White Biggers, too, were as cut off from nurturing communal values and as emotionally ravaged by a gnawing sense of alienation as the black Biggers who had impressed themselves on Wright’s imagination. These men (Wright seems never to have conceived of Bigger in female terms) saw in a garish light the failure of their society, its cultural and political ideals and promises, and refused to accept the compromises that most individuals make for simple self-preservation.
