Bigger Thomas is on a quest for freedom. He is seeking ways to free himself from the bonds that hold him to the degraded, impoverished, restricted life that he has. Thomas understands that blacks should not let the white man’s prejudice confine them. They should overcome these boundaries and not submit themselves to the preconceived image that the white society has of them (Smith 393). Bigger wants “to merge himself with others and be a part of this world, to lose himself in it so he could find himself, to be allowed a chance to live like others, even though he was black” (Wright Native 226). Bigger Thomas finds freedom through murder. “After the murder of Mary Dalton, Bigger’s life seems to have a purpose” (Sanders 1). Through his crime he gains a confidence that he has not been able to find merely through violence. “There was something he knew and something he felt; something the world gave him and something he himself had; something spread in front of him and something spread out in back; and never in his life, with this black skin of his, had the two worlds, thought and feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been together; never had he felt a sense of wholeness” (Wright Native 225). Richard Wright uses his surroundings and his acquaintances to create his fictional world. For this reason Bigger Thomas becomes real, a combination of many men in the author’s world. The “native son” represents all “native sons” during this period of American history. Bigger Thomas searches for the answer to the question of how to live in the white man’s society. Native Son is his conclusion. ...
