Native Son

Bigger decides to keep his knife and gun when he goes to the Daltons as “it would make him feel that he was the equal of them” (48). As Bigger leaves, his mother gives him another quarter so he can buy dinner. Bigger walks, passing through the white neighborhood until he approaches the Dalton home. Feeling out of place, Bigger becomes afraid and angry and is no longer optimistic about the job. Finally, he rings the doorbell and Peggy, a white housekeeper, invites him inside to sit and wait. Bigger awkwardly tries to situate himself in the chair and Mr. Dalton enters, “gazing at him with an amused smile that made him conscious of every square inch of skin on his black body” (52). As Bigger follows Mr. Dalton, he sees Mrs. Dalton, a pale, ghostly white woman followed by a white cat. Bigger backs out of her path as she feels her way around, realizing that she is blind. Mr. Dalton confirms this, adding, “She has a very deep interest in colored people” (53). Nervously, Bigger fumbles and affects a deferent posture, simultaneously hating himself for it. Mr. Dalton pets the cat, whose name is Kate.

Mr. Dalton questions Bigger about his family and their living situation. He tells Bigger that the relief workers had said Bigger was as a hard worker when he found the work interesting but also that he had been in trouble and gone to reform school. Bigger insists that he had been falsely accused of stealing. Dalton offers Bigger $25 per week as well as room and board to be the family’s driver. Dalton explains that this is $5 more than the minimum so he can keep it and give the remaining $20 to his family. It involves driving every morning except Sundays when the family sleeps until noon. Bigger accepts the job, which consists mainly of driving Mr. Dalton to work and Mary to the university. Mary enters cheerfully. Bigger recognizes her from the newsreel and is immediately uncomfortable having looked at her. Mr. Dalton introduces Bigger, and Mary immediately begins asking him whether he belongs to a union to Mr. Dalton’s chagrin. Bigger feels awkward and angry at Mary, worried that she will cause him to be fired.

Mary teases her father by calling him “Mr. Capitalist,” asking, “Isn’t he a capitalist, Bigger?” (59) Bigger is embarrassed. Mary requests that he drive her to campus tonight. She leaves, carrying the cat. Bigger wishes vehemently that Mary hadn’t brought up unions, which Bigger associates with communism. Mr. Dalton informs Bigger that he’s hiring him because he supports the NAACP, which Bigger has never heard of. Mr. Dalton calls for Peggy and directs her to feed him dinner and show him his room before he drives Mary to the university that evening. In the kitchen, Peggy makes bacon and eggs for Bigger and shows him the furnace. It will also be his job to maintain and stoke the fire. Peggy explains that the last Black man who had driven for them had stayed for ten years. Mrs. Dalton had made him take classes and he had left for a government job.

Peggy, who has served the family for twenty years, insists that they’re very grounded for millionaires, informing Bigger that Mr. Dalton had donated over five million dollars to Black schools. Peggy, who is Irish, feels that she understands what it’s like to be Black, noting that the Daltons hadn’t just employed her but accepted her like family, and she has known Mary since she was only two years old. Peggy shows Bigger his room, leaving him to entertain himself until it is time to drive Mary at 8:30. Bigger marvels at the idea of having his own room and bed where he can have privacy. Bigger is glad to have the job but worries that Mary might ruin it. Unlike other white women Bigger has met, Mary treats him with familiarity. Bigger resolves that he will have to become accustomed to her. Curious about the car, Bigger decides to go to the kitchen for some water and then go to the garage.

Unconsciously, Bigger walks quietly and tentatively. He’s surprised to find Mrs. Dalton in the kitchen and tries to sneak away but she hears him and tells him to come in. As Bigger drinks a glass of water, Mrs. Dalton asks him about going back to school, but Bigger isn’t interested. Bigger is unsettled by her, feeling judged and as if she is trying to convince him to go to school because she thinks he should want to go. In the garage, Bigger pulls the car into the driveway. Mary comes out and waits for Bigger to open her door before getting in. Bigger drives toward the university, but Mary directs him to make a detour. Mary thinks for a moment and carefully asks, “You’re not a tattle-tale, are you?” (72). She wants Bigger to take her elsewhere but pretend that they had gone to the university. Knowingly, Mary says, “I’m going to meet a friend of mine who’s also a friend of yours” (73).

Bigger worries that Mary is taking him to meet communists and that he might end up in trouble with Mr. Dalton. Nervously, he decides to do what she says and follow’s Mary’s directions. She gets out of the car and returns with the man from the newsreel, who Mary introduces as Jan Erlone. Jan shakes Bigger’s hand and holds it firmly. He directs Bigger to treat him as an equal, calling him by his name instead of sir. Mary agrees, and Bigger’s anger boils up. Bigger feels uncomfortable and self-conscious, wondering why Mary and Jan are treating him like this and wishing they wouldn’t because “they made him feel his Black skin just by standing there looking at him” (76). This feeling makes Bigger hate them. Jan wants to drive, and Mary urges Bigger to let him and move to the center so she can sit up front in the passenger seat. Squeezed between them, Bigger is unable to avoid touching her and Mary’s closeness makes him feel awkward and afraid to move.

