Being Bigger
by Lucy Ray
Bigger Thomas’ world appeared to be leading him in the direction which he wanted to go in order to obtain some of the privileges that were only accessible to the whites. In Richard Wright’s Native Son, the reader is thrust into the resentful world in which Bigger Thomas lives. He has grown up watching his family struggle for everyday existence, while the whites lead comfortable and privileged lives as Bigger and his family watch helplessly.
From the outside looking in, it would seem that with his newly acquired job he has accepted working for the Dalton’s, Bigger would be able to make enough money to support his family. His mother, brother, and sister have lived a meager existence up to this point. After all, he would be making $25 a week and didn’t need much to live on. The room and board would be provided for him, so when Mr. Dalton suggested to Bigger that he could send home $20 of his paycheck to his mother to keep his brother and sister in school, Bigger agrees this would be a good plan. He is working in the white man’s world and his life is full of promise.
Bigger looks upon the white world with a sense of jealousy, knowing the privileges that come with the color of one’s skin being white. Bigger dreams of doing something more with his life and seeing the privileges of the whites only makes the yearning stronger. He watched an airplane fly overhead and knew in his heart that he could fly too, if only given the chance. With whiteness comes opportunity. Even the white cat that is part of the Dalton family lives the life of comfort and privilege. The Dalton family is providing Bigger with chance, but as opportunity comes knocking at his door, Bigger answers in such a way that would send his life spiraling out of control.
One of the responsibilities of his new job is to chauffeur Mary Dalton, the beautiful young daughter of Mr. Dalton. Mary looks at Bigger’s existence through a clouded lens as she has for all the Blacks she has come in contact with. She quickly convinces Bigger to become her alibi when he is asked to satisfy her need for purpose, which is to convince herself that she is sympathetic to the Black world. Mary and Jan, her Communist friend, ask Bigger to take them to a place that would make them feel a part of Bigger’s world. “Look, Bigger. We want one of those places where colored people eat, not one of those show places” (Wright 69). Bigger doesn’t know what to think nor did he dare question their motivations. He was “just doing his job” and doing what he was instructed to do.
Bigger goes along with Mary and Jan, feeling out of place as they parade him around among his own people. The three of them drink together as a means of bringing together their two worlds at the insistence of Mary and Jan. Mary would eventually become so intoxicated that Bigger would have to carry her up to her room to sleep off her stupor. Mary’s blind mother comes to the room to check on her daughter as she had done many times before. Bigger is terrified he will be discovered in the room, knowing that if he is found there, it would be assumed he was responsible for her condition. So acting on impulse, Bigger puts a pillow over Mary’s head to silence her while her mother is in the room, eventually smothering Mary and ending her life.
Bigger reacts to what he has done by taking Mary’s body and disposing of it in the furnace used to heat the Dalton’s home and does so without remorse or sense of wrongdoing. His biggest concern is to keep from getting found out. Bigger has experienced what it was like to feel power over something, something he feels cheated out of in his own black life, and it sends him reeling out of control. “He was following a strange path into a strange land and his nerves were hungry to see where it led” (113).
As Bigger continues on his trail of destruction, he feels that for once he has total control over his life, and killing his girlfriend Bessie will keep his life neat and tidy. He has lost all rational thinking and in the end he would have to try to save himself by running away from it all. “All his life he had been knowing that sooner or later something like this would come to him…..He had always felt outside of this white world, and now it was true. It made things simple” (221). As the steel bars close behind him as Bigger is sent to jail for his crimes, the reader is left wondering if Bigger has finally freed his mind of the haunting reality that he has entered the white world.
Works Cited
Wright, Richard. Native Son,. New York: Harper & Bros., 1940. 69+. Print.
by Lucy Ray
Bigger Thomas’ world appeared to be leading him in the direction which he wanted to go in order to obtain some of the privileges that were only accessible to the whites. In Richard Wright’s Native Son, the reader is thrust into the resentful world in which Bigger Thomas lives. He has grown up watching his family struggle for everyday existence, while the whites lead comfortable and privileged lives as Bigger and his family watch helplessly.
From the outside looking in, it would seem that with his newly acquired job he has accepted working for the Dalton’s, Bigger would be able to make enough money to support his family. His mother, brother, and sister have lived a meager existence up to this point. After all, he would be making $25 a week and didn’t need much to live on. The room and board would be provided for him, so when Mr. Dalton suggested to Bigger that he could send home $20 of his paycheck to his mother to keep his brother and sister in school, Bigger agrees this would be a good plan. He is working in the white man’s world and his life is full of promise.
Bigger looks upon the white world with a sense of jealousy, knowing the privileges that come with the color of one’s skin being white. Bigger dreams of doing something more with his life and seeing the privileges of the whites only makes the yearning stronger. He watched an airplane fly overhead and knew in his heart that he could fly too, if only given the chance. With whiteness comes opportunity. Even the white cat that is part of the Dalton family lives the life of comfort and privilege. The Dalton family is providing Bigger with chance, but as opportunity comes knocking at his door, Bigger answers in such a way that would send his life spiraling out of control.
One of the responsibilities of his new job is to chauffeur Mary Dalton, the beautiful young daughter of Mr. Dalton. Mary looks at Bigger’s existence through a clouded lens as she has for all the Blacks she has come in contact with. She quickly convinces Bigger to become her alibi when he is asked to satisfy her need for purpose, which is to convince herself that she is sympathetic to the Black world. Mary and Jan, her Communist friend, ask Bigger to take them to a place that would make them feel a part of Bigger’s world. “Look, Bigger. We want one of those places where colored people eat, not one of those show places” (Wright 69). Bigger doesn’t know what to think nor did he dare question their motivations. He was “just doing his job” and doing what he was instructed to do.
Bigger goes along with Mary and Jan, feeling out of place as they parade him around among his own people. The three of them drink together as a means of bringing together their two worlds at the insistence of Mary and Jan. Mary would eventually become so intoxicated that Bigger would have to carry her up to her room to sleep off her stupor. Mary’s blind mother comes to the room to check on her daughter as she had done many times before. Bigger is terrified he will be discovered in the room, knowing that if he is found there, it would be assumed he was responsible for her condition. So acting on impulse, Bigger puts a pillow over Mary’s head to silence her while her mother is in the room, eventually smothering Mary and ending her life.
Bigger reacts to what he has done by taking Mary’s body and disposing of it in the furnace used to heat the Dalton’s home and does so without remorse or sense of wrongdoing. His biggest concern is to keep from getting found out. Bigger has experienced what it was like to feel power over something, something he feels cheated out of in his own black life, and it sends him reeling out of control. “He was following a strange path into a strange land and his nerves were hungry to see where it led” (113).
As Bigger continues on his trail of destruction, he feels that for once he has total control over his life, and killing his girlfriend Bessie will keep his life neat and tidy. He has lost all rational thinking and in the end he would have to try to save himself by running away from it all. “All his life he had been knowing that sooner or later something like this would come to him…..He had always felt outside of this white world, and now it was true. It made things simple” (221). As the steel bars close behind him as Bigger is sent to jail for his crimes, the reader is left wondering if Bigger has finally freed his mind of the haunting reality that he has entered the white world.
Works Cited
Wright, Richard. Native Son,. New York: Harper & Bros., 1940. 69+. Print.