Coralie Casimir
English Honors
Mr. George
April 30, 2009
Essay
Native Son
America is known as the land of opportunity, the land where all mankind can live their dreams and where freedom reigns. Nonetheless, looking back at this country’s track record, not all men and women had the chance to benefit from these rights. Especially the blacks. They were enslaved, segregated into the worse sections of town, and left to fend for themselves. In Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, he writes about a black boy named Bigger Thomas whose entire life has been cheated by a broken system ruled by racism. Through his novel, Wright tries to argue that blacks became angry and bitter because of the oppression that he faced all his life. Furthermore, he used his argument to justify the killing of two innocent women and violating both them by Bigger. He tried to make his audience sympathize with Bigger’s actions. I, personally, will never sympathize with someone who commits murder, rapes, and shows no remorse for his actions. Wright did an excellent job picking out where society was at fault, and that the white people made Bigger permanently angry; however, this still does not make Bigger a sympathetic character because of the extreme examples Wright used to make his argument.
Ever since he was a boy, Bigger was forced to live in an unjust world. He came from a world where the norm was to steal and fight. A world where he had to hide his true emotion just to survive. Because the only way he knew how to deal with them was through the violence, Bigger put on a front just so he could not deal with what he was feeling inside. Subsequently, Bigger hid behind this curtain of fear because he felt powerless against this world and it was the easy way out: “he knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them. He knew that the moment he allowed himself to feel to the fullness how they lived…he would be swept out of himself with fear and despair,” (Wright,10). Another hindrance Bigger had was the fact that he could not articulate his problems or try to reason with them in a logical manner. Additionally, Bigger’s life was filled with false hope. He was told to dream big and then taught that dreaming was not for little black boys. The hate he had inside started to build up making him dislike the world he lived in. He was not capable of doing anything that made him happy because all his life he had to be a submissive servant to the white world. He was trapped in a box and was not able to escape.
Wright was able to make people see through the eyes of Bigger Thomas. He made his resentment for whites, his mother, God and even the world understandable. Nonetheless, he failed to justify Bigger’s actions of killing Mary Dalton and especially the murder and rape of Bessie Mears. Yes, Bigger was irritated and he had the right to be angry, but it takes a savage to commit the crimes he did. Not a man right in his mind would be able kill the first, and perhaps the only, white woman who treated him with respect. The worst part this story was when Bigger smashed his girl friends head with a brick and then threw her off of a building. The killing of his girl-friend, Bessie, was more outrageous then Mary’s murder because Mary’s murder could be classified as an accident.
Mary’s death was an accident; it was not really Bigger’s fault. He was scared and acted upon his impulse. The interaction between the white world and Bigger was slim to none. When he was in the bedroom with Mary and her mother walked in, he did not know how to react so he shoved a pillow over her face to shut her up: “He had to stop her from mumbling, or he would get caught” (88). Bigger’s reaction was involuntary he was in an awkward situation and had to find a solution. Bigger thought, if he was caught in Mary’s room he would probably be lynched because he was black. He only thought this way because that was what he was taught by the media.
Everything Bigger learned was from the media. The media is the most powerful source in the novel. It dictates what was right from wrong and Bigger learned to that having sex with a white woman was repulsive. Any black man caught in this act would be lynched. Bigger understood what was supposed to happen to him if he was caught and was trying to protect himself. He did not have enough interactions with white people to know that all white people are not the same. Bigger did not consider the fact that maybe the Dalton’s were different. Maybe they would believe him when he tells them he just helping her get to her room because she was too drunk to get there by herself. So, when he saw Mrs. Dalton came in the room he was scared: “He turned and a hysterical terror seized him… A white blur was standing by the door” (85). Bigger panicked and killed her. At this point Wright’s argument was understandable but everything that happened after was just a disaster.
When the dead body was in his hand, Bigger did not know what do to. Therefore, he cut off her head so she could fit in the furnace where her body would to ashes. This malicious act of carelessness was what Wright tried to present to his audience so they could feel sympathetic towards Bigger. Using Bigger as a product of his environment was an undertone for his argument. A lot of times, people tend to absorb the characteristics of everyone around them, but Bigger did more than that. Bigger was uneducated and lived a life filled with crime. He was not able to enjoy the same rights as the whites so he used things like masturbating release his frustration. A cold and heartless murderer is far beyond what Bigger’s environment can create.
After murdering Mary, Bigger started to get this thrill from killing. It was like it turned into a game for him. He felt a sudden joy that never had before, he felt like reborn in a new life: “like a man reborn, he wanted to test and taste each thing… like a man risen up well from a long illness,” (111). A typical person would try to somehow understand the intensity of his crime not feel like he just had an epiphany. Bigger was just focus on how liberating it was for him and not how it effected the Dalton family and the black community. Also the fact that is he trying to put the blame on the victim, Mary Dalton, not on himself: “Hell she made me do it!” (113). Mary did not physically provoke Bigger. His fears made him kill her not anything else.
Wright is now demanding too much from his audience, how could ask someone sympathize with action this? Accepting that Bigger’s crime was only caused because he was a product of his environment; is the same as categorizing every black man who lived at that time were criminals. It is saying that all of them will live a life of crime, and at the end, will be able to kill someone without feeling remorse. That would be doing the same as the whites, stereotyping all black people before they had a chance to get to know them. Not all blacks would go on a killing spree just because they felt oppressed. It is, in a way, portraying them as savage animals without reason.
Shockingly enough, Wright goes for pages explaining how badly the acted reflected on black people. They loosing their jobs and constantly being theorized by a white mob: "Several hundred Negro employees throughout the city had been dismissed from jobs" (244). His own sister became an outcast; she was not able to attend school because people would not associate themselves with anyone from that family. Bigger was even able to stir more resentment in the black community, for example his brother wanted to retaliate because he was angry that Bigger was in jail. Bigger failed to realize his action would impact an entire race, and still did not feel a lot of remorse for it. I think Wright is asking a lot from his audience, because from where I stand, Bigger is not a character I would sympathize with.
Richard Wright’s novel tells an exquisite story. It was an eye opener to the injustice that was happening in the United States and how it affected the people. Wright, in my opinion, did not do such a swell job convincing me that Bigger was a product of environment and not some psychopath who believes that violence is the a great way to express himself. Bigger Thomas is a man with no integrity which was caused by society. I do not believe killing and raping should be a way for someone to feel empowered. I feel that Wright successfully described Bigger’s life and how horrific it was, but nothing can justify his gruesome actions.
