Albert Camus:
I must at least believe in my protest. . . Man
is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.
The problem is to know whether this refusal can
only lead to the destruction of himself and of
others, whether all rebellion must end in the justification of universal murder, or whether, on the
contrary, without laying claim to an innocence
that is impossible, it can discover the principle of
reasonable culpability. . .Man’s rebellion against
his condition (is) the movement that enlists the
individual in the defense of a dignity common to
all men (10, 11, 18).
Bigger’s revolt must result in violent
destruction to show the strength of his belief in it.
Though an anti-Christian, his protest is just like
that of Jesus Christ. Raman K. Singh articulates,
“Bigger Thomas is. . . a Christ-figure. . . mainly
because of the suffering he undergoes. . . Thus,
Bigger’s special brand of crucifixion has washed
away the shame of black and oppressed people”
(101).
Just like people of all ethnicities on all
socioeconomic levels, even to this day, Bigger
suffered the sins of all native sons and daughters
that quietly stayed in their place and accepted
their respective lowly lots in life. We should refuse
to be one of these tragic heroes by accepting both
our individual and communal responsibilities to
“Be Bigger”! Wright’s writing of this novel is his
own personal form of revolt, or “Being Bigger”
during the process of Bigger’s creation. 3
“Being Bigger” is not as simple, idealistic
and utopian as it sounds in this essay. It is truly
a call to empower the self with purgation of any
inklings of ignorance, fear and hatred towards
anyone—least of all ourselves. We should allow
the ignorance, fear and hatred that must and will
exist in our realistic world to be cast down upon
us. We should proactively overcome these external obstacles and not negatively react to them in
kind.
Bigger does this by using his newfound
love to conquer the Dalton’s hate. Bigger’s previous fear, ignorance and hatred of himself and
humanity are all gone. The true heroism of Bigger
is that he transfers his fear, guilt, ignorance and
hatred to the Dalton family—the typical representative of “society” in the text. Yoshinobu Hakutani explains that “On the strength of book 3
(of Native Son), Wright is able to shift the burden
of Bigger’s guilt to society” (73).4
“Being Bigger” is living without guilt. It is
learning from Bigger’s mistakes of bottling up his
guilt and living free of it. Paul Newlin articulates,
“Guilt is everywhere (in the text)—from Mrs.
Thomas’ cruel questioning of why she brought
Bigger into this world, Mrs. Dalton’s collective
guilt as a symbolic representation of a blind,
self-praising, affluent white society, and Bigger’s
own irascible bullying of his street pals in an effort
to assuage his fears” (144).
Having purged himself of all previous
negative life forces, we should not sympathize
with Bigger at all but with The Daltons. Bigger
is willing to face his consequences for this self
discovery. The Dalton’s are the poor little rich
people. Unlike the hero, they never experience
the epiphany and elation of seeing the limitless
world open to them. They never feel true happiness nor act out any passionate desires. Their only
family member that tries to, Mary, loses her life as
a result of it. This brings all of the Dalton’s fears,
threats, hatreds and ignorance of African-Americans to a horrific and tragic reality. “’Those poor
old parents are going to be in that court room to
see that this boy burns! This boy killed the only
thing they had’” (Native Son 338).
The Daltons are not only still blind, but
also suffering the pain of hatred and revenge
against Bigger. The hero’s purposeful killing of
Mary is not revenge against them, but taking his
rightful place within the society that they represent for him. The Daltons are merely the face of
the society that created Bigger out of self-hatred.
James Baldwin claims, “the courtroom, judge,
jury witnesses and spectators, recognize immediately that Bigger is their creation” (43).
The Daltons are the real losers because
they will continue to be blind zombies (unable
to see and feel humanity within themselves and
others) and will never learn, like the hero does, to
“Be Bigger” from this experience. “Being Bigger”
recognizes that racism and bigotry are as much
of a dehumanizing degradation for the oppressor
as it is for the victim. James Baldwin states, “Our
dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible
from our dehumanization of ourselves: the loss
of our own identity is the price we pay for our
annulment of his” (25). They will only continue
to hate all humankind—through their vengeance