Native Son

“He hated his family because he knew that they were suffering and he was powerless to help. […] He knew that the moment he allowed what his life meant to enter fully into his consciousness, he would either kill himself or someone else.”

Love is an emotion that makes one vulnerable. What one loves can be hurt or destroyed, just as Bigger will destroy the daughter who the Daltons love. Bigger is afraid to love his family, so he hates them. He is terrified of what will happen if he faces his life with full consciousness and awareness, so he masks his pain, even to himself.

“He wanted to see a movie; his senses hungered for it. In a movie he could dream without effort; all he had to do was lean back in a seat and keep his eyes open.”

Bigger’s description of the way movies can provide an escape is perhaps the most wholesome musing he experiences throughout the entire novel. Bigger covers his pain with more pain. He is constantly alert and defensive and doesn’t even seem to find rest from this when he sleeps. But while he is watching the movie, Bigger ends up being distracted by what he had seen in the newsreel, letting his mind wander and worry about his life.

“God’ll let you fly when he gives you your wings up in heaven.”

Bigger wants to be a pilot, but knows that as a Black man, he won’t be allowed. Gus’s comment repeats the popular mantra that oppression in life is only temporary and ends with a reward. Although Bigger knows nothing about communism at this point in the novel, Richard Wright certainly does, and the commentary on religion as the opiate that allows people to turn a blind eye rather than fighting is straight from Karl Marx.

“He frowned in the darkened movie, hearing the roll of tom-toms and the screams of black men and women dancing free and wild, men and women who were adjusted to their soil and at home in their world, secure from fear and hysteria.”

Bigger feels disconnected and disenfranchised in America. In the 1920s, Black Nationalists like Marcus Garvey were reaching back to explore African indigeneity and what it meant to be an American of African descent. Bigger sees a primal sense of comfort and belonging in the African dancers that he has never imagined.

“The man was gazing at him with an amused smile that made him conscious of every square inch of skin on his black body.”

While waiting for Mr. Dalton, Bigger has a moment of awkwardness as he tries to situate himself in the chair. Mr. Dalton catches this and finds it humorous, a response that would have been disarming in most situations. But Bigger is already on edge and defensive. He can’t laugh at himself because he is constantly working hard to take himself seriously. Instead, he feels foolish because he is reminded that a Black man like him doesn’t really fit in this house. This miscommunication is one of many that pushes Bigger over the edge.

“What would people passing along the street think? He was very conscious of is black skin and there was in him a prodding conviction that Jan and men like him had made it so that he would be conscious of that black skin. Did not white people despise a black skin?”

Bigger believes that white people, without exception, hate him for his Blackness. In return, he hates all white people for their whiteness. But the exchange is not quite so simple. Bigger also learns to hate himself and the rest of the Black community by seeing hate reflected at him all the time. Jan offering kindness is confusing to him, and he can’t see it as sincere.

“You know, Bigger, I’ve long wanted to go into these houses […] and just see how your people live. You know what I mean? I’ve been to England, France and Mexico, but I don’t know how people live ten blocks from me. […] Never in my life have I been inside of a Negro home. Yet they must live like we live. They’re human… There are twelve million of them.”

Mary believes that her interest in Bigger is an expression of kindness, an outreached hand that he ought to appreciate. But she speaks about Bigger as if he’s an exotic creature and it’s a surprise that he’s human. And Bigger, his family, and the twelve million other African Americans certainly do live differently than Mary in a society that doesn’t recognize them as human.

“Though he had killed by accident, not once did he feel the need to tell himself that it had been an accident. He was black and he had been alone in a room where a white girl had been killed; therefore he had killed her.”

One of the most revealing details of the book is the way Bigger perceives himself as already guilty because he is Black. This turns out to be true when he is also presumed guilty of raping Mary as well as a host of other rapes and murders with no evidence. Men who resemble Bigger are arrested and African Americans across the city are fired by white employers. Bigger, along with every other Black person in the United States, is held responsible for every crime ever purported to have been committed by a Black man.

“He wanted to know how he would feel if he saw them again. Like a man reborn, he wanted to test and taste each thing now to see how it went; like a man risen up well from a long illness, he felt deep and wayward whims.”

