The horror of Bigger Thomas: the perception of form without face in Richard Wright's 'Native Son.'

African American Review, Fall, 1997 by Stephen K. George

The degree to which Bigger Thomas is finally able to relate to others in Levinas's face-to-face relationship remains difficult to assess. Obviously a lifetime of living behind walls in order to protect himself and maintain some semblance of control is a rigid pattern to break; perhaps this "walled" Bigger is implied when the novel ends with Thomas smiling "a faint, wry, bitter smile" (392) - a sign that his faith in an ultimate wholeness of human experience and relation has been dashed by the "brutal irony" that "death comes at the threshold of . . . [this] most deeply human experience" (Butler 23). Louis Tremaine denies any final hope that Bigger is able to make "contact with others" by pointing to his "solipsistic acceptance of his own feelings" (75) when he exclaims to a horrified Max:

"But what I killed for, I am! . . . What I killed for must've been good! . . . It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something. . . . I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. . . . It's the truth, Mr. Max. I can say it now, 'cause I'm going to die. I know what I'm saying real good and I know how it sounds. But I'm all right. I feel all right when I look at it that way." (391-92)

Tremaine argues that "this final pathetic utterance, so triumphant in Bigger's mind, isolates him forever and leaves him clinging with a kind of desperate joy to the fear and hate that have destroyed his life" (75). Thus, in the end there is no connection for Bigger with the outside world, but only a distorted and twisted connection within himself concerning the rightness of what he did as the steel of his own imprisoned being clangs shut. If Tremaine is right, it is this monstrous Bigger who finds identity in violence and whose entire "life" has been "controlled . . . by his hatred and his fear" (Baldwin 22) that Max recoils from when he exclaims in horror," 'Not that!'" (394). In the end, Bigger remains a terrifying reflection of his own dark society, a society marked by its inability to embrace the other and accept his or her humanity regardless of race.

To me, such a final dismissal of Bigger as little more than a "narcissistic" woman hater (Mootry 117-18) or the angry flip side of Uncle Tom (Baldwin 22) is both too harsh and too simplistic, especially given the ambiguity of this exchange with Max and, more importantly, Bigger's last three concerns before his execution. We need to remember, in light of Levinas's relation between the same and the other, that Bigger's last words are ones of concern and reaching out beyond his "self," and not of blame and "fear and hate" (Tremaine 75) as they are throughout most of the novel. Bigger's final messages are to his mother (" '. . . tell Ma I was all right and not to worry none, see? Tell her I was all right and wasn't crying none'"), to Max ("'Mr. Max. . . . I'm all right. For real, I am'"), and to Jan ("'Mr. Max! . . . Tell . . . Tell Mister . . . Tell Jan hello'") (392). The last of these messages, that to Jan Erlone - the man who by forgiving and siding with Bigger had enabled him to see "a white man" become "a human being . . . for the first time in his life" (268) - is the most significant of all, for not only is it Bigger's final attempt to connect with someone outside himself, but it also shows the range and depth of Bigger's change. Remember, this is the same liberal communist activist who initially grabs Bigger's hand and forces a closeness that engenders only "a dumb, cold, and inarticulate hate" in Bigger, who only wants to be rid of the consciousness "of his black skin" that such contact inspires (67-68). This relationship of complete disconnection has progressed to the point that Bigger can now, with his near last words, call Jan by his first name, deliberately addressing him both as a human being and as a personal friend.