit into American society.