I guess I'll get the ball rolling on this one since it is my pick. First, I hate books without chapters. I don't have time to just sit and read 100 pages at a time, but without a chapter ending I always feel as though I'm putting the book down in the middle of something!
I chose this book because it is on a lot of "100 best books" type of lists, including "The Book of Great Books". "Great Books" gives summaries, character descriptions, author biographies, main themes and symbols and critical overviews of the books listed. Sort of a cheatsheet, but great when you are trying to remember which character came from which book, etc. My problem is that apparently I am rather a dense reader because I don't pick up on half the symbols and themes. For example, the first "main symbol" listed is the black rat: "Symbolizes the poverty, death and decay in which Bigger and his family live. Bigger's killing of the rat foreshadows (a) Bigger's capacity for violence and his killing of the two women, and (b) Bigger's predicament at the end of Book 2 when, cornered by police, he feels like a terrified rat." So, I got that the rat symbolized poverty and that Bigger killing it showed his violence, but the rest of it? Not so much. It's a good thing I have a cheatsheet.
Here are some things I have noticed so far, all from Book I:
On p 14 of my copy, Bigger is thinking about robbing Blum's store and thinks: "They had always robbed Negroes. They felt that it was much easier and safer to rob their own people, for they knew that white policemen never really searched diligently for Negroes who committed crimes against other Negroes." It bothered me to think that they were using a system of oppression to their own advantage by taking advantage of people like themselves. This seems especially harsh to me.
P. 37 my copy: "And rich white people were not so hard on Negroes; it was the poor whites who hated Negroes. They hated Negroes because they didn't have their share of the money." This gets to a point that I was just reading in Angelou's "Caged Bird" about how people who are oppressed in one way do not seem to have any sympathy for other groups who are oppressed. She was talking about how the African American community did not feel any sympathy for the Japanese-Americans who were interned during WWII, even though they were both suffering at the hands of the white majority population. You would think that poor whites would be kinder to poor Blacks because they share the burden of poverty and yet it seems to only alienate them more. Also, it seems as though the rich people are actually worse because they are the ones controlling the country in which this racial discrimination is institutionalized. Is this less apparent because it is not as personal on a day-to-day basis?
P. 46: "At least the fight had made him feel equal of them. And he felt the equal of Doc, too; had he not slashed his table and dared him to use his gun?" I don't understand how violence=equality? Do you think this is a male thing or that women feel this way as well? This is an issue I've thought about in the Anita Blake books because Anita is powerful based on the fact that she is violent. Since she is a small woman, she feels more equal because she has (and is good with) big guns. I have to say that on a paintball field I feel more equal with a faster, more powerful (semiautomoatic) paintball gun...
I was also struck by the juxtaposition of being considered an outsider and then being told to be at home when Peggy, in the same conversation with Bigger, refers to Blacks as "your people" and then tells him that it is more than a job that he's got: "It's just like home". Really? I think peggy is full of shite.
I'm a bit past halfway through Native Son now, and though it moves right along with no silly breaks for starting and stopping chapters, I often find myself thinking "Man, let's hurry this up a little." Lots of time spent describing how worked up and jumpy Bigger is. Also, the lack of chapters kind of makes me feel a little frazzled, much as I think Bigger is feeling at this point in the book, sleep deprived and nervous.
I can see the correlation between Bigger cornering the rat and his being cornered in the basement by Britten (several times now). I guess there will be another more serious confrontation coming. Would I have picked up on it without reading your comment? Who knows.
I had marked that same comment about poor whites acting worse towards blacks. It reminded me a short story from the book you sent me, Revelation by Flannery O'Connor. The other point you made was also illustrated in the Maus graphic novels (I mention them often, they were very good and I do recommend them if you have a few hours to kill). The son of a Holocaust survivor is dumbfounded when his father shows the same discrimination towards blacks that was inflicted onto him by the Nazis. You would think that the opposite would be true.
