Trudier Harris is a distinguished critic of African American literature, with books about Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and others and a memoir of growing up in Tuscaloosa’s West End, “Summer Snow.” She was invited by Henry Louis Gates to contribute a volume of biography to Yale University’s Black Lives Series, which treats such figures as John Lewis and Isaac Murphy, a famous black jockey.
Harris asked instead to write a biography not of a flesh and blood human but of a literary character—the protagonist of Richard Wright’s sensational 1940 blockbuster, “Native Son.” The resulting book, “Bigger,” a scholarly but perfectly readable study, accomplishes a number of different things.
It is a kind of biography of Wright himself, his formative years under Jim Crow and his experiences in the ghetto of South Chicago in the ’30s. This also describe Bigger’s youth. Bigger has received little education, lives in a crowded “kitchenette” apartment, has little access to any attractive work. Wright, through superhuman determination, became a writer and a dedicated Communist. Bigger, in his frustration, becomes a small-time thief, and then, 20 years old, takes a job as chauffeur/handyman for the rich Dalton family.
This “lucky break “ becomes deeply problematical for Bigger. Readers of “Native Son” know well that in a panic, Bigger smothers Mary, the Dalton daughter, to death, burns her body in the coal furnace, attempts a clumsy kidnapping plot and then rapes and murders his girlfriend, Bessie, when she falters in helping him with his scheme.
Bigger’s life in the book ends, but the many different responses to that fictional life, over 85 years, become Harris’ subject. To many, “Native Son” is a protest novel, written for a white audience and meant to arouse consciences and bring about societal change. Some readers see Bigger’s acts and his lack of remorse as heroic; he is unrepentant. Others ask if this portrayal plays into bigotry, Blacks as semi-human. They ask, Is this good for the cause, as some rabbis asked if “Goodbye, Columbus” was “ good for the Jews.”
Mary Dalton and her boyfriend, Jan, are self-conscious liberals. At one point in Jan’s car, they insist Bigger ride in the front seat with them and later sit with them in a restaurant. Bigger is confused and angry. Were their actions wrong? Bigger, working in the Daltons’ home, seems to lust after Mary, the white icon. Does this not play into old stereotypes?
He abuses and kills Bessie, treating her with no more humanity than has been shown him all his life. Feminist critics accuse Bigger and Wright of serious misogyny. Black readers in the ’60s felt Bigger should have turned away from white society altogether, and partaken of his folk, African or religious heritage.
The discussion of this powerful personality, although fictional, shows no sign of abating.
