Villains In Richard Wright's Native Son

He is not a very nice person. He is rude to his mother, he is a bully to his sister and to his friends. However, the situation that Bigger is forced to be in, and what drives him to make most of his actions, creates a sympathetic tone where the reader feels bad for Bigger. It is not his fault that he comes from a poor family or that he is a black man in a time where racism is very prevalent.

Bigger Thomas uses deception to cover the crime for his personal safety. He knows that the white people of Chicago will kill him if they know he killed a white girl. Throughout his deceit, Bigger feels the white world

In this section, identify and discuss the antagonist (person, group, or force that creates conflict for the protagonist). Explain how the antagonist impedes the protagonist’s goals or creates problems for the protagonist. How is the antagonist a problem for the protagonist?

The book Native son is based in the 1930s about a black man named Bigger Thomas and his troubles as a black person in this bad time of segregation and oppression. In this debate we discussed about the murder of Mr.Dalton’s daughter and if Bigger or society were the ones at fault for her death. This debate is important because it touches on the subject of segregation and fear upon another minority race but also on the ongoing story of Native Son. My group was against society and we believed that Bigger was truly the one at fault because of these points. Bigger Thomas knew the consequences of being in a white girl’s room but still continued to carry Mary to her room which eventually led to her death. When Mrs.Dalton had came into the room Bigger had the power to choose his actions but he thought it was necessary to smother Mary to death. Her death was not due to society or how grew up thinking; it was his choice to kill her in the end with his own hands. He took pleasure in the excitement; not the other way around.

Partly why Bigger is detached from himself is because of the sense of fight or flight that is ingrained into his personality. The racism from whites combined with his limited financial situation as a black man results in a fight or flight instinct that is as much a part of Bigger as his physical body is. Bigger describes the effect of the fight or flight instinct on life life as, “... the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence; periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger... Being like this was a need of his as deep as eating” (Wright 29).

Bigger Thomas lived within an environment that systematically was set up to make the black community fail. Black people lived in a part of Chicago called the Black Belt. In this area, housing was overpriced, food was old and overpriced, and opportunities were nearly none and void. With this in mind it is safe to assume that black people were at the bottom of the barrel a far cry from the cream on the top. Seeing little to no success around caused Bigger to operate with a mindset that success was something achieved by the fairer skin. So robbing and stealing from other black became something of the norm because cops and officials did not care too much

Bigger Thomas kept his emotions hidden inside and when in fear he reacted violently. There were a number of occasions in which Bigger reacted violently because of fear. In a certain scene in The Native son (pages 28-30), Bigger and his friends planned to rob a store, but the only problem was it was owned by a white man. Bigger and his friends never robbed a white man before and made them skeptical but Bigger was the one who came up with the idea so he couldn’t back out. They decided to meet at Doc’s poolroom before going to Blum’s and when Gus showed up late, Bigger started a fight with Gus to take his friends mind off robbing Blum’s. This wasn’t the only incident in which Bigger resulted to violence because of fear; in fact, In the Native Son (pages 86-92) Bigger killed Mary by suffocation because he didn’t want Mrs. Dalton to know he was in

now"(254).  This is a recent change in Bigger's mind set.  He knows that he has

In book one, talks about crimes Bigger have done against other blacks, but never against a white man. He and his best friend Gus “play white,” and Bigger talks about, how “they don’t let us do nothing” referring to white people (Wright 17). Bigger feels that white people are going to force him to do something he cannot control. Bigger talks about robbing a white man named Mr.Blum. His friends are hesitant about the robbery and Bigger tells them, “ If old Blum was a black man, you-all would be itching to go. ‘Cause he’s white, everybody’s scared” (Wright 20). Bigger and his gang of friends have no problem committing crimes against their own people. They had never thought of committing a crime that involves crossing a racial boundary.