I do like Bigger's insight on blindness, how most people don't even see you as long as you act close to the way society expects you to. Reminds me of Mary Poppins: people can't see past the end of their own noses.
Going out on a limb here, I assume that Bigger's next victim will be Bessie, and that is how the police will make the connection between him and Mary's disappearance.
Some other things I want to comment on but am not sure how integral to the story they are: -Vera's hyper-sensitivity, especially to Bigger. Do you think he abused her? -Irony of Dalton giving $ to black schools that he earned in rent from dingy, rat-infested apartments. -Bigger feeling that the Daltons were making fun of him when their intentions were benevolence. - Britten's questions to Peggy re Bigger's attitude (e.g. "When he talks, does he wave his hands around a lot, like he's been around a lot of Jews?" srsly, WTF Britten?)
Here's the quotation from Revelation that I was thinking about. I'll abbreviate one word as just "N" for my own comfort. Don't want to pull a Dr. Laura here.
The scene: Mrs. Turpin is in a doctor's waiting room with a "pleasant lady" and a "white trash" family.
"Sometimes at night when she couldn't go to sleep, Mrs. Turpin would occupy herself with the question of who she would have chosen to be if she couldn't have been herself. If Jesus had said to her before he made her, " There's only two places available for you. You can either be a N or white trash," what would she have said? "Please, Jesus, please," she would have said, "just let me wait until there's another place available," and he would have said, "No, You have to go right now and I have only those two places so make up your mind." She would have wiggled and squirmed and begged and pleaded but it would have been no use and finally she would have said, "All right, make me a N then - but that don't mean a trashy one." And he would have made her a neat clean respectable Negro woman, herself but black."
Later, in the same office, Mrs. Turpin comments on her day laborers:
" "I sure am tired of buttering up Ns, but you got to love em if you want em to work for you. When they come in the morning, I run out and I say 'Hi yawl this morning?' and when Claud drives them off to the field I just wave to beat the band and they just wave back," and she waved her hand rapidly to illustrate. "Like you read out of the same book," the lady said, showing she understood perfectly. "Child, yes," Mrs. Turpin said. "And when they come in from the field I run out with a bucket of ice water. That's the way it's going to be from now on," she said. "You may as well face it." "One thang I know," the white trash woman said. "Two thangs I ain't going to do: love no Ns or scoot down no hogs with no hose." And she let out a bark of contempt."
Okay, since you seem to really like the Maus graphic novels, I've added them to my booklist. So far your recommendations have been better than your book club picks... :-)
But about this book. (If you haven't read halfway then you might want to skip reading this post as I give away some of the plot) I agree that the feelings of Bigger do get repetitive after a while. Do you think this is intentional, in order to show how Bigger is dominated by feelings of fear and aggression? Or is it just redundant?
I hadn't made the connection to that passage in "Revelation", it is an excellent point. I'm glad you made mention of it.
I have been assuming that Peggy is the other victim of Bigger, but now I am starting to wonder about Bessy. I think I'll stick with Peggy for my official guess, though. I don't think Bigger has abused Vera, my feeling was that she was just hypersensitive due to her situation as a black woman- the very bottom of the oppression totem pole.
I do feel bad for Mary, I think she really did like Bigger and sincerely wanted to be his friend. On the other hand, she went about it really naively. The Dalton's just seem really ignorant in general. Do they even know that they own slum properties in Black neighborhoods or are they so wrapped up in their protective bubble that they just don't know? And which is worse- willful ignorance or knowledgable hypocrasy?
I find it amazing how quickly Bigger's guilt about killing Mary turns to feelings of power and control. He feels he has power over the whites because he "bested" them but also over the Blacks.
Another thing I find interesting is the way that Bigger is so anxious to bind Bessie to him, even though he doesn't seem to value her very much as a person. Even before he tries to involve her in the ransom scheme, he tries to bind her to him through fear and by giving her the money he took off Mary. Why is this so important to him? If he feels so important and powerful now, why does he need Bessie?
