The Role of Fear in Bigger Thomas's Life
John Brownridge
The first specific instance of fear negatively affecting his decisions was when he violently attacked Gus for being late to meet up with the rest of the gang. They had planned to rob Old Blum, a white storekeeper who owned a gun. Bigger's reasoning for attacking Gus was that they had missed the window of time they had to rob the old man, but that wasn't true. Page 41 reads: "Yes; they would have had time to rob the store; in fact, they still had time. He had lied to Gus and G.H. and Jack. He walked on; there was not a policeman in sight. Yes; they could have robbed the store and could've gotten away. He hoped the fight he had with Gus covered up what he was actually trying to hide." Bigger is clearly afriad of robbing Old Blum, and lashes out at Gus as a way to hide it.
Later on in the novel, Bigger Thomas finds himself in a difficult situation. After bringing a drunk Mary Dalton to her room late at night, Mrs. Dalton comes into the room to check in on her daughter. Bigger is so afraid that Mary will say something about him that he covers her mouth with a pilow, accidentally killing her. After he realizes she is dead, he puts her body into her trunk, takes her body into the basement, cuts her head off, and burns her body. At first, he was afriad of losing his job, but that quickly changes to a fear of losing his life. His fear of being caught and executed haunts him from this point in the novel all they way until part 3.
After Bigger is outed as the killer of Mary Dalton, he has to go on the run with his girlfriend, Bessie. He believes Bessie will hold him back in his attempt to evade the police, so he kills her and hides her body. He is so far gone down the rabbit hole, that he feels okay with commiting more crimes to get away with his first one.
There are many other actions commited by Bigger Thomas in Native Son that are motivated by fear. He got drunk and sat with white people, despite how uncomfortable it made him feel, he threw Jan and the Communist party under the bus, and he wrote the ransom note to the Daltons so he could get money to go on the run. Bigger Thomas lives in a constant state of fear, which has led to the circumstances that have turned him into a criminal. I think Richard Wright wrote Bigger Thomas as a representation of how the oppression of Black people in America has made them fearful of what might happen to them over the course of their lives in the time period that the book was written. Even though crime rates and violence was high in black communities, those statistics lacked context for how those circumstances came about. Bigger Thomas is a good representation of how many Black criminals came to be criminals and how hard it was to stay away from those situations in Black communities.
This was really well-written and I agree with you on the idea that all of Bigger's actions are influenced by fear! I especially like how you point out his interaction with Gus to prove your point, as that was one of the first moments, for me, that I thought about the correlation between Bigger's actions and fear. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHi John, I really enjoyed reading your blog post and I definitely agree that nearly everything Bigger did could be boiled down to fear. You also showed really well how fear made his actions spiral into consequences much bigger than how it began. I also liked how you emphasized that Wright is trying to show to fear related to broader society. Great job!
ReplyDeleteReally love the flow you maintained throughout the post, I enjoyed reading this! I like how you describe Bigger's descent into madness fueled by fear and how he becomes okay with committing more and more crimes, sometimes out of necessity. You made your argument and reasoning very clear!
ReplyDeleteGreat job on this blog post! I think it's really interesting how you attributed fear to almost all of Bigger's actions and how he almost didn't have control as his fear took control. I also think it's really important to explore why he is so scared and I think you did a great job of that in the final paragraph. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThis was a great blog post to read! I thought it was interesting how you analyzed the comparison between fear and predeterminism and how American society creates an environment embedded with fear, leading African-Americans down a selected path. I also thought it was interesting that you brought up Mary and Bessie's deaths and how they were both a result of fear. It's important to make the distinction that although both were committed out of fear, they were both very different murders and had different results (e.g., the judicial system seemed to care more about Mary's murder (murder of a white woman) than Bessie's even though Bessie's murder was intentional).
ReplyDeleteI think this was a very well written and well thought out blog post. I could easily follow the evidence you used throughout the book to show how Bigger acted upon fear. I found it interesting how you were able to find a direct quote from the book that almost perfectly explained the point you were trying to make. At the end you did a good job of showing how Bigger Thomas' character is sort of the back story and a reflection on some crime that still goes on today in African American communities. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great blog post! You did a fantastic job of clearly stating how the theme of fear plays out in the novel and your evidence was really strong. When you started listing out all of the things that he did that made him fearful it really helped solidify your point about how overwhelming that fear was to Bigger. Good job!
ReplyDelete