“having helped to put him down…held him up now to look at him and be amused…and he felt an articulate hate…“ towards them (76). Though this misunderstanding stems from the oppression that Bigger has endured from the white world, he too becomes just as prejudiced, ignorant, and hateful. Bigger is not receptive to their gesture of kindness. The chasm, which separates the two races, remains, and because of this division, it falsely allows one race to claim rightfulness and superiority over another race.The white world made Bigger and the mass of the Negro race suffer by confining them to the slums, denying them a proper education, and limiting all of their opportunities. Bigger is a victim of American imperialism and exploitation; the greed of the white world to modernize leads them to exploit and take advantage of the Negro people in any way possible way. In the aftermath, Bigger and the Negro people feel lost and adrift, searching for a place for themselves in a world that is basically denied to them. Bigger is a man and a black man, for that matter, who is not able to be the “breadwinner” and supporter of his family. Thus, he has a negative self-image of himself, predetermined by the white society. In addition to feeling lost and adrift, Bigger feels ashamed and powerless because the white world has restricted every aspect of his life. He is limited to menial jobs, poor education, and impoverished living conditions. The magnitude of the oppression is so strong for Bigger that he “hated his family because he knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them” (9). Feelings of anger and despair permeate from Bigger to his family, who is also feeling the severe oppression. For example, when Bigger seems too indolent to find a job, his mother lashes out at her son, wishing that she never gave birth to him and calling him lazy and “just plain dumb black...
