It was then that he closed his eyes and struck out blindly, hitting what or whom he could, not looking or caring what or who hit back." "He had been so conditioned in a cramped environment that hard words or knocks alone knocked him upright or made him capable of action-action that was futile because the world was too much for him. never had his will been so free.") Wright seems to be saying that racial segregation could make a person not just depressed, bitter, angry, rebellious, militant, or despondent. "In all of his life these two murders were the most meaningful thing that had ever happened to him. He wanted suddenly to stand up and shout, telling them that he had killed a rich white girl." e.g.
And now that he had killed Mary he felt a lessening of tension in his muscles he had shed an invisible burden he had long carried" e.g. Mary had served to set off his emotions, emotions conditioned by many Marys. "It was not Mary he was reacting to when he felt that fear and shame. He sexually assaults Mary he feels sexualized misogynism towards Bessie, and rapes and murders her he plots to get ransom money for the woman he has already killed and hidden he experiences having murdered a white woman as catharsis for the racism the white world has shown towards him (e.g. The trouble is that Bigger is so malicious, and therefore the suggestion that racism made him what he was is so much harder to accept. Richard Wright wrote with the intention of telling readers "what had made and what he meant." His explanation would have been easier to grasp had he written a straightforward protest novel about an innocent victim. But if I look at the novel as a message, I do not know quite how to take it. The crux of the plot is a murder committed involuntarily by a young African American, Bigger Thomas, out of fear of being found with a young white woman, Mary, in her bedroom, and the prevailing psychological mood of resentment at racial injustice, segregation, hostility, and contempt is compelling. If I look at Native Son simply as a novel, it is a good one, inspired by Crime and Punishment, but set in the context of racial segregation in Depression-era Chicago.
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