actor in Wright’s development of Bigger is the struggle to keep power from the Black society. White men wants the Negro to be restricted from as much control as possible, “for had he had a chance to vote, he would have automatically controlled the richest lands of the South and with them the social, political, and economic destiny of a third of the Republic” (Wright Bigger X1). Bigger is an ideal portrait of a product of Western culture. Bigger has little control over his life. “Wright builds up rather extensive documentation to prove that Bigger’s actions, behavior, values, attitudes, and fate have already been determined by his status and place in American life” (Margolies Art 1). Bigger is alienated from any kind of relationship. “[Wright] claimed he valued the ‘state of abandonment, aloneness.’ In this he was, finally, a true product of Western culture” (Discovering 5). Western culture places Bigger, as well as other African Americans, in a position where they are expected to be submissive to whites. Bigger sees violence as the only alternative to “dumb submission to a dehumanizing lot” (Margolies Study 65-66). In Native Son, Bigger claims that the murder of Mary Dalton, his employer's daughter, is not intentional. “But really I never wanted to hurt nobody. That’s the truth...I hurt folks ‘cause I felt I had to; that’s all. They were crowding me too close; they wouldn’t let me...Mr. Max, I didn’t mean to do what I did. I was trying to do something else” [sic] (Smith 393). In Native Son, fear and hate are determining factors in Bigger’s life. The root of all of Bigger’s fears is realization of what he, as a black man, has to endure and will become (Margolies Art 2). Bigger attacks his friends because he thinks that they can see his fear. By attacking them, he gives himself a false s...