Wright uses Bigger’s psychological corruption to send a message to the reader. It offers a new view on the underlying effects of racism on the black community of the time period. Wright creates Bigger from the diversity he saw throughout American society. “I made the discovery that Bigger Thomas was not black all the time; he was white, too, and there were literally millions of him, everywhere... I became conscious, at first dimly, and then later on with increasing clarity and conviction, of a vast, muddied pool of human life in America. It was as though I had put on a pair of spectacles whose power was that of an x-ray enabling me to see deeper into the lives of men. Whenever I picked up a newspaper, I 'd no longer feel that I was reading of the doings of whites alone (Negroes are rarely mentioned in the press unless they 've

When they finally get home, mary is so drunk that she can’t make it to her room. Bigger, drunk and slightly aroused, he tries to kiss Mary. Mary’s blind mother comes in the room, and bigger gets nervous. Afraid that mary will make his presence known, he tries to quiet her with a pillow. Somehow he accidentally smothers her. This is a feeling Bigger has never known before, like he had gained some kind of power over this powerful oppression called “white people”. At first he didn’t know what he was going to do. He shoves her in her luggage trunk and carry it downstairs. He see’s the furnace and tries to hide her in there, but her shoulders wouldn’t fit. He starts hacking her head off with a hatchet, then he throws it in the furnace with the body. He starts planning and blames it all on Jan. He eats breakfast at the Daltons house and then starts to take her trunk to the train station, then he goes to see bessie. He tells her about the Dalton girl missing, then decides to write a ransom letter to the Daltons, trying to get money out of them. He bullies bessie into playing part in this scheme. She could tell there was part of the story that he wasn’t telling her. Mr. Dalton finds out that Mary never got to Detroit, and that her bag was never claimed, so he hires a private detective named Britten. Britten brings Jan to the house and starts questioning him. He knows Bigger is lying and confronts him on the street about it, but Bigger scares him off with a gun. He

Gus and Bigger were playing a game called playing white. It was an acting game in which they imitate white folks. Gus was not really into the game as Bigger was. They acted as Mr. J.P. Morgan, the President of United States, Secretary, and General. Some of the words they said were “I heard it in movies. ‘I want you to sell twenty thousand shares of U.S. Steel in the market this morning,’ ‘Well, you see, the niggers are raising sand all over the country,’ Bigger said,... ‘We’ve got to do something with these black folks.”(Wright, 18-19) This shows that the main character, Bigger, saw the white men as people with power just like the ones in the movies. The characters they chose to play were rich, powerful, and affiliated with the government. In Bigger’s mind, he did not think he was blind instead he believed in everything he saw and heard. It surprising that Bigger incorporate the ideas of the blacks in the game but in a bad way. This reveals continued to prove the blindness Bigger have. However, towards the ending of the story, he admits that he was blind in certain ways but it could not be changed. Therefore, Bigger’s blindness was the effect of thinking that all whites act the same way and it is because of this thought that led to his murder of Mary

Throughout the whole novel Bigger had felt cornered and intimidated by the white man and who they were. However, this man was different from the others. He treated Bigger as a normal human being, not as a downtrodden person or a murderer, just a normal human being. This is the only instince in which this happens in the whole novel. Wright used it primarily to show that he himself did not feel as if all whites were bad but that because of stereotyping, many were. Wright goes out of his way to show that this man was not under the inlfluence of stereotyping and to show the decent side of some whites.

Mrs. Dalton's discovery of Bigger is a serious threat to his life, which causes him to frantically search for safety.  "He turned and a hysterical terror seized him, as though he were falling from a great height...It was Mrs. Dalton.  He wanted to knock her out of the way and bolt from the room" (Wright 97).  Like the rat, Bigger is trapped and in danger, with no possibility for escape.  In his last, desperate fight for survival, he suffocates Mary, similar to the rat's wild leap for his pant leg.

Additionally, Bigger asserts control over his friends to accomplish his own goals. When he plans to rob Blum’s store and decides that it is not a good idea, he beats Gus to gain control. Bigger does this because he realized that he lost control at the point when he decided to take the chance of ruining his own life by robbing a white store over getting a job with the Dalton’s; making that choice left the power in Blum’s hands. Whether or not Bigger got away unharmed would depend on Blum’s weapon possession, how fast he contacted the police, and if the police could catch him, none of which Bigger could control. Though the logical solution would be to inform Gus, G.H.,