Finally, on p 196 of my copy, "He felt that if Jan continued to stand there and make him feel this awful sense of guilt, he would have to shoot him in spite of himself." Ah, the power of guilt.
I had a lot of air-travel reading time the last couple of days, so I've finished Native Son and am about 100 pages into The Girl With No Shadow. At the same time I've also been reading the Andy Carpenter series, which are legal thrillers set mostly in courtrooms or lawyers' offices. The modern legal books are pretty much, from my own humble experiences, pretty representative of our current legal process. Juxtaposed with Native Son, you can see how massively unfair his trial was. That difference is what struck me the most about the book. Also, the cops taking him back to Mary's bedroom and wanting him to recreate the crime for the reporters. Holy crap, how unethical!!
The other section that left a lasting impression on me was very inconsequential to the plot, but seemed like it should have been included more in Max's closing argument. It started on page 38 in my copy: "I'll tell 'im you make us live in such crowded conditions on the South Side that one out of every 10 of us is insane! I'll tell 'im that you dump all the stale food into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere else! I'll tell 'im you tax us, but you won't build hospitals! I'll tell 'im the schools are so crowded that they breed perverts!"
Other striking scenes for me: Bigger and Gus playing "white." Bigger watching the kids watching their parents have sex.
I can see why Bigger turns to Bessie. Even though he's full of pride, power, confidence, etc about killing Mary, he can't tell anyone, no one's opinion of him has changed. Deep down he wants someone to respect and fear him, the way he had the whites his entire life. The way he treats Gus in their quarrel shows it too.
Mr. Dalton reminds me a LOT of Kenny(?) the doctor from Nectar in a Sieve. Sees the injustice, knows something must be done, wants to help, but is painfully unaware of how best to help, and how deep he situation really goes.
Mary I see as just naive. While she sympathizes, she doesn't empathize. Probably she is unable to do so. Because she knows her intentions are well meaning, she doesn't see how uncomfortable they make Bigger, or how her actions are perceived by others, especially by others who are black. I think Wright did an excellent job portraying Mary. She's young and wrapped up in puppy love, she's entitled, she's careless, but she does have good intentions - just too self absorbed like most people are at that age.
Changing direction for a moment, how awful that just thinking about raping a white woman and accidentally killing her is much worse (in punishment, guilt, fear) than actually raping and intentionally killing a black one. Especially given how quickly and painlessly Mary died compared with Bessie. Do you think as a society we have moved past that point?
In the end, do you think Bigger is a bit psychotic? Is it a direct result of his oppressed lifestyle? I am still on the fence. The last 2 pages have left me struggling to understand his true feelings, even though they were meant to explain them in full!
I just finished reading it this afternoon. I found the final part the most interesting since I really like legal dramas and because it really shows the amount of hatred between the two races. At the same time it also shows the connection between Max and Bigger, which makes for a nice juxtaposition.
My biggest impression from the last part is, like A., how unfair the trial was. Buckley was coercing the defendent, badgering the witnesses, and his opening and closing statements!!! My word. I also couldn't believe how little respect Max received considering that he's as much a lawyer as Buckley. I have to agree with Bigger, there was really no chance for him. I don't believe there was anything Max could do that would have prevented that judge from giving the death penalty. Really, in that climate, what choice did the judge have?
I agree, a little bit, that Mr. Dalton resembles Kenny, but I think Kenny really tried to understand. He at least immersed himself in the culture and community (at least for months at a time, until his wife recalled him) while attempting to help. Dalton seems to stay clear of the Black community except when he is donating ping pong tables or hiring young men to work in menial positions.
