Black, White, and NATIVE SON

I finished reading Richard Wright's NATIVE SON today, and am having mixed feelings about it. The book itself is fantastic. Wright's first novel is filled with powerful imagery and has a powerful message about race and crime in America. But what is that message? At first, I thought this novel was going to be pretty didactic--a cut and dried tale of the evils of white supremacy in 1940's USA. But Wright throws readers a curve ball...his protagonist Bigger Thomas isn't a likable lad. He's a cold blooded killing machine, a murderer with little conscience. He kills a young white woman (by accident) after a series of events lead him to her bedroom. Afraid he's going to be accused of raping her (she's drunk, he was her driver for the evening) Thomas kills her. Now I could see, in the circumstances (too complex to get into, just read the book) how this slaying could have happened. So let's say you accidentally kill someone, what do you do? You fess up to it, fast right? Well if you're black and it's the 1940s you can bet that killing a white woman is going to get you killed--accident or not. So what do you do then? Me, I'd have gotten the hell out of town. This guy takes her boy and stuffs it feet first into the furnace in the basement. When she's too tall to fit all the way in HE CUTS HER FREAKIN' HEAD OFF!!! Riiiiight.

So Wright has this guy, not a bad guy (per say) just a victim of his environment, who accidentally kills this woman...then he goes off the deep end. Killing empowers Thomas, who up till that point has been oppressed by white society. Empowered by his crime, Thomas tries to extort money from the dead girl's family. He writes a ransom letter demanding $10,000 for her safe return. When his plans turn to shit (as they often do for new criminals) Thomas goes on the lamb...while he's fleeing the law he rapes and then brutally kills his girlfriend (she could talk and land him in prison). This guy is sick. He kills once by accident and then again on purpose. He kills two defenseless women, one white and one black. As I read NATIVE SON I wanted Thomas to get caught...but then he's captured and the lawyers and police are horribly corrupt/racist people (who you really don't want to root for).

In the end, NATIVE SON's only decent characters are the people who come to defend Thomas at his trial. His first victim's Communist boyfriend (Jan) snaps out of his delusions of "understanding" and realizes that he's been ignorant the whole time about blacks and their plight. In a super human act (is it believable?) of forgiveness, Jan and his Red friends hire Thomas a pretty good defense lawyer (Max, a Jew who works for the Communist/Labor Union group Jan is affiliated with). I didn't really need my teacher to tell me that Wright was a Communist when he wrote NATIVE SON, because they're the closest thing to heroes in the novel. In 1940 people didn't portray them like that unless they too were a little Pinko. Max has a brilliant 10 page (maybe it was longer, maybe it was shorter...honestly I quit counting...it's long) monologue where he begs the court to spare Thomas on the grounds that he's black and as such oppressed and unable to adjust to society properly. Denied their whole lives, he argues, blacks are molded by whites to be downtrodden, living bleak/hopeless lives. Thomas, he argues, was lashing out with this crimes because it was the only way he COULD control his fate. Basically, he killed two people because it gave him a sense of control.

The black/white dynamic of Wright's novel is more complex than I was expecting. Thomas is a monster, there is never any doubt of that. At the end of the novel, facing imminent death, he tells his lawyer to tell his mother that his actions are "okay because I was right!" Thomas makes his peace with himself by convincing himself that his actions were somehow "just" and "right" because "I killed...and people only kill when they have too, when it's right" (something to that effect). I was left pondering many things once I'd turned the last page of the novel (which is always a good thing). Thomas was wrong to do what he did, but if he didn't live in poverty and had been allowed the same rights as whites he probably wouldn't have killed. There are several white characters who actively try to help the blacks and their plight, but all of them contribute to the problem more than they try to solve it (Thomas is given a job, a good one, by the man who owns his apartment building...which rents his family a one-room rat hole for twice what whites pay on the other side of town).

Wright's book will haunt me for a couple of reasons: one it's portrayal of an accidental monster chills me. Thomas was a budding criminal, but not a killer...he wasn't even desperate enough to kill yet, it was just an accident. Two: the deep racial problems this country claims to have "moved beyond" took place two generations ago...not nearly long enough for them to be resolved. Jim Crow is dead, but have we killed the hate inside our hearts and minds? No. And thirdly: the un-fulfilled promise of Communism. Wright eventually gave up on the Commies...I wish things had been different. Communism is a great idea on paper, a Utopia even. The notion of a racial/class(less)blind society is great. Too bad it won't ever happen, as the lawyer says in his speech to the court--an underclass is always needed. It was blacks, now it's Hispanics. Eventually I imagine the distinctions will be made at the genetic level (see GATTACA). Scary, thought provoking stuff. If you ever get around to it, read NATIVE SON.