The central motive and conflict in Native Son is discrepancies in free will. Throughout the novel, Bigger Thomas’ free will is suppressed and he feels cornered by the white people, who have ultimate freedom. The perception of such freedom is largely dictated by propaganda from both sides. The scenario involving no free will is demonstrated in one of the opening scenes in which Bigger hunts a rat who has entered the apartment. It, like Bigger, lacks any opportunity to do anything beyond flee its pursuer.
There are multiple levels of free will in Chicago in the 1940’s. Each character is defined by how much control they have over their life and their happiness based on how much freedom they perceive to have obtained. Mary and Jan represent the white youth and they exercise excessive free will. Mary is able to enter into black society simply because she feels like seeing what it is like. She is a very happy and carefree character because she finds joy in doing whatever she please, especially when she blatantly disobeys her father. Youth in white society were also told that they could do anything they wished in their life by their parents. On the other hand, Bigger feels as though he has no ability to achieve. He describes how the white people have both physically forced them “to live in one corner of the city” and did not allow them to “fly planes or run ships” (23). This crushed all ambition for Bigger and thus made him depressed. Additionally, he does not have the freedom to visit white society in any capacity beyond service (a role inherently lacking free will). This one sided nature of society is shown bluntly by the sign depicting the political candidate who symbolized the weighted voting with the slogan: you cannot win written on it. However, in the novel, Bessie is a character that had even less freedom than bigger. He ordered her around and dragged her into the crime. After doing so, Bigger posses all power over her as he rapes and kills her. This demonstrates that gender can diminish one’s opportunity even further.
Because of all the oppression, Bigger wants “anything” (23) interesting to happen in his life to make it meaningful. For example, he admires Hitler, without consideration for morality, simply because he has accomplished something great with his people. Therefore, when he is running away from the white people after he has murdered, he feels the peak of freedom. Bigger feels a sense of twisted happiness when he realized he has accomplished something, even though it is bad. Additionally, during his time in jail, he takes responsibility for the murder that was considered an accident by him and the reader up to this point. This is because “he had never given himself wholeheartedly to anyone or anything, except murder” (383). During the confession, he feels an amount of pride in his actions because he himself did them.
I wrote about this at length on my own blog, but I also see, in Bigger's confession (both to Buckley and the police, and later to Max), a desire to be understood. Not necessarily *judged* guilty or not guilty, but to have his life, such as it is, affirmed as real and consequential. If there's "pride" there, it maybe has to do with this sense of having his experience of reality affirmed for him.
ReplyDeleteThe whole freedom dynamic throughout the book is really interesting. I enjoyed reading his reaction to himself killing Mary, because at first he was terrified that the white hand of power he felt was constantly looming over him would smash him to oblivion right there on the spot. As soon as he realized that it wouldn't, his whole sense of freedom seemed to instantly flip around and he became drunk with the power that he felt he possessed.
ReplyDeleteAs Mr. Mitchell said, Bigger wanted recognition, and therefore devoted his life (literally) to something. I believe that the way the book concludes with Bigger's passionate and relatable speech indicated Wright's criticism of naturalism. The ending speaks to me as one of those "success is defined by what you have been passionate in" moments. Somehow I'll always see this book as a twisted success story over a pessimistic naturalist novel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Louis. For me the book had a very positive ending because Bigger ended up becoming more than this passionless moral blank that Ellison criticizes Wright for writing. I haven't actually read Ellison's criticism of Native Son (I probably should before throwing statements around) but it seems like he skipped the last few pages or something.
DeleteTo comment on Mr. Mitchell's point about Bigger wanting to be understood, I believe that this stems from the fact that he is a very individual person and he does not think that anyone else understands how he thinks. Bigger himself suggests that he does not want to associate with the rest of his family because of the fact that he will understand their pain more thoroughly, but he want people to understand how he feels, regardless of whether they want to.
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