As far as the double standard for black and white women- I don't think we've really moved past that. For example, in the late 1990s (1998, I think) the rape/beating of the Central Park jogger (a young white professional woman) by a band of minority adolescents was all over the media as a heinous crime (which it was). However, that same summer there were 8 (or 9, I can't remember for sure) young Black women who were also beaten, raped, and a couple even died and yet they only merited small blurbs buried in the middle of the newspapers. Their crimes were just as terrible, if not more so, and yet almost no societal response or acknowledgement. Why? Because they were African-American, they were not professional women (code for poor), and the perpetrators were the same race. The press see nothing to report there.
Okay, off my bandwagon :-) and back to this book. I think Bigger was definitely psychotic through most of the book. He went through so many emotional phases that it made me dizzy.
Some other points that caught my attention: Several times reporters and others commented on the "primitive Negro who does want to be disturbed by white civilization." (p
BTW: What is our next selection- it is Joy's turn to choose, right?
This website doesn't like me. It kicks me off and then posts my comment three times. Sorry about that.
Other points, which I got booted before making: How the press and authorities immediately assume that it was a sex crime. Of course, once they found Bessie's body I can understand a little bit, but they had assumed sex crime before they ever found her body.
And I had to pick out one particular part of Buckley's statement which just made flinch, "I regret that the defense has raised the viperous issue of race and class hate in this trial. I sympathize with those whose hearts were pained, as mine was pained, when Mr. Max so cynically assailed our sacred customs." UGH! What an evil, evil man.
Finally, an amusing moment in all the darkness, when they are throwing tear gas canisters up on the water tower and Bigger keeps throwing them back down until one man finally says, "Stop it! ... He's throwing them back!" (p 309) Well, duh!
On a (somewhat) side note, I did a training on intersectionality in the Women's Studies department today and one of our pre-training readings was a breakdown of the Thomas confirmation hearings when Anita Hill brought forth his sexual harassment and was eviserated (sp?) by the press. It is a really interesting discussion of how both feminist and racial discourse failed her. Let me know if you would like a copy of it, you know, for some light reading on the side, and if you do then I'll send you the PDF.
I really just hate this book. I find myself dreading reading it. It is not because it isn't well written or that the story isn't interesting. It's that I hate Bigger. He is an abomination to human kind. I have never read a book where I have just outright disliked the character sooo much. With that said, I am still in the midst of part 2. Hopefully I will be able to finish it soon.
I have finished and well, yes, you 2 have discussed quite a bit.
I also did not like Bigger, who could or would? He was just plain mean. I don't know how he could not want to work to help out his mother, didn't care about his family, really not much about his friends, masturbates in the movie theater and slices up the pool guy's pool table?!? ANGER MANAGEMENT PLEASE! I guess I see enough of these kinds of kids at school that just have nothing and respect nothing, not even themselves.
I did like Max, he really wanted to help and did help, at least got Bigger thinking.
What I didn't get was the moms. Mrs. Dalton, finds her daughter drunk at 2 a.m. and just goes back to bed? Huh? And Bigger's mom visits him once while he's in jail?
And how come there wasn't a stench and I have to imagine there would be a LOT of blood when BIgger cuts off Mary's head. Ewwwww....
I predicted Bessie would be killed just because BIgger had to cover up his tracks but nearly is such a violent manner. And then to find out later that she wasn't really dead, how awful!
I was also fearful that while Bigger was trying to hide that he would kill someone else. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
M, we'll put this one on the depressing list.
My next pick is "The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak, perhaps another depressing one.
"Book Thief" is on my to-read list- I'm glad you picked it!
Okay, I mostly felt sorry for Bigger and couldn't bring myself to hate him. Afterall, he was trapped in a terrible situation. Sure he chose to act out his fear through violence, but what other choices did he have? Maybe he could have been a better person if he had had different opportunities or a different life.
I agree about the moms. I remember thinking the same thing about Mrs. Dalton when she discovered her daughter and then went back to bed. However, I understand why Bigger's mother didn't come back. He basically threw everything she believed in back in her face. What more could she do?
This definitely goes on the depressing list. I'll pick something happier next time. :-)
13 comments:
I guess I'll get the ball rolling on this one since it is my pick. First, I hate books without chapters. I don't have time to just sit and read 100 pages at a time, but without a chapter ending I always feel as though I'm putting the book down in the middle of something!