Bigger seeks out Jack, Gus, and G.H. because his last interaction was mired in shame and anger when he started a fight to cover his own fear. After killing Mary, Bigger feels powerful and confident. His anger and fear will return throughout the novel, but he feels like a different person.

“She should’ve known better! She should’ve left me alone, Goddammit! He did not feel sorry for Mary; she was not real to him, not a human being; he had not known her long or well enough for that.”

As Max will point out in the courtroom, racial oppression had kept white women like Mary and Black men like Bigger separated. They are strangers, alien to each other, no matter how familiar Mary acts with him. Bigger claims over and over that he has no remorse, but he is still clearly haunted by his crime.

“He knew that she was really worried and wanted to ask him more questions. But he knew that she would not want to hear him tell of how drunk her daughter had been. After all, he was black and she was white. He was poor and she was rich. She would be ashamed to let him think that something was so wrong in her family that she had to ask him, a black servant, about it.”

It seems like an outrageous prediction that Mrs. Dalton will choose not to ask questions that Bigger would be able to answer about her daughter’s disappearance out of an embarrassed desire to maintain white supremacy and keep Bigger in his place. But she doesn’t ask. Mr. and Mrs. Dalton prove their inherent bias over and over. They’re happy to hire him but are repulsed at the idea of him becoming close to the family.

“As long as he could take his life into his own hands and dispose of it as he pleased, as long as he could decide just when and where he would run to, he need not be afraid.”

Many of Bigger’s affirmations are couched in his constant fear and anger. Bigger convinces himself that he feels free, that he has no remorse, and that he is ready to die. But there is no freedom for him in an oppressive society. Defying white supremacist power and dying for it is perhaps preferable to living in a world where he isn’t in control of his life. But Bigger’s fear doesn’t disappear, and he chooses over and over to run rather than die.

“Bigger knew the things that white folks hated to hear Negroes ask for; and he knew that these were the things the Reds were always asking for. And he knew that white folks did not like to hear these things asked for even by whites who fought for Negroes.”

The Daltons and white investigators constantly underestimate Bigger’s intelligence. Despite his eighth-grade education, Bigger is smart and perceptive. He understands what the communists say about Black rights and which ones will make Britten indignant, shifting blame to Jan. This begs the question as to why Bigger would demonize the communists instead of joining them, but it seems clear that he doesn’t trust them any more than he trusts the Daltons.

“Kill that black ape!”

As Bigger reads more articles in the newspaper and hears more abuse from the mob, it becomes clear how much he internalizes from the way these angry white racists talk about him. He is continually dehumanized, told that he is an animal, an ape, and insentient.

“There would have to hover above him, like the stars in a full sky, a vast configuration of images and symbols whose magic and power could lift him up and make him live so intensely that the dread of being Black and unequal would be forgotten; that even death would not matter, that it would be a victory.”

There is never a point in the book where Bigger expresses regret or wishes that he had made different choices, if only to save his own life. He doesn’t want to be in jail and he doesn’t want to die, but he can’t yearn for the misery of his life before this either. The only way Bigger can fantasize about life is if he can imagine that he would be made into a different person instead of living under the heavy burden of his hatred and fear.

“I was in jail grieving for Mary and then I thought of all the black men who’ve been killed, the black men who had to grieve when their people were snatched from them in slavery and since slavery. I thought that if they could stand it, then I ought to.”

Jan’s willingness to forgive Bigger and to see his crime in perspective against all of the atrocities that white Americans had committed against Black people throughout history is noble. He has understood a part of the reason that Bigger functions the way he does. What he doesn’t understand is that Bigger has become drowned in hate against his own people as well as white people in order to protect himself from all of the pain. After centuries of dehumanization, Bigger doesn’t want to be seen as human. Bigger chooses hate to harden himself, but his less cynical nature sometimes creeps into his consciousness. 

“Mr. Dalton, do you think that the terrible conditions under which the Thomas family lived in one of your houses may in some way be related to the death of your daughter?”

Mr. Dalton acts perplexed by Max’s question. Despite all of the evidence presented, no matter how much money he gives, Mr. Dalton still does not truly believe that Bigger deserves to be treated the same as a white person. His most magnanimous act is allowing Bigger’s family to remain in the same slum apartment instead of kicking them out. He never expresses any remorse for his part in keeping Black renters in subhuman conditions, continuing to consider himself a great humanitarian and savior to African Americans.

