Native Son: Bigger's Awareness
In the Novel, Native Son by Richard Wright, the main character Bigger is very single minded and is focused on him and his family's social circumstances. He sees the lack of power and status that he has and takes out his frustration about it on the people around him. In beginning of the book he deals with the rat in a very cruel manner, crushing its head and swearing. In this scene we see the first signs of Bigger losing control and channeling the anger about his living conditions, his father, and his social status, on this rat, one of the few things he has power over, and afterwards we see him parade the carcass around.
This interaction between Bigger and the Rat is representative of the entire book. The rat (we'll call him Smaller) is unfairly prejudiced against for something that there is no evidence against them for, much like how Bigger is accused of raping Mary without evidence. Even though the rat would do or had done something (cause that's what rat's do), and even though Bigger did sexually assault and murder Mary, the courtroom people accused him of doing so because of their assumptions about Black People. The face-off between Bigger and Smaller, which ultimately ends in Smaller's demise, represents Bigger being crushed by his family's poverty and the absence of his father who died in the race riots, and Bigger represents said oppressors.
Finally, Bigger flaunting Smaller around his family parallels the final courtroom scene, where the helpless Bigger is subjected to the court and can only witness his persecution. The author added this scene to show Bigger's cruelty and how he excessively brutalized Smaller beyond what was necessary, like how Bigger was excessively punished for convictions with no strong evidence.
I find this metaphor to be very interesting, and I wonder if Wright intended Bigger's aggression and displays of power against his friends, family, and, of course, Smaller, to represent how he had begun acting as the oppressor whenever he got the chance, as a response to the way he himself was treated. Of course, Bigger's actions in the situation with Mary, Bessie, and the Dalton's were clearly meant to show what his situation had brought him to, but it is interesting to see how the author built up that personality throughout the beginning of the book, that made the later escalation of his situation seem inevitable.
ReplyDeleteI like how you used the scene where Bigger killed the rat as a metaphor for the way he lives his life in general. Honestly, I didn't even think about it that deeply until you mentioned it. I think another scene that resembles when Bigger kills the rat is when he bullies Gus for being 'late'. He is trying to assert dominance over someone that is physically weaker than him because he has no real power. I also see Bigger as the rat itself - confined and something that is despised.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you compared the small scene of the rat in the beginning of the book to the incredibly complicated discussion of Bigger's character in the court. In "How Bigger was Born" Wright briefly discusses the rat scene and how he intended to use it to show the situation that Bigger was in (the poverty faced by his family) and introduce the characters of the Thomas family. Your post certainly shows that this introduction happens in more ways the one, not just showing the audience Bigger as a character killing the rat, but also Bigger as the rat himself. I find it humorous that you named the rat Smaller because, in a way, the names "Bigger" and "Smaller" describe the situations of the characters themselves. Bigger begins as the dominator, the "Bigger" to the rat's "Smaller" submissive being. But, eventually Bigger ends up crushed by the legal system and the ever-dominant white society, becoming the "Smaller" himself.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I laughed out loud reading that you named the rat "Smaller"
I really liked this post and I think you did a great job making strong connections between the rat and Bigger. My favorite part is the last point you made, where you compared Bigger making a big show out of killing the rat to the courtroom scene. I didn't notice this detail when I first read the book, but I think it's a significant parallel between Bigger and the rat because it highlights how the legal system excessively attacks Black people because of their preconceived assumptions about them.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really dope metaphor, I think the connection you made was really interesting, seeing as you took the very first and last scenes of the book and tied them together. It makes me wonder if Wright did this on purpose, since it honestly works so well. I like your idea of Bigger making a show out of the death of the rat, because Bigger's death was also in a sense a show, something dramatized to rally white people and cultivate their rage while painting black people as a whole in a negative light. You say the rat's death wasn't really about the rat but rather Bigger's living situation in general, and Bigger's death wasn't really about Bigger, but about pushing a larger (lol) agenda. Also great name for the rat, very funny.
ReplyDeleteI love metaphors. I made a connection similar to yours' about how Bigger thought about him killing the rat literally 0 times throughout the story, even though that moment was very monumental to the rat (this is a metaphor for how white people are casually racist and will ruin black peoples lives just to not think about it the day after). Good blog post.
ReplyDeleteI love how you name the rat "Smaller," although it's apparently pretty large for a rat. There are so many parallels to unpack in this scene, and one important one, in my view, is that Wright depicts the rat's *apparent* aggression and violence as driven by *fear* (just like Bigger, in his conflicts with Gus and later in Mary's room). We see in the rat a creature who is cornered and terrified, with a much larger and more powerful force looming over him: it lashes out at Bigger, but the narrator is clear that it is fear and not hostility or aggression that drives him. The rat is "innocent" in that it is not trying to menace the Thomas family in order to be "mean": it is looking to survive in harsh conditions. We see the naturalist thesis elaborated in this opening sequence.
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