Native Son

by Richard Wright

“I could fly one of them things if I had a chance,” Bigger mumbled reflectively, as though talking to himself.

“If you wasn’t black and if you had some money and if they’d let you go to that aviation school, you could fly a plane,” Gus said.

he had struck him really before he was conscious of doing so. “Don’t hurt ’im,” Jack said. “I’ll kill ’im,” Bigger said through shut teeth, tightening his hold on Gus’s collar, choking him harder.

At least the fight made him feel the equal of them. And he felt the equal of Doc, too; had he not slashed his table and dared him to use his gun?

“Jesus,” he breathed. “I laughed so hard I cried.”

That was the way he lived; he passed his days trying to defeat or gratify powerful impulses in a world he feared.

He had a keen sense of power when driving; the feel of a car added something to him. He loved to press his foot against a pedal and sail along, watching others stand still, seeing the asphalt road unwind under him.

And she had said that she was going to meet someone who was a friend of his. He didn’t want to meet any Communists. They didn’t have any money. He felt that it was all right for a man to go to jail for robbery, but to go to jail for fooling around with Reds was bunk.

Bigger heard her sob softly. Good God! He had a wild impulse to turn around and walk away.

The way he had acted had made her cry, and yet the way she had acted had made him feel that he had to act as he had toward her. In his relations with her he felt that he was riding a seesaw; never were they on a common level; either he or she was up in the air.

The rum’s soft heat was spreading fanwise out from his stomach, engulfing his whole body. He was not driving; he was simply sitting and floating along smoothly through darkness.

He smelt food cooking and remembered that one could not smell food cooking in Dalton’s home; pots could not be heard rattling all over the house. Each person lived in one room and had a little world of his own.

There was only one thing that worried him; he had to get that lingering image of Mary’s bloody head lying on those newspapers from before his eyes.

Gee, what a fool she was, he thought, remembering how Mary had acted. Carrying on that way! Hell, she made me do it! I couldn’t help it! She should’ve known better!

He did not feel sorry for Mary; she was not real to him, not a human being;

He felt that his murder of her was more than amply justified by the fear and shame she had made him feel.

And yet he knew he had a certain protection; he knew that a certain element of shame would keep Mrs. Dalton from asking him too much and letting him know that she was worried. He was a boy and she was an old woman. He was the hired and she was the hirer. And there was a certain distance to be kept between them.

But of the whole business there was one angle that bothered him; he should have gotten more money out of it; he should have planned it.

She was teasing him and he liked it. At least it took him away from that terrible image of Mary’s head lying on the bloody newspaper.

being willingly dragged into a warm night sea to rise renewed to the surface to face a world he hated and wanted to blot out of existence,

and when she did get off she wanted fun, hard and fast fun, something to make her feel that she was making up for the starved life she led. It was her hankering for sensation that he liked about her. Most nights she was too tired to go out; she only wanted to get drunk. She wanted liquor and he wanted her.

He suddenly felt she would come closer to him if he made her feel that he was in danger. That’s it! Make her feel concerned about him.

In one way, he hated to tell her, because he wanted to keep her guessing. He wanted to take as long as possible in order to see that look of complete absorption upon her face. It made him feel alive and gave him a heightened sense of the value of himself.

he could tell by the way she looked that if he pushed her hard enough she would come in with him. She was afraid and he could handle her through her fear.

He was enjoying her agony, seeing and feeling the worth of himself in her bewildered desperation.

The moment when he had stood above Mary’s bed and found that she was dead the fear of electrocution had entered his flesh and blood. But at home at the breakfast table with his mother and sister and brother, seeing how blind they were; and overhearing Peggy and Mrs. Dalton talking in the kitchen, a new feeling had been born in him, a feeling that all but blotted out the fear of death.

She would be his; her fear of capture and death would bind her to him with all the strength of her life; even as what he had done last night had bound him to this new path with all the strength of his own life.

When he reached the driveway the snow was falling so thickly that he could not see ten feet in front of him.

They wanted him to draw the picture and he would draw it like he wanted it. He was trembling with excitement. In the past had they not always drawn the picture for him?

queer sense of power. He had done this. He had brought all this about. In all of his life these two murders were the most meaningful things that had ever happened to him. He was living, truly and deeply, no matter what others might think, looking at him with their blind eyes.

It was when he read the newspapers or magazines, went to the movies, or walked along the streets with crowds, that he felt what he wanted: to merge himself with others and be a part of this world, to lose himself in it so he could find himself,

He was not so much in a stupor, as in the grip of a deep physiological resolution not to react to anything.

the dark face of the waters from which he had been first made in the image of a man with a man’s obscure need and urge;

but that they were determined to make his death mean more than a mere punishment; that they regarded him as a figment of that black world which they feared and were anxious to keep under control.

He seemed out of place in a white man’s civilization.

He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer.

I see no way out of this but a plea of guilty. We can ask for mercy, for life in prison. . . .” “I’d rather die!” “Nonsense. You want to live.”

“You didn’t mind selling your vote?” “Naw; why should I?” “You didn’t think politics could get you anything?” “It got me five dollars on election day.”

But was this true? He wanted to believe, but was afraid. Dare he flatter himself that much? Would he be struck dead if he made himself the equal of others, even in fancy?

He would not mind dying now if he could only find out what this meant, what he was in relation to all the others that lived, and the earth upon which he stood.

Was not his old hate a better defense than this agonized uncertainty? Was not an impossible hope betraying him to this end?

the mental and emotional attitude of this boy, to show the degree of responsibility he had in these crimes.

Also, I want to offer evidence as to the youth of this boy.

But, after he murdered, he accepted the crime. And that’s the important thing. It was the first full act of his life; it was the most meaningful, exciting and stirring thing that had ever happened to him.

No! Such a foolish policy has never worked and never will. The more you kill, the more you deny and separate, the more will they seek another form and way of life, however blindly and unconsciously.

When we said that men are ‘endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ we did not pause to define ‘happiness.’ That is the unexpressed quality in our quest,

Have we had to struggle so hard for our right to happiness that we have all but destroyed the conditions under which we and others can still be happy?

“Your Honor, this Court and those troops are not the real agencies that keep the public peace. Their mere presence is proof that we are letting peace slip through our fingers.

no matter what the hour, then opened them at some later time to resume his brooding. He wanted to be free of everything that stood between him and his end, him and the full and terrible realization that life was over without meaning, without anything being settled, without conflicting impulses being resolved.

He spoke hurriedly, as though trying to mold a substance which was warm and pliable, but which might soon cool.