“Not only had he lived where they told him to live, not only had he done what they told him to do, not only had he done those things until he had killed to be quit of them; but even after obeying, after killing, they still ruled him. He was their property, heart and soul, body and blood; what they did claimed every atom of him, sleeping and waking; it colored life and dictated the terms of death.”

When Bessie’s body is brought in as evidence, it becomes clear to Bigger that she and Bigger could never be anything other than property to people like the Daltons. Being obedient hadn’t made them favor him. Killing hadn’t set him free. Even in death, Bessie’s body is treated as a thing. If the court had chosen to prosecute Bessie’s murder, which was far more brutal and crueler than Mary’s, he likely would have met the same fate. But Bessie’s life doesn’t matter as much as the performance of publicly executing a Black man for killing a white woman. It makes no difference that Bessie had spent her life obeying the rules and being respectful to white people.

“You can’t make me do nothing but die!”

Throughout the novel, Bigger almost always does what he is told to do by white people. He certainly does other rebellious and hurtful things when he is alone or not in the presence of an authority figure, but this is the first time he refuses in order to rebel. Bigger realizes that if the worst thing they can do to him is kill him, they can’t force him to do anything except die.

“A small hard core in him resolved never again to trust anybody or anything. Not even Jan. Or Max. They were all right, maybe; but whatever he thought or did from now on would have to come from him and him alone, or not at all. He wanted no more crosses that might turn to fire while still on his chest.”

Bigger has hardened himself to hope and love over and over because he doesn’t believe that anyone can truly be trusted not to betray him. He accepted the cross from Hammond without enthusiasm or interest, but the fact that he continues to wear it suggests that he was intending to try to believe in God and hope. The burning cross near the Dalton house is a clear message of hatred from people who ought to want Bigger to accept faith, presuming that they’re Christians. Bigger is terrified to allow himself to open up or trust anyone who might turn on him.

“She… It was… Hell, I don’t know. She asked me a lot of questions. She acted and talked in a way that made me hate her. She made me feel like a dog. I was so mad I wanted to cry… […] Aw, Mr. Max, she wanted me to tell her how Negroes live. She got into the front seat of the car where I was…”

Max is baffled by Bigger’s description of what Mary had done to earn his hate. Mary had only been friendly and treated him like an equal. But Bigger explains that men like him are killed every day because of women like Mary. Bigger knows that they’re supposed to stay separated from each other. But Mary had infuriated him because she acted as if they were friends, invading his space, as if Bigger is a dog who can be won over with a little affection.

“If only ten or twenty Negroes had been put into slavery, we could call it injustice, but there were hundreds of thousands of them throughout the country. If the state of affairs had lasted for two or three years, we could say that it was unjust; but it lasted for more than two hundred years. Injustice with last for three long centuries and which exists among millions of people over thousands of square miles of territory, is injustice no longer; it is an established fact of life.”

In trying to explain Bigger’s actions, Max puts the history of oppression into perspective. Slavery wasn’t an event that ended and requires an apology and some restitution. It was ingrained into society and the social order. Even with slavery gone, the structures of oppression remain in place through the attitudes and institutions that can’t be abolished by legal changes. Slavery is not fully eradicated from the fabric of the country.

“Your Honor, millions are waiting for your word! They are waiting for you to tell them that jungle law does not prevail in this city! They want you to tell them that they need not sharpen their knives and load their guns to protect themselves. They are waiting, Your Honor, beyond that window! Give them your word so that they can, with calm hearts, prepare for the future! Slay the dragon of doubt that causes a million hearts to pause tonight, a million hands to tremble as they lock their doors!”

Buckley’s dramatic plea is a veiled attempt to threaten Bigger (and perhaps Max and the judge) with possible violence should the mob not get what they want. Bigger will not be out on the street regardless of the judge’s decision. Buckley is therefore implying that anything short of execution will empower the Black community to start killing white daughters. He also demonstrates that his only responsibility is to his constituency and not the law, even if his constituency is threatening extralegal violence.