After much discussion of the book Native Son in class and much reading and thought outside of class, I think it is important that the differentiation between what Bigger's crime versus Mary Dalton was and what the public perceived it to be. Distinguishing each can have a huge affect on how the reader sees Bigger and his actions, and ultimately change whether he is a sympathetic character or not. Most people who read the novel understand that when Bigger killed Mary it was wholly in the moment, yet it was not a crime of passion. Yes, his emotions (namely fear) took hold of him, but at the same time he did not understand that what he was doing was killing her. He was so utterly distracted by the threatening presence of Mrs. Dalton that he was therefore incapable of noticing the Mary was dying under the pillow beside him, making this manslaughter by modern terms. However, these readers (including us) continually refer to this as a straight murder. Even the readers who are intended to understand Bigger and maybe even sympathize with him speak out against him whenever this "murder" is mentioned.
So what does that mean for us? We are influenced by the way Bigger saw the situation. His pride in breaking free of the nothingness his life had been so far caused him to view the predicament as being his fault (which it was) but having been done purposefully. He warped his memory to convince himself that something in him was protesting his situation. Therefore, I find myself and my peers referring to the incident incorrectly as murder. Fixing it in our minds that he purposefully took the life of another human being makes him look a heck of a lot more deserving of his fate than if we analyze the situation and remember that the whole thing was an accident. I find that I root for Bigger much more strongly when I remember that he had no choice. However, that sympathy and understanding turns to pity when I see how he struggles to take control of the only situation he can by convincing himself that he was unequivocally guilty.
This brings us to the next reason that this difference is so important: Manslaughter implies that he had no choice and was destined for doom, while the cold-blooded murder Bigger is accused of can only be the result of free will. The truth of the situation, (that this was an accident), supports the theme of literary naturalism in this book because if Bigger did not make the choice on his own to murder this girl and therefore determine his future, he must have been destined for the electric chair form the very beginning, as his mother told him. Thus, understanding and sympathy towards Bigger's situation grow further, as we realize that he was forced to commit murder by someone; we assume it was the social forces and racial inequalities, and is therefore far from self-butchering and merely an example of the toll these factors can have on a person's psyche.
A call for distinction could definitely be sent to Wright's critics as well. Burton Rascoe of American Mercury asserts that because Bigger is obviously a model of millions of black Americans and he uses murder and violence to settle his scores with whites, that Wright must be calling for these masses to rise up and act similarly. David L Cohn makes a similar claim. These two must not have read carefully enough, because when responding to the novel both spoke of the supposed murder as being purposeful, thus giving Bigger free will and turning him from the not-so-innocent pawn of larger forces into a bloodthirsty maniac who many people would support imposing the death penalty upon.
Lastly, to touch on the unfairness and impossibility of Bigger's predicament one last time, I would like to point out that had this man been either of a different race or more modern time, he would have certainly been given the benefit of the distinction between murder and manslaughter. He would have been given a chance to say tell a jury that it was an accident (although....
a) he might not do so because of his warped memory (not even a direct choice-- Bigger is willless)
b) this situation would not have occured if either case were true
Just saying, today the difference between sentences can be as broad as 8 years in prison and a fine versus the death penalty. It is just sad that no one, not even Mr. Max who actually knew the truth, and especially not Bigger himself, bothered to refer to this incident as an accident: manslaughter, not murder.
A crucial distinction, indeed. (Although Bigger *is* guilty of the murder, and rape, of Bessie, it's a crucial irony in the novel that the court isn't really prosecuting *those* crimes at all, except insofar as they tighten the case against him in Mary's death.) Perhaps we're also swayed in our terminology by the way that Bigger himself tries to redefine his actions after the fact, to take ownership as a "murderer" almost as a point of pride--he fools himself into believing he meant to do it.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right that if he wasn't a black man as defendant in a racist system, a manslaughter defense would have likely been effective--but then again, his crime/accident itself would be inconceivable without the very particular kind of terror he feels in the presence of Mrs. Dalton in her daughter's bedroom. The guilt he feels simply by being there is thoroughly racially charged.