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.