Bigger

Native Son -- what a read! This was one shocking novel I couldn’t put down from start to finish. I’m not sure if I exactly enjoyed this book per say, as in ‘I had a pleasant viewing experience’ (it’s certainly not an easy read) but it was definitely extraordinary. Yet, as I usually have more fun looking for faults in any piece of literature than lavishing praise on it, that’s what I wanted to do with Bigger Thomas.

Often overlooked in favor of Wright’s much more obviously two-dimensional supporting cast, Bigger still has some interesting weaknesses as the protagonist of a protest novel. Bigger Thomas isn’t really like any other protagonists, which something we all know very well after reading Native Son. Undeniably, he is a vivid and lifelike character. And as his unconventionality separates him from more familiar character cliches, Bigger initially seems quite realistic.

However, a second look reveals that he, too, has flaws as a main lead. Bigger is written, as Wright himself said, for a purpose. He is not one specific boy Wright cooked up in his mind with a unique personality, but rather a melting pot of boys Wright has watched live and fade away, a figure that Wright inserted into his laboratory as an archetype. Though the vast majority of the story shows Bigger in shockingly lifelike relief, with confusion and contradiction and selfishness that are all very human, that’s all he is -- those raw, negative emotions and lusts that Wright picked up on from the Bigger Thomases he saw.

Bigger can’t be more, since at his very core, is just another stereotype. There are a million Bigger Thomases out there, and so in that sense, there are none. The one thing we have been reminded of the hard way, over and over again, is that a stereotype will never completely or accurately represent anyone. 

Though initially shocking and unexpected, Bigger becomes almost predictable because of his source material. For example, we aren't really surprised to find that he winds up murdering Bessie in cold blood, past the aftermath of Mary’s death. You know Bigger's story will play out the typical aggressive, animalistic 1900's stereotype of a black man. Was this on purpose to really pack the ‘protest’ punch of a protest novel, as Wright used this cliche as an opportunity to add his own commentary (and I'm just missing the whole point)? I don’t know, and by what Wright said in How Bigger Was Born, one could very well assume so. Yet regardless, it doesn’t mean Bigger’s inability to be more than a carefully constructed lab rat running around in a synthetic maze doesn’t have an effect on how Native Son is read. Once a character fits into a label, however complex and vividly they are portrayed, it’s easy to write them off, especially by any Dalton-esque readers that Wright may have been targeting -- and especially, if the subject in question is something those readers would rather avoid facing. This happens despite whatever meaning had been actually intended for the readers. Of course then, the novel no longer reaches those which it seeks. 

So what’s worse -- purposefully shocking characters that will leave the intended audience so horrified that they’d simply put the book back on the shelf, or a sugared story with kinder euphemisms to coax the unknowing into comprehension?