I chose this book because it is on a lot of "100 best books" type of lists, including "The Book of Great Books". "Great Books" gives summaries, character descriptions, author biographies, main themes and symbols and critical overviews of the books listed. Sort of a cheatsheet, but great when you are trying to remember which character came from which book, etc. My problem is that apparently I am rather a dense reader because I don't pick up on half the symbols and themes. For example, the first "main symbol" listed is the black rat: "Symbolizes the poverty, death and decay in which Bigger and his family live. Bigger's killing of the rat foreshadows (a) Bigger's capacity for violence and his killing of the two women, and (b) Bigger's predicament at the end of Book 2 when, cornered by police, he feels like a terrified rat." So, I got that the rat symbolized poverty and that Bigger killing it showed his violence, but the rest of it? Not so much. It's a good thing I have a cheatsheet.
Here are some things I have noticed so far, all from Book I:
On p 14 of my copy, Bigger is thinking about robbing Blum's store and thinks: "They had always robbed Negroes. They felt that it was much easier and safer to rob their own people, for they knew that white policemen never really searched diligently for Negroes who committed crimes against other Negroes." It bothered me to think that they were using a system of oppression to their own advantage by taking advantage of people like themselves. This seems especially harsh to me.
P. 37 my copy: "And rich white people were not so hard on Negroes; it was the poor whites who hated Negroes. They hated Negroes because they didn't have their share of the money." This gets to a point that I was just reading in Angelou's "Caged Bird" about how people who are oppressed in one way do not seem to have any sympathy for other groups who are oppressed. She was talking about how the African American community did not feel any sympathy for the Japanese-Americans who were interned during WWII, even though they were both suffering at the hands of the white majority population. You would think that poor whites would be kinder to poor Blacks because they share the burden of poverty and yet it seems to only alienate them more. Also, it seems as though the rich people are actually worse because they are the ones controlling the country in which this racial discrimination is institutionalized. Is this less apparent because it is not as personal on a day-to-day basis?
P. 46: "At least the fight had made him feel equal of them. And he felt the equal of Doc, too; had he not slashed his table and dared him to use his gun?" I don't understand how violence=equality? Do you think this is a male thing or that women feel this way as well? This is an issue I've thought about in the Anita Blake books because Anita is powerful based on the fact that she is violent. Since she is a small woman, she feels more equal because she has (and is good with) big guns. I have to say that on a paintball field I feel more equal with a faster, more powerful (semiautomoatic) paintball gun...
I was also struck by the juxtaposition of being considered an outsider and then being told to be at home when Peggy, in the same conversation with Bigger, refers to Blacks as "your people" and then tells him that it is more than a job that he's got: "It's just like home". Really? I think peggy is full of shite.
I'm a bit past halfway through Native Son now, and though it moves right along with no silly breaks for starting and stopping chapters, I often find myself thinking "Man, let's hurry this up a little." Lots of time spent describing how worked up and jumpy Bigger is. Also, the lack of chapters kind of makes me feel a little frazzled, much as I think Bigger is feeling at this point in the book, sleep deprived and nervous.
I can see the correlation between Bigger cornering the rat and his being cornered in the basement by Britten (several times now). I guess there will be another more serious confrontation coming. Would I have picked up on it without reading your comment? Who knows.
I had marked that same comment about poor whites acting worse towards blacks. It reminded me a short story from the book you sent me, Revelation by Flannery O'Connor. The other point you made was also illustrated in the Maus graphic novels (I mention them often, they were very good and I do recommend them if you have a few hours to kill). The son of a Holocaust survivor is dumbfounded when his father shows the same discrimination towards blacks that was inflicted onto him by the Nazis. You would think that the opposite would be true.
I do like Bigger's insight on blindness, how most people don't even see you as long as you act close to the way society expects you to. Reminds me of Mary Poppins: people can't see past the end of their own noses.