Jan and Mary want to eat at a South Side restaurant, but it must be “one of those places where colored people eat, not one of those show places” (78) and insist that Bigger make a recommendation. He does, knowing that his friends would mock him if they saw him. Touching his arm, Mary exclaims that she has wished for a long time that she could go into a Black home and see what their lives are like. She explains, “Never in my life have I been inside of a Negro home. Yet they must live like we live. They’re human… There are twelve million of them” (79). Feeling exposed and miserable, Bigger wishes that he could end all their lives. At the restaurant, Bigger is horrified when Mary insists that he eat with them. Bigger resists, but they badger him, and he finally agrees angrily. Hearing the fury in his voice, Mary begins to cry, asserting, “We’re not trying to make you feel badly” (82). Dismayed, Bigger goes in with them.

Inside, Jan orders fried chicken and beer for all three of them. Bigger spots Jack, who waves at him while gawking at the white couple. Bessie, Bigger’s girlfriend, approaches him then rushes away when she sees Jan and Mary. Bigger can barely eat, but Jan orders a bottle of rum which makes Bigger feel looser. Jan questions Bigger about his life and learns that Bigger is from Mississippi and dropped out of school in eighth grade. His father was killed in a riot when Bigger was a child. Jan explains that he is a member of the Communist Party and Mary is a sympathizer, and they were fighting for racial equality. Jan mentions the Scottsboro Boys, nine young Black men who had been falsely accused of raping two white women. The Communist Party had taken over their defense and kept them from execution. Mary and Jan insist that they want to be Bigger’s friend. The alcohol makes Bigger feel more confident.

Jan suggests that they ought to leave, and Mary informs Bigger that she’s traveling to Detroit in the morning and will need him to take her trunk to the train station. With Bigger in the driver’s seat, Mary and Jan cuddle in the back. Jan tells her that three people, including two Black women, have been arrested and Mary offers to pay their $3000 bail. Mary announces that when she graduates in the spring, she plans to join the Party. She insists that she wants “to work among the Negroes” (87) because oppression makes her feel angry and powerless. Mary also wants to meet more Black people, romanticizing them as having “so much emotion!” Jan doesn’t have any close Black friends but promises that there are many involved in the Party. Mary starts to sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and Jan sings along. She urges Bigger to join, but he demurs, thinking, “Hell, that ain’t the tune” (88). Jan and Mary drink more rum, offering it to Bigger who also drinks more.

The couple proceeds to get drunk and Bigger drives, trying to resist arousal as they lay down in the backseat, possibly having sex. At one in the morning, Mary says that they need to go home, promising to call Jan before leaving for Detroit. Jan gets out of the car, handing Bigger a handful of pamphlets. Bigger drives Mary home. She is drunk and flirty, resting her head on his shoulder and laughing when she catches him looking at her exposed thighs. Mary is unsteady on her feet, so Bigger helps her to her room, knowing that it would be dangerous if he were caught alone with her. Mary leans into Bigger. He is thrilled and terrified, intoxicated by her smell and the feel of her body against him, even as he despises her. Mary is nearly unconscious, so Bigger picks her up and carries her to the room she indicates as hers by rolling her eyes. Drunkenly, Mary kisses Bigger and he kisses her back, laying her on the bed. Suddenly, Bigger hears the door open and is gripped with fear. Mrs. Dalton calls out to Mary and Bigger panics that Mary will say something that lets her mother know that Bigger is there.

Bigger covers Mary’s mouth with the pillow, pushing when she begins to struggle, scratching his hands. She stops fighting, and Mrs. Dalton continues to call her name in concern. Then Mrs. Dalton realizes with disgust that Mary is drunk. Bigger watches breathlessly as Mrs. Dalton kneels and prays at her daughter’s bedside and then leaves. Turning to Mary, Bigger discovers with horror that she isn’t breathing. Mary is dead. Bigger panics. He needs to run. He concocts a story that will lay the blame on Jan, remembering that the family sleeps until noon on Sundays and hoping that her planned trip to Detroit will delay the discovery that she is missing. Bigger will claim that he left Mary and Jan in the car, kissing, and gone to bed, praying that her wild reputation and known association with communists will shift focus away from him.

Bigger doesn’t want to touch her but lifts Mary’s body and forces her into the trunk she had asked him to take to the station. He carries it downstairs and decides to put her in the furnace fire, but she won’t fit. He spots the cat and for a brief, wild moment, wonders if he ought to kill the cat, too. Desperately, Bigger takes out his knife and tries to cut off her head, using a hatchet to finish the job, adding her head and the hatchet to the fire. He hides her body underneath the burning coal. Bigger plans to take the trunk to the train station as originally planned. It’s beginning to snow. He scans for evidence and finds Mary’s purse in the car, from which Bigger pockets a large roll of money. Deliberately leaving the car door open, Bigger walks away, heading home to his family’s one-room apartment. Bigger hides his gun under his pillow and thinks, “They can’t say I did it. If they do, they can’t prove it” (108), and climbs into the bed he shares with his brother.