"Goddamn! Bigger whispered fiercely, whirling and kicking out his leg with all the strength of his body. The force of his movement shook the rat loose and it sailed through the air and struck a wall. Instantly, it rolled over and leaped again. Bigger dodged and the rat landed against a table leg. With clenched teeth, Bigger held the skillet; he was afraid to hurl it, fearing that he might miss. The rat squeaked and turned and ran in a narrow circle, looking for a place to hid; it leaped again past Bigger and scurried on dry rasping feet to one side of the box and then to the other, searching for the hole. Then it turned and reared upon its hind legs.” (page 9)
The quote is symbolic where a rat represent poverty, and the writer creates an image of a house with holes if Bigger has no option but to kill it, this means that they lived in a crowded place with no good condition
"Suppose those rats cut our veins at night when we sleep? Naw! Nothing like that ever bothers you! All you care about is your own pleasure! Even when the relief offers you a job you won’t take it till they threaten to cut off your food and starve you! Bigger, honest, you the most no-countest man I ever seen in my life.” (Page 12)
Family dynamics are present where the parent is worried that the son does not feel anything about them. The mother criticizes Bigger behavior of selfishness and thinking about him only.
“With his hands deep in his pockets, another cigarette slanting across his chin, he brooded and watched the men at work across the street. They were pasting a huge colored poster to a signboard. The poster showed a white face.” (Page 16)
With my reasoning, this is where the writer gives, the information on how Bigger turns out bad. It is the beginning of some questionable behaviors.
"I reckon we the only things in this city that can’t go where we want to go and do what we want to do" (Page 24).
"I don’t know. I just feel that way. Every time I get to thinking about me being black and they being white, me being here and they being there, I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me."(Page 24)
Initially, I thought the character Bigger was in trouble, and all he was in was for revenge. He spoke as if he wants to kill someone but no, this was fear. There was fear in him that the white is superior to him. It symbolizes the gap between individuals who run the country and the minorities when oppressed.
“I don’t know. Maybe this sounds crazy. Maybe they going to burn me in the electric chair for feeling this way. But I ain’t worried none about them women I killed For a little while I was free. I was doing something. It was wrong, but I was feeling all right. Maybe God’ll get me for it. If He do, all right. But I ain’t worried. I killed ‘em ‘cause I was scared and mad. But I been scared and mad all my life and after I killed that first woman, I wasn’t scared no more for a little while.” (Page 328)
Bigger is a killer and is happy about this, this is sad and means that he did many bad things and not guilty about this. It made me feel bad because at first, I thought of him as the victim and once he confessed, I had a question of who is the person behind the mask.
“Then their eyes were riveted; a slate-colored pigeon swooped down to the middle of the steel car tracks and began strutting to and fro with ruffled feathers, its fat neck bobbing with regal pride. A street car rumbled forward and the pigeon rose swiftly through the air on wings stretched so taut and sheer that Bigger could see the gold of the sun through their translucent tips. He tilted his head and watched the slate-colored bird flap and wheel out of sight over the edge of a high roof.” (Page 23)
Sometimes I wish for this, and it is because everyone loves freedom. Bigger envies a bird, and the scenario personally remind me of the things I want to do if I had the privilege plus choice to do so. A pigeon represents freedom, and when I look at their case, I consider freer even though there might be some challenges in our lives I am better. It gave me a reason to appreciate what I have.
“Mrs. Dalton moved nervously, lifted her thin, white hands and tilted her head. Her mouth came open and Mr. Dalton placed an arm about her.” (Page 279)
In the page, there is theme of shame, Bigger felt that he had power, but when he saw his mother kneeling down begging for the life of the son, he felt shame and proof that he has no control.
“You’ll regret how you living someday," she went on. "If you don’t stop running with that gang of yours and do right you’ll end up where you never thought you would. You think I don’t know what you boys is doing, but I do. And the gallows is at the end of the road you traveling, boy, Just remember that." (Page 13)
This paragraph is one proof that Bigger has something terrible going on. The writer gives us the theme of criminality and as the book presents the question of who to blame on crime I had a feeling this was it.
“There was silence. The car sped through the Black Belt, past tall buildings holding black life. Bigger knew that they were thinking of his life and the life of his people. Suddenly he wanted to seize some heavy object in his hand and grip it with all the strength of his body and in some strange way rise up and stand in naked space above the speeding car and with one final blow blot it out—with himself and then in it.” (page 70)
The author uses explanatory to show us how Bigger had immense emotions even the writer himself does not vocalize the situation.
