Wright in Paris, 1949
Click on over to the University of Illinois' Modern American Poetry website to see this link for information on Wright's life and career, a chronology of his work, a link to a PBS photo archive of his life, and other resources. Also check out the Mississippi Writers Page here for more information about Wright's life and work. If you are interested in knowing more, you might want to read Hazel Rowley's biography entitled Richard Wright: The Life and Times (2001; a review in the NY Times is available here).
Please post responses to the text below.
After he kills Mary, Bigger feels as if “he had shed an invisible burden he had long carried” (97). This is the exact opposite of what I would expect him to feel. He just murdered a girl, cut off her head, and burned her body. It would be more natural for Bigger to feel burdened with guilt instead of this new sense of freedom. Regardless of the justification of his crime, he took a life. His lack of guilt is a striking contrast to other literary murders, such as Raskolnikov or the narrator in Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart. Bigger does not feel guilty because he does not see Mary as an individual. He sees her as part of the collective white people, and to him “white people are not really people.” The narrator claims, “He did not feel sorry for Mary; she was not real to him, not a human being” (97). The separation between racial worlds is so absolute that Bigger does not see Mary as a fellow human being and therefore does not feel guilty for taking her life.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that always strikes me about this text is the honesty with which Wright creates Bigger Thomas. He constantly draws upon the intersection of fear and self-hatred to reflect a larger model for black masculinity. This intersection is present in the construction of many black male characters in literature, including those created by James Baldwin (who happens to be one of the most severe critics of Richard Wright's work). One reason that Bigger cannot accept the ways of the rich, white, Dalton family is the fear that he, as a black man, is inadequate. Bigger is extremely self-loathing and constantly afraid that his cowardice will be exposed and therefore, often resorts to extreme measures of violence to protect his facade.
ReplyDeleteWhile Wright was honest in his creation of Bigger Thomas, the acceptance of Bigger as a represention of collective black masculinity is dangerous and threatening to the larger model. Versions of Bigger are still widely portrayed (and readily accepted) today in African-American literature as well as in television and movies. Representations of the street thug, like Bigger, are glorified in modern culture, but are very rarely exposed (in the way that Wright has exposed Bigger) as fearful, self-loathing individuals. So, while elements of Bigger's character are certainly portrayed realistically, he is merely a building block in the larger model of black masculinity which is so often exploited by shallow versions of Bigger Thomas.
I believe that Wright is attempting to make it clear that Bigger is the direct product of his environment; the fear, hatred, misunderstanding, and anger Bigger represents reflects the views society as a whole has for Bigger.
ReplyDeleteAfter Mary's death Bigger is under the impression that he has found a loophole in the system; he can manipulate the general prejudice cast upon him to aid in his murder, because who would ever suspect a "mild black boy" who knows his place? This is why he regards everyone after the murder as blind.
ReplyDeleteBigger is correct to an extent in his understanding behind taking advantage of people's prejudice, because when he is eventually caught, nobody believes he is capable (in terms of intelligence) of murder on his own.
This apparent new freedom he experiences, like Professor Hinrichsen mentioned on Monday, is completely false; although he is attempting to use people's prejudice to aid in his escape, he is actually repressing his freedom.
I believe the weather represents Bigger's growing self-inflicted oppression; it begins to snow, the snow gets heavier, the snow becomes a blizzard, all the streets leaving Chicago become blocked by snow. The weather represents Bigger's fading options and he is eventually literally paralyzed by it. I don't think it is a coincidence that Wright used snow to represent this either, since snow is white.
Going along with what we talked about in class monday, I find this passage interesting:
ReplyDelete"There was another silence. They wanted him to draw the picture and he would draw it like he wanted it. He was trembling with excitement. In the past had they not always drawn the picture for him? He could tell them anything he wanted and what could they do about it? It was his word against Jan's, and Jan was a Red."
Mr. Britten, the private investigator, asks Bigger numerous questions in which Bigger details cautiously and precisely the way he wants. Because of this, Bigger believes that he is in control of his situation.
However, this is a tainted view of being in control of ones life. Like we said in class, taking someone's life should not lead to finding your own life.