Going out on a limb here, I assume that Bigger's next victim will be Bessie, and that is how the police will make the connection between him and Mary's disappearance.
Some other things I want to comment on but am not sure how integral to the story they are:
-Vera's hyper-sensitivity, especially to Bigger. Do you think he abused her?
-Irony of Dalton giving $ to black schools that he earned in rent from dingy, rat-infested apartments.
-Bigger feeling that the Daltons were making fun of him when their intentions were benevolence.
- Britten's questions to Peggy re Bigger's attitude (e.g. "When he talks, does he wave his hands around a lot, like he's been around a lot of Jews?" srsly, WTF Britten?)
Here's the quotation from Revelation that I was thinking about. I'll abbreviate one word as just "N" for my own comfort. Don't want to pull a Dr. Laura here.
The scene: Mrs. Turpin is in a doctor's waiting room with a "pleasant lady" and a "white trash" family.
"Sometimes at night when she couldn't go to sleep, Mrs. Turpin would occupy herself with the question of who she would have chosen to be if she couldn't have been herself. If Jesus had said to her before he made her, " There's only two places available for you. You can either be a N or white trash," what would she have said? "Please, Jesus, please," she would have said, "just let me wait until there's another place available," and he would have said, "No, You have to go right now and I have only those two places so make up your mind." She would have wiggled and squirmed and begged and pleaded but it would have been no use and finally she would have said, "All right, make me a N then - but that don't mean a trashy one." And he would have made her a neat clean respectable Negro woman, herself but black."
Later, in the same office, Mrs. Turpin comments on her day laborers:
" "I sure am tired of buttering up Ns, but you got to love em if you want em to work for you. When they come in the morning, I run out and I say 'Hi yawl this morning?' and when Claud drives them off to the field I just wave to beat the band and they just wave back," and she waved her hand rapidly to illustrate.
"Like you read out of the same book," the lady said, showing she understood perfectly.
"Child, yes," Mrs. Turpin said. "And when they come in from the field I run out with a bucket of ice water. That's the way it's going to be from now on," she said. "You may as well face it."
"One thang I know," the white trash woman said. "Two thangs I ain't going to do: love no Ns or scoot down no hogs with no hose." And she let out a bark of contempt."
Okay, since you seem to really like the Maus graphic novels, I've added them to my booklist. So far your recommendations have been better than your book club picks... :-)
But about this book. (If you haven't read halfway then you might want to skip reading this post as I give away some of the plot) I agree that the feelings of Bigger do get repetitive after a while. Do you think this is intentional, in order to show how Bigger is dominated by feelings of fear and aggression? Or is it just redundant?
I hadn't made the connection to that passage in "Revelation", it is an excellent point. I'm glad you made mention of it.
I have been assuming that Peggy is the other victim of Bigger, but now I am starting to wonder about Bessy. I think I'll stick with Peggy for my official guess, though. I don't think Bigger has abused Vera, my feeling was that she was just hypersensitive due to her situation as a black woman- the very bottom of the oppression totem pole.
I do feel bad for Mary, I think she really did like Bigger and sincerely wanted to be his friend. On the other hand, she went about it really naively. The Dalton's just seem really ignorant in general. Do they even know that they own slum properties in Black neighborhoods or are they so wrapped up in their protective bubble that they just don't know? And which is worse- willful ignorance or knowledgable hypocrasy?
I find it amazing how quickly Bigger's guilt about killing Mary turns to feelings of power and control. He feels he has power over the whites because he "bested" them but also over the Blacks.
Another thing I find interesting is the way that Bigger is so anxious to bind Bessie to him, even though he doesn't seem to value her very much as a person. Even before he tries to involve her in the ransom scheme, he tries to bind her to him through fear and by giving her the money he took off Mary. Why is this so important to him? If he feels so important and powerful now, why does he need Bessie?
