Richard Wright’s Native son depicts an
experiment: he drops a subject into a situation and records and analyzes the
outcome. While many would agree that placing a human subject in as hostile a experiment as the one Bigger experiences is inhumane, Wright implies that we are doing just that:
creating the environment that forces people like Bigger into that cage.
Native son opens with a frantic scene in
which a rat is chased around a small room and eventually killed. The rat, when
cornered, “leaped at Bigger’s trouser-leg and snagged it in his teeth, hanging
on” (5). In it’s terror, the rat lashes out uselessly against the object that causes it fear. Even if the rat did not strike out it would have been
killed. Just by entering the room, the rat has no chance of escape. It's fate has been determined by the
fact that it is in the wrong place at the wrong time, which are events that are
completely out of the rat’s control. It did not know that it would be trapped
once it entered the room, and therefore cannot be blamed. Nor is the fear that
determines the rat’s fate the rat’s fault because this fear is due to societies’
predispositions, which the rat did not cause, so should not be
blamed for.
Likewise, unavoidable events trap Bigger Thomas into a room
with Mary Dalton, for which he is sentenced to death. Bigger instantly knows
that he will be accused of rape and any jury would find him guilty, and, “Frantically,
he caught the corner of a pillow and brought it to her lips. He had to stop her
from mumbling, or he would be caught” (85). Similar to the rat, Bigger
uselessly attempts to avoid his fate by stopping Mary Dalton from talking. Just
as the rat did not know it would be trapped once it enters the room, Bigger did
not know that Ms. Dalton would walk up the stairs to check on Mary. Also, societal
prejudices decide Bigger’s fate, so therefore he too should not be blamed for
his actions.
While the Thomas family may be blamed for killing the rat,
attempting to extinguish a perceived threat is a human nature, just as is
striking out when in fear. The true causes, then, are those stereotypes of
society, and the environmental factors that force a rat into a home, because
those are things that can be changed. Seen through this lenses, what should be improved
in Bigger’s case are the people’s prejudices and his environment.
Is making a literary experiment as inhumane as making an actual experiment from humans in real life? I think Wright wanted to explore that topic. I am curious about the stand point of the rat almost wrote my paper on it. When does Bigger lash out and fight back like the rat did? Bigger's killing of Mary is an accident. Is it his acceptance of his murder that is considered the attack?
ReplyDeleteNice post! I really liked the connection that you made between the rat and Bigger, i hadn't thought about it that deeply. I definitely agree that just like the rat, Bigger is placed in an environment where he is already predestined to be cornered and trapped. This idea that the environment is the cause of Bigger's fear and actions is one i find really intriguing, and also it brings up the question of whether he is guilty or not. The idea that in society, Bigger was just as cornered as the rat also reinforces another one of the objects of Wright's protest which is that the environment should be targeted first rather than taking the approaches of Jan, Mary, and Mr.Dalton.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the comparison you drew here! I think the idea of being in the wrong place at the wrong time is quite compelling. I would even go further into say that it was the wrong place, at the wrong time, as the wrong being; in that if they were not who they were, their deaths would not have come. Reading this also made me think that their deaths were both brought by people who had decided that they were more important, and that they could choose between life or death for this "inferior" subject.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea that Bigger is just like the rat, trapped and caged without anywhere to go. The environment in which the rat and Bigger are in leaves them no choice but death, which you emphasized well. I am although sort of confused about the experiment part, didn't Richard Wright know the fate of Bigger, just like the fate of the rat? But overall really insightful connection and very nice post!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the nice comment! The connection between Native Son and an experiment is that, with a set of specific conditions, humans will strike out just as any animal would. In other words, dropping a rat into a carefully crafted cage (containing the controlled variables) produces the same results as dropping a human into that cage.
DeleteI also thought the connection between the rat and Bigger was interesting. Both the rat and Bigger are put in situations where they have very little control, and no matter how hard they try to escape they are caught and eventually killed. I think it's interesting that Wright chose to put the rat scene at the beginning of the book, since it's foreshadowing the rest of the book. Also, Wright apparently only put the scene in after he'd written the rest of the book.
ReplyDeleteWow. That was really cool, I never thought about the rat being a metaphor for Bigger's situation; I always it was just an example of Bigger's situation. The number of parallels that were there that I never noticed were stunning, so thank you!
ReplyDeleteI think this is really interesting, especially if you compare it to how the Narrator in Invisible Man is actually used as a lab rat. He is subject to torture for the sake of "advancing the medical field" because of the completely inhumane actions of the white doctors who don't see him necessarily as a person. Like the rat in Bigger's room or Bigger himself, he found himself the subject of an experiment he couldn't escape because of his circumstances and not a fault on his part.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. I was particularly intrigued by the first scene of Native Son as well. The rat is truly symbolic in many ways and in my short essay I talked a bit about how rats often times represent urban decay and is perfect for this scene as it parallels to the suffering family.
ReplyDeleteThe clear connections between the rat and Bigger was very interesting. Since they both lack a avenue of escape they both do the only thing that is available to them, attack. But the fact that Bigger was compared to a rat is even more interesting, why did Wright choose for the animal to be a rat? A rat shows the poverty that Bigger's family is going through and perhaps shows the total societal disgrace for both rats and black people in the context of the book. Very nice post which caused me to think about why Wright made the animal a rat.
ReplyDelete