Like Professor Hinrichsen said, Bigger has a "false awakening". He believes that now he has murdered, he can call the shots and live the way he wants and create the lies he needs. However, this is such a false view of freedom. He is trapped in what he did, he is reminded of Mary and the blood stained newspaper all the time, even when he is making love to his girlfriend, he remembers Mary on her bed.
On another side note, I wonder why Bessie agrees to help Bigger with his plot to get money. Bessie does not like the fact Bigger murdered Mary and knows that by helping him, she will probably end up in jail. I feel like Wright is portraying Bessie as an African American women who will just follow her man, even into trouble, because she has no choice. I guess this does go along with the culture of the times. I bet African American women had the least rights out of all Americans at the time. Any thoughts?
I find it interesting that Bigger does to Bessie what he considers the white race has done to him; he rapes and kills her physically, whereas the white race has raped him psychologically, emotionally, etc. I see this as a comment on the hierarchy of gender within race. There really doesn't seem to be a hierarchy in the lives of the white characters in this novel, but there does in the black race when beside the white race. First, there are the whites. Then, blacks. Then, black women.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe Wright is making a comment on the unimportance or fickle nature of the black woman's existence, though. For example, he has Max say (referring to Bigger) "He is unmarried and does not know the steadying influence of a woman's love, or what such a love can mean to him" (p403). Having Max say those words (and not a black man) makes them much more powerful in my opinion.
I agree with Rachel. It seems black women were treated the worst, and Wright speaks about that in various ways, mostly through Max's plea for Bigger's life in Book Three.
I'd like to discuss page 114, paragraph 2. In this paragraph Bigger is basically blaming the fact that he killed Mary on Mary. "Mary had served to set off his emotions, emotions conditioned by many Marys." And he felt good about it, he had a sense of relief by knowing that he got some kind of a vengeance for his emotions. I found this telling, because it is not normal for someone to feel good about killing someone else.
ReplyDeleteWright is filling us in on the hidden emotions that are buried deep inside those that are oppressed. He lets us know that although murder is wrong, this character feels like he has finally let go of a facade that he had to wear his entire life: "He had shed an invisible burden he had long carried." To be so beat down emotionally is hopefully nothing that any of us have to go through. Murder becomes for Bigger a voice to be heard through.
On Wednesday it was brought up why Bessie stays with Bigger despite the way he manipulates and takes advantage of her.
ReplyDeleteThis book has a lot of emphasis on personal options, such as the option to live where you want, talk to who you want, and do what you want. Obviously Bigger, and the black community as a whole,do not share the options that others do; they are psychologically repressed and are taught to believe the only options open to them are the options white people allow them.
Bessie represent a completely conquered person; she has been beaten down and has come to accept that life involves work, pain, and unhappiness. She is the result of repression; a broken individual.
Then Bigger appears with all this money and talks of getting away and living with ease, and Bessie sees an opportunity arise that was probably impossible to her 10 minutes before, and she becomes interested, but also very afraid because she doesn't understand what this new option means and how it came to be.
Regardless of her fear, compared to her previously repressed situation, Bigger's new option at least has a glimmer of hope in it. This is why Bessie stays with Bigger despite how he treats her and how ridiculous the situation Bigger is in has become; he has created an option previously unknown to them (thus his constant references to people's blindness), and between the empty life Bessie lives and the prospect of a better life, she can't help herself but to follow Bigger.
We were talking briefly on Monday about whether or not Bigger is supposed to be seen as human or whether he is a "representation of oppressive political social forces", and I'd like to comment on that. I have come to the conclusion that Wright wrote Bigger as less of a human and more of a larger representation of the oppression of the black man. Ya'll are going to have to forgive me (I hope), but as I write this my book is sitting in the Business building computer lab, so I'm going to be pretty vague.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the scene where Bigger is physically assaulting Gus, he says he "saw his arm" reach out and hit him. This happens several times when Bigger does something violent, so I think that's some sort of effort by Wright to show Bigger's lack of self, and lack of ability to make decisions when fear or anger's involved. It's like he's a tool rather than a man.
I think his obsession with making others feel afraid of him is also indicative of this idea. I mean, the guy really loves to strike the fear in people. I think it's Wright's social commentary on how fear evokes fear evokes fear.