“He tiptoed into the room and lifted the top mattress of his bed and pulled forth the gun and slipped it inside of his shirt. Just as he was about to open the door his mother paused in her singing.” (Page 37)
There is irony in this part the mother is a firm believer in Christ and while praising her son wants to rob a store. Also, the mother is aware later of the son crimes and speaks to him that only God can save him. The mother is a firm believer, and that reminds me of my family back home, especially my mother.
"I’d just as soon go to jail as take that relief job." (Page 32)
In the quote, it shows we are the master of our fate, and in this case, Bigger has the choice to be free and take the job or choose a life of crime eventually ending up in jail.
“The shame and fear and hate which Mary and Jan and Mr. Dalton and that huge rich house had made rise so hard and hot in him had now cooled and softened.” (page 141)
The part does raise a question that if this was a choice or was it because of the position that Bigger was.
"Well, they own everything. They choke you off the face of the earth. They like God." (Page 326)
It is my favorite part, and it has humor, but with a strong message, Bigger shows us that politically the white run everything and do as they please.
“There was no day for him now, and there was no night; there was but a long stretch of time, a long stretch of time that was very short; and then—the end. Toward no one in the world did he feel any fear now, for he knew that fear was useless; and toward no one in the world did he feel any hate now, for he knew that hate would not help him.” (Page 254)
Being guilty Bigger’s, hope of anything in life was in vain. His fate is determined any emotion hate or fear is all gone now. At this point, I felt terrible for him, but in the world, we live in tell us to do what we would like others to do unto us.
"You scared ‘cause he’s a white man." (Page 28)
To me, this is fear that Bigger shows because if he was not scared of the white man, he should have stood up for them. As humans, we portray fear with anger, and the writer shows us in the quote.
"I swear to God I can’t. I know I oughtn’t think about it, but I can’t help it. Every time I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat. Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like living in jail. Half the time I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping in through a knothole in the fence." (Page 22)
The part shows who rule in their society and as they play the White game, we see that they have power over black and use this by striking them.
“Bigger did not answer. Mary was smiling. Jan still gripped his hand and Bigger held his head at an oblique angle, so that he could, by merely shifting his eyes, look at Jan and then out into the street whenever he did not wish to meet Jan’s gaze. He heard Mary laughing softly.” (Page 67)
Some sense of romance, the writer gives a sense of love, but this is not the case in Bigger's side. There is a difference in culture for the white, black, and Bigger felt as if they were mocking him for in their society there was no equality for the two races.
"Bigger, please ! Don’t say sir to me. . . .I don’t like it. You’re a man just like I am; I’m no better than you. Maybe other white men like it. But I don’t. Look, Bigger." (Page 70)
Diversity stands present, and by this paragraph, it gave me the idea when a person does not know you well they treat you same as other people, as a friend but eventually when they see who you are that you are different this changes. Mary and Jan had no idea of how the black life, therefore, putting Bigger in an awkward position.
“Vera brought her plate and sat opposite him. Bigger felt that even though her face was smaller and smoother than his mother’s, the beginning of the same tiredness was already there. How different Vera was from Mary! He could see it in the very was Vera moved her hand when she carried the fork to her mouth; she seemed to be shrinking from life in every gesture she made. The very manner in which she sat showed a fear so deep as to be an organic part of her; she carried the food to her mouth in tiny bits, as if dreading its choking her, or fearing that it would give out too quickly.” (Page 104)
People are different, and the society is what makes us be so. Bigger realized his sister lives in fear and Mary did not. It is because of the difference in race and class from the two.
“She won’t. And, anyhow, she’s a crazy girl. They might even think she’s in it herself, just to get money from her family. They might think the Reds is doing it. They won’t think we did. They don’t think we got enough guts to do it. They think niggers is too scared." (Page 139)
When reading this part, I thought this would happen, the white in the book would not collaborate in crime for a black man, and finally, this was the case.
"Say, I’m slanting this to the primitive Negro who doesn’t want to be disturbed by white civilization." (Page 201)
Reading the novel made me know how Bigger cleaver is and not an awful person. He was trying to make the white think that he was dumb and suspect Jan.
“Bigger, honey, she won’t go to school no more. She says the other girls look at her and make her ‘shamed.” (Page 277)
Regarding social observation, blacks were not in the society, and Bigger sees this by her sister refusing to attend school because of the white colleagues.
“The atmosphere of the crowd told him that they were going to use his death as a bloody symbol of fear to wave before the eyes of that black world.'' (Page 257)
It is proof that the white did want blacks to live in dread. They were willing to kill, as an example to others, besides, this quote is not one of my favorite in the novel.
Works Cited
Margolies, Edward. "Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors." (1968).
Wright, Richard. "Native Son. 1940." New York: HarperPerennial (1993).
Wright, Richard. Native son. Random House, 2016.
