Native Son, Richard Wright (original 1940; edition 1966)

Wright's Native Son is a novel embodying a purely American existentialism. Bigger Thomas is a creature scrutinized and driven to rage by the nearly subconscious experience of his otherness. His actions are defined by the possible reactions of white people and the white establishment. His sickness in violence, and his rebellion is also violence. He cycles through feelings and attitudes of power, guilt, despair, and finally understanding. His true liberation is his final realization regarding the causation of his actions and what they mean, however horrendous. This is a novel that unflinchingly explores humanity, beyond color or class, by revealing the sickness of hatred on all sides. ( )

Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas is, unquestionably, a product of his environment. He grows up in almost exactly the same neighborhood as Studs Lonigan did; we already know that the environment here is not fully nurturing. By cramming a whole family into Studs' bedroom, giving them less money and less opportunity, marking them with a social stigma even worse than being Irish, and filling the boy with a burning rage against society, Wright all but guarantees that his protagonist will end up in worse shape than Studs. The only question is how.

Bigger Thomas is a product of his environment; he does not act of his own free will. He doesn't even discover free will until after he acts. No, he doesn't plan anything--everything he does is a response. If he wants to rob a store, it is because he is bored and needs cash; if he gets into a fight with his partners that makes them miss the hold-up, it is because he is scared. Likewise, he takes a job because his family will starve if he doesn't. He kills in the same guttural way--smothering the fear of discovery and accusations with a pillow. Remember, Bigger has been trying to do his job, trying to put Mary to bed because she was too drunk to do it herself. When blind Mrs. Dalton stops by the room, he panics at the thought she might accuse him of raping Mary and stifles her voice. He is too busy worrying about Mrs. Dalton to notice when Mary stops struggling. But once Mrs. Dalton is gone and Bigger realizes what he has done, he realizes his power over the world.

Bigger Thomas is a product of his environment. When the environment presents him an opportunity to make $10,000.00, he tries to cash in. He has been taught that Communists are bad, so he tries to blame them. He thinks that Besse will get him caught, so he kills her. Now Bigger is thinking. This is slightly better than the pure reactionary responses; Bigger is aware of his power, at least. He is now aware of his ability to influence the outside world. But Bigger is still not acting of free will.

Bigger Thomas is a product of his environment. He only comes into this realization as his story ends; his conversations with Mr. Max trigger the self-reflection which is necessary for free will. Without this awareness of how he has been controlled by his environment, Bigger would never be able to act in a way other than that indicated by those influences. Yet if he did not make this realization, he would have been drawn to the pleas of his mother and the minister; he would have been terrified by the burning cross outside of the courtroom. "But sometimes," Bigger tells Max, "I wish you hadn't asked me them questions. . . . They made me think and thinking's made me scared a little"(495).

But Bigger Thomas is a product of his environment. Even thinking doesn't change that. Bigger has been bred to hate by forces he cannot control. While he has no desire to kill, he accepts that he has killed and does what he consequently must. That he knows his actions are wrong is not enough to counter the forces of rage burning in his belly. This fire has been stoked by years of squalor, over-crowding, opportunities denied, and dreams deferred. While Bigger does realize that he can act otherwise, by then it is too late; the fire has already broken free, and is now just burning itself out.

brilliant. ( )

I’ve been putting off writing a review of this for two reasons:

1.) I'm busy.
2.) I wanted to cool off a bit, not let any of that nebulous white guilt creep into my thinking.

*****

This book has heft, both physical and otherwise. The paper stock, the binding, the subject matter --- they combine for one weighty tome. I came to terms with the material dimensions quickly. The other dimensions? Not so much. I mean, I'm an ethnic Jew, but I identify (and pass, thankfully) as your run-of-the-mill white American guy. And white guys have it pretty good (thanks, jo). Typically at the expense of others, and most notably blacks. The understanding of my natural advantages in society necessitates that there is, and ever will be, a divide between my experience in society and that of a similarly constituted African-American. I try to bridge that divide as best I can. Richard Wright has helped me.

Wright walks a fine line expertly. His protagonist, Bigger Thomas, is more sociopath than oppressed racial minority for a good one hundred sixty pages. But then the hammer drops. We overhear the words of an investigating detective:

"Well, you see 'em one way and I see 'em another. To me, a nigger's a nigger."

Welcome to circa 1940s America, where the best you can hope for if you happen to have x-amount of melanin in your skin is to be a barely literate chauffeur to wealth and condescension. Systematically degraded, you lash out and you kill. Is it any wonder?

Just as there is a gulf in my understanding of what it is to be black in America, there is a gulf in Bigger Thomas's understanding of what it is to be a human -- because he has never been fully recognized as one. There is a convergence in nature and nurture that sets him on the path to murder. Already predisposed to be the neighborhood bully, the conditions in which he is raised hone those native instincts into something hard. Hard enough to suffocate a woman, chop her head off and stuff her remains into an oven. Hard enough to bludgeon another woman -- his girlfriend -- to a pulp with a brick and dump her body four floors down a ventilation shaft. Hard enough to spurn his grizzled communist defense attorney, who recognizes Bigger's murderous intransigence in the end, his courtroom elegance giving away to stammering disbelief in the face of what America has created, what it will continue to create after Bigger is executed.

Things have changed since the 40s, to be certain. In fact, I even found myself working under a black man for a day as I read this book. His job was to follow me around and gauge my efficiency. It sounds worse than it was -- I've grown accustomed to being demeaned myself, I guess. And, happy corporate cog that I am, I am exceptionally efficient, so I have nothing in the (short-term) to worry about and dutifully jump through my assigned hoop because I have a wife and a child and a mortgage and a college loan andandand.

As my shift progressed, this stranger and I inevitably started to connect on a human level and social and work barriers grew less opaque. When the time arrived for us to drive to an area infamous for its racism, I told him about it because he was from out of town. I told him how I had managed a liquor store there years ago and transferred one of my clerks, an African-American woman, because she had been threatened on the job by a skinhead. I told him about how I had had to call building maintenance to paint over assorted white power graffiti, most notably a swastika, on the company building there. I told him how I had once pulled up in front of the office at midnight and looked across the narrow, two-lane street to see a family of white trash -- father, mother, pre-pubescent boy -- huddled together on a lawn as a garden hose dangled from the father's hands, the lot of them staring at me in a scene reminiscent of American Gothic, and feeling for days afterwards how fragile the flame of civilization is. I told him how when we had an African-American co-worker, it was understood that she wasn't allowed to travel to the office alone.

When we arrived there, I did my thing and it was time for lunch. I had a momentary pang of dread as I took the book from my backpack, what with all this race bullshit ambient around the two of us. When he asked me what I was reading and I told him, he responded simply, "Good book." Things seemed a bit more somber between us after that. Not because either of us intended it, but just because it was. ( )

Excellent read using the restored version. Wright gets long-winded during the trial scenes. The story is a vivid reminder of socio-political effects within our cultural history. Great fodder for ethical discussions about capital punishment. ( )