I think the idea of fear is an interesting one throughout the book. It is obvious that Bigger fears "White America." When Jan and Mary take him to dinner, Bigger is terrified the whole time. When Bigger is hiding in Mary's room after the murder, he is again terrified of a blind white woman. It seems the whole novel, until the very end, is Bigger either being scared, or lashing out. Of course, the concept of violence, or some sort of extreme external reaction, in order to hide insecurity is not new and I think that it is a major theme that Wright is expressing throughout the book. Without question, Bigger is intended to represent some of the more common problems with, or perhaps fears regarding, black men. Violence, ignorance, and hatred all factor in, but the idea that many of Bigger’s actions that could be viewed as immoral, or even evil, are reactions to an all-encompassing culture that loaded, or loads, black men with unbearable pressures and then prevents any healthy means of release seems to pervade every mistake that Bigger makes. In short, it seems that Bigger often tries to inspire fear in others in a retroactive attempt at dispelling his own fear. Also, this idea that Bigger is only acting out against others in order to reaffirm his own identity/masculinity/humanity, plays well into another major theme of the novel, which is the deterministic element of the work. As has been stated numerous times, Wright is conveying some sense of the idea that Bigger is a product of his environment. This may be true, but I do not think Wright is excusing Bigger’s actions or entirely blaming similar acts of violence on those who oppress the perpetrators of the violence. Rather, I think Wright is saying that certain conditions breed the tendency for these types of reactions. Therefore, it must be seen as the responsibility of both the oppressor AND the oppressed to make a change. Perfect circumstances do not make perfect societies, so free will and good decisions also factor into the equation.
ReplyDeleteWhile we as leaders are led to believe that Bigger is merely a product of his environment, I find that this is a stretch of the imagination; as a reader, I have all information about this story fed to me by the author, and I still just can't forgive the murdering rapist that is the main character. I realize that Wright does not ask for nor expect the reader to do so. Instead, he is asking his audience to carefully evaluate the system, OUR system, that might produce such a truly beastly person.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the question I'm sure everyone in class, as well as anyone who has read this text, faces (whether or not Bigger is a sympathetic character), I cannot help but answer bluntly, simply- no. I do not feel one ounce of sympathy for Bigger.
ReplyDeleteAs a young women I've grown up constantly hearing my parents lecture me about safety to try and prevent the very things that Bigger does in this book from ever happening. Rape is, in my opinion, the ultimate act of evil because it invades you not only physically, but also mentally and spiritually. I find myself doing little things daily, like getting my keys out before I get to the door and looking in the back seat of the car before I drive off, in fear of the very acts that Bigger commits.
Although Bigger hasn't had the best life, and is indeed mixed up in a downtrodden way of life, I don't feel that his actions are justified or understandable. What he did was evil and wrong. I want to be able to connect with Wright and see how he believes Bigger is the aftereffect of a system that strips people of their humanity, but at the same time I cannot help but wonder how he was unable to see ANY good in the world. Wasn't there one ounce of happiness or goodness that maybe pulled him out of this state of mind for a second to challenge the coldness of thoughts?
Sorry this post is so late; I have not had internet at my house for a looong time.
ReplyDeleteWhat I keep comparing Bigger to in my head is to Dave in Wright's short story "The Man Who Was Almost A Man." In both pieces Wright is exploring black male disenfranchisement within the American society. For Dave who in this oppressive and confining world cannot find a space to grow up and be a "man" he turns to fantasizing about getting a gun, which is a tool of violence much like how Bigger turns to violence to experience any sort of power or authority.
Dave sees having the gun as a way to come into his own, have independence, and prove his worth in a society that deems him worthless. Bigger does the same thing; he becomes violent and as a result feels like he has an identity from it. Bigger also has a gun which give him a feeling of security probably much like Dave felt. However, Dave ends up shooting a mule and then trying to lie about it to the sharecropper's landlord, but of course it is obvious the mule didn't die of natural causes. Bigger also kills as a result of the pressures around (not that I'm excusing him) but the lawyer at the end says it well, that America created Bigger and they should recognize that. Bigger is not in a vacuum, but rather is touched by a myriad of experiences and impressions that has lead him to what he has done.
In the short story Dave says that he "Could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white. And if he were holding his gun in his hand, nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him." That is exactly how Bigger felt after he killed Mary; he had transcend the laws aroudn him and had become bigger than them. For Bigger, respect came from such an act; he wanted to shout out what he had done just to see people's reactions. For them to know he had flouted the laws, had had such a power, and that then finally the would be respected because he had killed a white girl, the ultimate taboo for the time.