Finally, on p 196 of my copy, "He felt that if Jan continued to stand there and make him feel this awful sense of guilt, he would have to shoot him in spite of himself." Ah, the power of guilt.
I had a lot of air-travel reading time the last couple of days, so I've finished Native Son and am about 100 pages into The Girl With No Shadow. At the same time I've also been reading the Andy Carpenter series, which are legal thrillers set mostly in courtrooms or lawyers' offices. The modern legal books are pretty much, from my own humble experiences, pretty representative of our current legal process. Juxtaposed with Native Son, you can see how massively unfair his trial was. That difference is what struck me the most about the book. Also, the cops taking him back to Mary's bedroom and wanting him to recreate the crime for the reporters. Holy crap, how unethical!!
The other section that left a lasting impression on me was very inconsequential to the plot, but seemed like it should have been included more in Max's closing argument. It started on page 38 in my copy:
"I'll tell 'im you make us live in such crowded conditions on the South Side that one out of every 10 of us is insane! I'll tell 'im that you dump all the stale food into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere else! I'll tell 'im you tax us, but you won't build hospitals! I'll tell 'im the schools are so crowded that they breed perverts!"
Other striking scenes for me:
Bigger and Gus playing "white."
Bigger watching the kids watching their parents have sex.
I can see why Bigger turns to Bessie. Even though he's full of pride, power, confidence, etc about killing Mary, he can't tell anyone, no one's opinion of him has changed. Deep down he wants someone to respect and fear him, the way he had the whites his entire life. The way he treats Gus in their quarrel shows it too.
Mr. Dalton reminds me a LOT of Kenny(?) the doctor from Nectar in a Sieve. Sees the injustice, knows something must be done, wants to help, but is painfully unaware of how best to help, and how deep he situation really goes.
Mary I see as just naive. While she sympathizes, she doesn't empathize. Probably she is unable to do so. Because she knows her intentions are well meaning, she doesn't see how uncomfortable they make Bigger, or how her actions are perceived by others, especially by others who are black. I think Wright did an excellent job portraying Mary. She's young and wrapped up in puppy love, she's entitled, she's careless, but she does have good intentions - just too self absorbed like most people are at that age.
Changing direction for a moment, how awful that just thinking about raping a white woman and accidentally killing her is much worse (in punishment, guilt, fear) than actually raping and intentionally killing a black one. Especially given how quickly and painlessly Mary died compared with Bessie. Do you think as a society we have moved past that point?
In the end, do you think Bigger is a bit psychotic? Is it a direct result of his oppressed lifestyle? I am still on the fence. The last 2 pages have left me struggling to understand his true feelings, even though they were meant to explain them in full!
I just finished reading it this afternoon. I found the final part the most interesting since I really like legal dramas and because it really shows the amount of hatred between the two races. At the same time it also shows the connection between Max and Bigger, which makes for a nice juxtaposition.
My biggest impression from the last part is, like A., how unfair the trial was. Buckley was coercing the defendent, badgering the witnesses, and his opening and closing statements!!! My word. I also couldn't believe how little respect Max received considering that he's as much a lawyer as Buckley. I have to agree with Bigger, there was really no chance for him. I don't believe there was anything Max could do that would have prevented that judge from giving the death penalty. Really, in that climate, what choice did the judge have?
I agree, a little bit, that Mr. Dalton resembles Kenny, but I think Kenny really tried to understand. He at least immersed himself in the culture and community (at least for months at a time, until his wife recalled him) while attempting to help. Dalton seems to stay clear of the Black community except when he is donating ping pong tables or hiring young men to work in menial positions.
As far as the double standard for black and white women- I don't think we've really moved past that. For example, in the late 1990s (1998, I think) the rape/beating of the Central Park jogger (a young white professional woman) by a band of minority adolescents was all over the media as a heinous crime (which it was). However, that same summer there were 8 (or 9, I can't remember for sure) young Black women who were also beaten, raped, and a couple even died and yet they only merited small blurbs buried in the middle of the newspapers. Their crimes were just as terrible, if not more so, and yet almost no societal response or acknowledgement. Why? Because they were African-American, they were not professional women (code for poor), and the perpetrators were the same race. The press see nothing to report there.
