When I first found myself reading Native Son, I was pained to the point of
wanting to stop reading due to the poor choices Bigger made (or almost made). This
first came along in the bar scene where, after learning about his new job,
Bigger decided to rob a white man’s shop. I wanted to yell at him, telling him
to grow up and take the job; thankfully, he did, but not after cutting the pool
table and fighting with his friends trying to convince them to rob the shop, even
though Bigger wasn’t fully onboard with the plan either.
What if Bigger had decided to rob Blum’s? Well he
probably wouldn’t have ended taking the job at the Dalton’s, hiding for fear of
recognition. His family would be disappointed and run out of relief food, out
of embarrassment, and fear, Bigger probably wouldn’t return home. Although he
would never be sentenced to death for the murder of Marry Dalton, the law
probably would catch up to him and he would end up in jail.
There are so many of these forks that Bigger
encountered in the book. What are some of his experiences that you found the
most harrowing?
Bigger's fight with his friends (Gus especially) in the pool hall is complicated in its motives: he is ostensibly trying to convince them to go through with the job, or berating them for chickening out. But we know that he's also feeling deeply ambivalent about the plan, he's afraid to go through with it, and he's also afraid that his friends will learn that he's afraid. So the tough-guy, pool-table-cutting act is an effort to hide the fact that he's scared (like so much else in this novel). We as readers are privy to a whole other level of motivation, that isn't evident on the surface.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to single out "harrowing" moments, but the whole ordeal with Mary's body down by the furnace gives me the willies every time. Wright doesn't turn his "camera" away at all, and we have to go through the whole experience with each reading.