Native Son (and some extra stuff)

Out of all of the books that we have read this year, Native Son was definitely the most complex and terrifying. Native Son deals with the main character, Bigger Thomas who murders twice, and in turn continuously slips between a troubled man and a deranged, easygoing criminal. To society, Bigger is better off dead, and they want him to be. Bigger's actions constantly confuse the reader, as he is sometimes guilt-stricken due to his actions and wants to have a good life, whereas other times he is enjoying the feel he gets due to the murders. Max, Bigger's lawyer seems to understand his complexity and in an attempt to save his life and have him spend the entirety of it in jail, makes a long speech trying to define why Bigger did what he did. Max elaborates on Bigger's life, that from the start was plagued not only by the racist restrictions that whites had placed on his life, but that that had evolved into making the whites almost a separate alien race from him. The racism that was thought to only originally divide the races divided so much more than that. To Bigger, Mary was so detached and alien to him that killing her did not affect him in the way that people thought that he should have.

To me, Max's speech in its entirely was interesting. I say this not necessarily for the content of the speech, but because of the fact that Max had put so much effort into breaking down the system and trying to put together why Bigger did what he did. Max, through this speech, condemned himself to almost a similar fate as Bigger's. He mentioned earlier that people had already begun to send him death threats, and this speech sealed the deal, so to speak. I commend him for the understanding of racism and its affect on people of different races, especially African Americans. They are stuck in society where they have to work twice, if not three times as hard to support themselves. They are stuck with so many disadvantages, whereas the white race has so many privileges. It is almost impossible for them to escape this situation in society, so they continue down this path that was forged due to these injustices.