1184 Wright, Richard
donations to “Negro” causes. But in a desperate turn
of events, Bigger accidentally kills their daughter,
Mary, and must escape the authorities. Through
Bigger, Wright explores themes such as rejection,
alienation, fate, survival, fear, isolation, vio-
lence, and race.
Native Son is a powerful and compelling story
best appreciated for the way it delves deeply into
the complicated psychology of its antihero, Bigger
Thomas. Wright is able to show that not only is
Bigger motivated by his environment, but also that
his behavior demonstrates willful action. The novel
particularly excels in its representation of Bigger as a
simultaneously horrifying and heroic figure.
Kaleem Ashraf
reJectIon in Native Son
The theme of rejection in Native Son centers on
the relationship between Bigger Thomas and the
society he inhabits. In a general sense, society has
rejected Bigger, and Bigger has rejected society. Big-
ger endures turbulent relationships with his family,
his friends, and the white people he encounters. And
he is especially rejected by the social institutions that
are meant to support him (especially the housing
and legal systems).
In terms of his family, Bigger feels especially
rejected by his mother, an imperious woman who
repeatedly instructs him to stay out of trouble, stop
hanging around with his gang of criminal friends,
and get a job. But Bigger rejects her values and the
warnings that correctly predict his later demise.
When his mother gives him the last of her money
for carfare to a potential job, Bigger wishes he could
spend it on a magazine or a trip to the movie theater,
and he grows angry that his choices are so limited.
Bigger is further isolated by his younger sister, Vera,
who always takes their mother’s side. This con-
tributes to his sense of demoralization, and Bigger
responds by rejecting Vera as a childish, uncritical,
“sappy” girl.
Bigger’s rejection is clearly linked to the matter of
race. Bigger is an outcast in a society owned by white
people. His opportunities for self-advancement are
strangled. So when his gang mates prepare to rob
Blum’s grocery, Bigger negotiates his deep fear of
crossing the racial line by engaging in a violent fight
with Gus, thus sabotaging the plan. Rejection is also
Bigger’s mechanism of defense. His girlfriend Bessie
is a hardworking black woman struggling to make
ends meet. She endures her tough life and (in her
own words) has never bothered anyone. She offers
to cook for Bigger, counsels him in his time of need,
and remains at his side during the time of his flight
from the authorities. Yet Bigger sees her existence as
a meaningless pattern of acceptance of a status quo
in which white society prospers and black people
continue to operate in a nightmare reality. Eventu-
ally, these feelings of despair are so overwhelming
that Bigger is able to murder Bessie.
Bigger faces a kind of communicative paralysis
when he comes into contact with white people who
actually extend the hand of friendship to him. In
what is a totally alien manner to him, Mary Dalton
and her boyfriend, Jan, treat Bigger as if his race
is not an issue. But rather than winning him over,
these actions have the opposite effect of intensify-
ing Bigger’s rejection and alienation. Mentally, he
wonders if the two are joking at his expense, and he
feels deeply suspicious and uncomfortable on the
occasions when Jan shakes his hand, when Mary sits
next to him at the front of the car in which he is
employed to drive her, and when he is asked to share
chicken wings with them in a restaurant.
There is a strong sense that Bigger is failed, or
rejected, by the social institutions intended to sup-
port him. The housing system is tilted in the favor
of white people. Black families like Bigger’s endure
the squalor of tiny, rat-infested apartments on the
south side of Chicago for which white landlords
charge grotesquely high rents. The Dalton family,
said to have donated large sums of money to the
“Negro” cause, have profited in the first place as slum
landlords. The legal system is also a failure. In this
system, Bigger is tried and convicted for his crimes,
but wholesale revenge attacks on black families are
allowed to persist.
In the closing stages of Native Son, Bigger
encounters religious values as a means of salvation.
He is lectured in the jailhouse by Reverend Ham-
mond, and his mother repeatedly begs him to seek
forgiveness from God. There is little doubt however,
that Bigger rejects these established doctrines as
irrelevant to the nightmare of his life. In a moment