Native Son

Bigger is a complex character in a situation that is of his own making. There are many different things he could have done to prevent the situation from escalating to this level. However, Bigger is a product of his environment, much like everyone else in the world, and many of the decisions he made was driven for his fear and hatred of white people, and his overall situation. This in no way justified his actions, and in fact doesn't even make him a likable character. Bigger when given opportunities to redeem himself or at least make him likable, understandable, he does the one thing that makes you feel the exact opposite.  If we are strictly looking at what his crimes are and not consider his background and circumstance then, yes, he is guilty of killing Mary Dalton, He is guilty of killing and raping Bessie, but he is innocent in that he did not rape Mary Dalton. Though when Bigger is convicted the media warps his image as a dangerous black man who raped and killed Mary Dalton on purpose and treat him as if he were an animal. This is the way Bigger expects to be treated by white people, when Mary and Jan treated him differently he felt uncomfortable and he did not know how to react and hated them for not being the way he expects all white people to be. When Bigger realized  he killed Mary Dalton a white woman he knew it would probably not end well for him, which led to him burning her body etc. However, he started to like the idea that he killed not Mary Dalton, but a white person, a race of people that hated him and discriminated him. This was him gaining control, and he started to like the feeling of having the ability to kill another person if he wanted to. I honestly believe something was wrong with Bigger mentally, even before Mary Dalton he always reacted so violently whenever he had any strong emotion, and he started to become more paranoid and anxious once he killed Mary Dalton.  He became obsessed with his own self preservation and once he embraced his fate as a killer he basically decided to become the  man that so many white people expected of black men, these violent animals, which is not the case of course. This is displayed how he mistreats Bessie, takes advantage of her and treats he like she is nothing, using her for his own personal gain.  In the very end it is sad the way he is treated and how he has this sense of hopelessness now that he was caught for his crimes. I  appreciated the fact that Max wanted to represent Bigger and try to help him out, however it must have been mostly to do with him trying to defend the communist party, but he still tried to show how it is unfair the way African Americans were treated, and tried through Bigger to stop the injustice.   In the end I still don't like Bigger personally, however I do feel bad towards the end and the circumstance Bigger had to go through, but it is inexcusable what he did to Bessie. Mary might've been an accident, but Bessie wasn't, and overall all how he was as a person.