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ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot about how I should read this text.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand I feel that BIgger is an extremely sympathetic character. The original murder seems to be one caused not out of some urge to kill, but instead of some necessity to hide his presence as a black man in a sleeping white woman's room. Even though he eventually tells himself that the killing was not an accident, that it was him freeing himself from the bonds of white oppression, I really feel that isn't the case and he was just trying to make something out of the nothing he has gotten himself into.
On the other hand, his brutal rape and murder of Bessie, along with other violence throughout the book and a lack of remorse leads me to blame Bigger and not the societal constructs around him for the murder. In the end, the fact of the matter is that Bigger did kill Mary and rape and kill Bessie, while other black men were able to resist whatever temptation or need to kill lies suppressed in side of them. Violence should not be the answer to oppression, no matter how inevitable it may seem.
Really I'm pretty stumped on my feelings towards Bigger, as there seem to be two possible ways to view him. I probably just need to let the book soak in for a few days, hah.
Daniel Ford
When we were in our small group on Monday, we were trying to figure out how sympathetic we should be toward Bigger, and someone compared him to a terrorist. I thought this was a really good comparison, and I've been ruminating on it for the past couple of days.
ReplyDeleteI feel no sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists. What they did was evil and unjustified. However, punishing a few terrorists would do NOTHING to combat terrorism; if anything (as we have seen from Guantanamo), it has the opposite effect.
I think the point that the author is trying to make is not that Bigger is guilty or innocent (because he's clearly guilty), and he's not arguing about whether or not Bigger should be punished. Rather, I think he's trying to point out the absolute futility of viewing violence as an isolated, individualized event that can be solved by the punishment of an individual. Killing Bigger may be a just punishment for the crime that Bigger committed, but it most certainly will not have the effect of preventing similar crimes in the future, because the root problem has not been dealt with.
I guess this brings up another question: what is the purpose of justice-- to punish or to remedy? Our justice system is very capable of punishing people for their crimes, but it doesn't seem to be very good at prevention or deterrence. Maybe this is why Max's "defense" of Bigger seems so out of place-- he's asking the court to fix a systemic problem instead of punishing an individual for an individual crime.
After going to the reading from Sapphire tonight at the Fayetteville Library, I really have a better understanding of why Wright, an African American, portrayed Bigger as a black male who rapes and kills, which gives into the fear and rage that the white man has for African Americans at the time. Similarly, Sapphire was criticized by many critics who thought her picture of African American's was derogatory and highlighted bad things that even furthered racist white people to think badly about African Americans. Sapphire, who normally does not respond to critics, wrote back that she had had many interactions with African American girls who had been raped by their fathers or given birth at a young age because of this. Sapphire actually said that some of the young women she knew had stories that would make the movie, Precious, seem like a walk in the park. For those of you who have seen Precious, the movie is hard to watch with its explicit detail of a father rapping his own child and her giving birth to his child. Sapphire declared that it was her duty to give a voice to what is happening within the AFrican American culture, and because of slavery, there are still side affects. Sapphire does not want to paint a cookie cutter world, which is not reality. Sapphire said that she needed to explain what was going on so that people could feel and react. In this sense, Sapphire reminds me a lot of Wright. Like we said in class, there is a bigger picture (pun intended) within Native Son. The audience is asked to feel and question why society has the issues that it does, and that everyone plays a part in trying to fix things that are due to things such as slavery, that still has its affect on society, and capitalism, a system that is dependent upon keeping others below you in a struggle for power and money.
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite book we have read in this class. Not only is it controversial, it is a relatable book, not relatable in the fact that I killed a person oops, but about Bigger's struggle that he had options, but it always seemed that the option had already been picked for him, formulated and I feel that is what ultimately drove bigger to the point to kill. He knew in his mind it had been wrong to kiss Mary, he had tried to be kind and help her up to her room, but his fate had already been chosen when Mary's mother came into the room to see about her daughter. This text was interesting and personal. I really enjoyed this not only because it was written during the great depression, but because it was the voice of a minority that was popular then and it is growing more popular now.
ReplyDelete