Okay, off my bandwagon :-) and back to this book. I think Bigger was definitely psychotic through most of the book. He went through so many emotional phases that it made me dizzy.
Some other points that caught my attention:
Several times reporters and others commented on the "primitive Negro who does want to be disturbed by white civilization." (p
BTW: What is our next selection- it is Joy's turn to choose, right?
This website doesn't like me. It kicks me off and then posts my comment three times. Sorry about that.
Other points, which I got booted before making:
How the press and authorities immediately assume that it was a sex crime. Of course, once they found Bessie's body I can understand a little bit, but they had assumed sex crime before they ever found her body.
And I had to pick out one particular part of Buckley's statement which just made flinch, "I regret that the defense has raised the viperous issue of race and class hate in this trial. I sympathize with those whose hearts were pained, as mine was pained, when Mr. Max so cynically assailed our sacred customs." UGH! What an evil, evil man.
Finally, an amusing moment in all the darkness, when they are throwing tear gas canisters up on the water tower and Bigger keeps throwing them back down until one man finally says, "Stop it! ... He's throwing them back!" (p 309) Well, duh!
On a (somewhat) side note, I did a training on intersectionality in the Women's Studies department today and one of our pre-training readings was a breakdown of the Thomas confirmation hearings when Anita Hill brought forth his sexual harassment and was eviserated (sp?) by the press. It is a really interesting discussion of how both feminist and racial discourse failed her. Let me know if you would like a copy of it, you know, for some light reading on the side, and if you do then I'll send you the PDF.
Okay, you 2, just hold your horses. I'm about half way. Give me some time to catch up (I've got school starting on MONDAY!)
I really just hate this book. I find myself dreading reading it. It is not because it isn't well written or that the story isn't interesting. It's that I hate Bigger. He is an abomination to human kind. I have never read a book where I have just outright disliked the character sooo much. With that said, I am still in the midst of part 2. Hopefully I will be able to finish it soon.
I have finished and well, yes, you 2 have discussed quite a bit.
I also did not like Bigger, who could or would? He was just plain mean. I don't know how he could not want to work to help out his mother, didn't care about his family, really not much about his friends, masturbates in the movie theater and slices up the pool guy's pool table?!? ANGER MANAGEMENT PLEASE! I guess I see enough of these kinds of kids at school that just have nothing and respect nothing, not even themselves.
I did like Max, he really wanted to help and did help, at least got Bigger thinking.
What I didn't get was the moms. Mrs. Dalton, finds her daughter drunk at 2 a.m. and just goes back to bed? Huh? And Bigger's mom visits him once while he's in jail?
And how come there wasn't a stench and I have to imagine there would be a LOT of blood when BIgger cuts off Mary's head. Ewwwww....
I predicted Bessie would be killed just because BIgger had to cover up his tracks but nearly is such a violent manner. And then to find out later that she wasn't really dead, how awful!
I was also fearful that while Bigger was trying to hide that he would kill someone else. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
M, we'll put this one on the depressing list.
My next pick is "The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak, perhaps another depressing one.
"Book Thief" is on my to-read list- I'm glad you picked it!
Okay, I mostly felt sorry for Bigger and couldn't bring myself to hate him. Afterall, he was trapped in a terrible situation. Sure he chose to act out his fear through violence, but what other choices did he have? Maybe he could have been a better person if he had had different opportunities or a different life.
I agree about the moms. I remember thinking the same thing about Mrs. Dalton when she discovered her daughter and then went back to bed. However, I understand why Bigger's mother didn't come back. He basically threw everything she believed in back in her face. What more could she do?
This definitely goes on the depressing list. I'll pick something happier next time. :-)
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