Native Son Shards of a Man Bigger

¶ … Native Son Shards of a Man Bigger Thomas was born from the recesses of the experience of Richard Wright, all throughout the varying stages of his life. The author encountered a number of individuals, beginning with his childhood in Mississippi, who were decidedly countercultural as well as antisocial, who thought only to do whatsoever they pleased, and who were fated to live with the consequences, whatsoever those may be.

Oftentimes, these Bigger Thomas's who White would eventually base the protagonist in his novel Native Son upon, were African-American, and were reviled by and rebelled against the Jim Crow system that disenfranchised them. Later in the author's life, particularly when he spent some time in Chicago, he would contend that he met other Bigger Thomas's; these latter of which happened to be of a Caucasian nationality.

Wright was able to make a composite for his protagonist out of all the Bigger Thomas's that he experienced throughout his life, in order to make the powerful statement that he does about the state of social and economic power and its lack of equity in the United States within Native Son. The spirit that animated nearly all of the Bigger Thomas's that the author encountered was decidedly misanthropic, often times simply for the sake of being misanthropic.

Or rather, this spirit was invoked because of a sense of isolation and despair caused by being rendered virtually impotent by a harsh, uncaring American society that would afford no positive consequences for these young men, such as Bigger No. 1, the childhood bully.

This individual was only pleased when he was bullying others and spoiling their fun -- for the simple fact that doing so was the only time in which he was able to exercise any sense of authority and not be oppressed himself by the world-- in the form of the United States. This sense of disenfranchisement certainly was embodied by Bigger Thomas No. 2, who never abided by the rules of enfranchised Caucasian people, who bought food on credit and never paid and rented housing and never paid for it.

This bigger justified such behavior by explaining to the author that he refused to partake of the social and economic system proffered by such Caucasians because he had absolutely nothing and they had everything that he did not. Significantly, the progressions of Biggers appeared to get worse and worse, as bigger No. 3 had a penchant for walking into movies for free and engaging in other subversive behavior, such as transporting liquor during the country's prohibition period.

Another commonality shared between all of these young men was the tragic endings of their lives. Bigger No. 3 was murdered, Bigger No. 4 was locked in an insane asylum, other Biggers the author does not known the particulars.