Native Son's Relation to Invisible Man

Bigger Thomas and the narrator from Invisible Man initially seem to be very different people under entirely distinct circumstances in extremely contrasting situations. They both are poor, but the narrator in Invisible Man has extreme ambitions to be “great”/ “successful” while Bigger seems completely “bored” and sees no point to work.  The Invisible Man narrator loves (and even worships) his college education while Bigger refuses the offer of night classes from Mrs. Dalton.  The list of these differences can go on and on, and undeniably Bigger Thomas and the Invisible Man narrator are very different characters.  However, Ellison most definitely has Bigger and Native Son in mind while (W)righting Invisible Man.  

Bigger and the Invisible Man narrator both are extremely, extremely conscious of how white people think of them.   When Bigger walks into the Daltons’ home, he instantly is questioning his every move.  The Invisible Man narrator takes the even more extreme route of making sure that basically every single aspect of his life is accordance to what the white power structure wants him to do.  As well as this, some of the distinct textual similarities that really reminded me of Bigger are the positioning of the “God damn it!” and “blot it out” lines in very similar contexts.   Also, the scene where the IM narrator runs across the icy New York roofs seems eerily similar to Bigger’s final glimpse of “freedom” on the snow-covered Chicago roofs.

Natrualism also plays a big part in both Native Son and Invisible Man. Both Bigger and the IM narrator are abused by their environment in very similar “test-tube” like ways.   Bigger is placed in different situations where he acts radically differently (home vs friends vs Daltons) and the IM narrator is thrown around by his “superiors” to do their beckoning (Bledsoe, Norton, the superintendent, etc).  Although we have not seen the IM narrator’s development fully yet, the important difference between the two is that the IM narrator is a radically different person from the beginning of the novel to the end (presumably the guy in the basement) while Bigger stays a relatively “stagnant” character.  This is not saying that Bigger does not change throughout the novel, but his change is nowhere near as severe as the IM narrator’s internal (and external) transformation.  

Bigger’s Thoughts or Wright’s Extrapolations?

In Native Son, it is often hard to distinguish between which descriptions of Bigger’s mental state are from Bigger himself, or Wright extrapolating on Bigger’s consciousness from the outside. Often it appears to be a combination of both and ends up providing a very interesting perspective for the reader to unpack.  As Bigger is hanging out with Gus in the opening scenes of the novel, the reader gets a glimpse into Bigger’s eyes:

Bigger’s face was metallically black in the strong sunlight.  There was in his eyes a pensive, brooding amusement, as of a man who had been long confronted and tantalized by a riddle whose answer seemed always just on the verge of escaping him, but prodding him irresistibly on to seek its solution. (17)

This seems to pretty clearly be the narrator (presumably Wright) simply describing how his eyes appear and exploring into the possibility of their depth.  Bigger isn’t actually contemplating the solution to a riddle—the reader is told he just looks like that from the external narration.  

             This gets more complicated when the narrator puts to words how Bigger is feeling even if Bigger isn’t fully conscious of how he is feeling.  When Bigger is debating about the ransom note:

Mr. Dalton was somewhere far away, high up, distant, like a god.  He owned property all over the Black Belt, and he owned property where white folks lived, too.  But Bigger could not live in a building across the “line.” Even though Mr. Dalton gave millions of dollars for Negro education, he would rent houses to Negroes only in this prescribed area, this corner of the city tumbling down from rot.  In a sullen way Bigger was conscious of this.  Yes; he would send the kidnap note.  He would jar them out of their sense. (174)

After murdering Bessie:

If only some had gone before and lived or suffered or died—made it so that it could be understood!  It was too stark, not redeemed not made real with the reality that was the warm blood of life. He felt that there was something missing, some road which, if he had once found it, would have led him to a sure and quiet knowledge.  But why think of that now? A chance for that was gone forever. He had committed murder twice and had created a new world for himself.  (241)

In both of these passages the narrator describes to the reader something that Bigger doesn’t seem to fully understand himself.   Bigger doesn’t really care about the specifics of the Dalton reality business and doesn’t know what/where that missing road is/will lead him, but that doesn’t make them any less important in impacting his life.

One of the big critiques of Native Son is that Bigger is too conscious in certain scenes.  I think this is not quite a fair argument against the book—who are we to “judge” what Bigger is/isn’t thinking.  We have no right to presume that Bigger shouldn’t be as conscious as Wright describes him.  In the passages above, we are presented with the possibilities of Bigger’s thought processes present by the narrator and the “explanation” for his actions.    Even though Bigger is “in a sullen way conscious” of these narrator’s explanations, at the end of the book he does not understand.  This does not mean that they shouldn’t be considered a vital part of his consciousness even if he does not understand them.  After Max’s speech,  “He had not understood the speech, but had felt the meaning of some of it from the tone of Max’s voice.” (406)  In my opinion this summarizes the entire narrator/Bigger relationship—Bigger might not have been fully conscious of everything Wright explains, but still feels and experiences the meaning nonetheless.