1. Describe some of the many ways in which Bessie Mears, Bigger's girlfriend, is trapped in a life that is not of her own choosing (use concrete details).
2. Describe the way Bigger is hunted down after he has fled the Dalton home. How would this manhunt have been different if Bigger were white?
3. Mr. Dalton's private investigator, Mr. Britten, alternately expresses his hatred of African Americans and of Communists. After he interrogates Bigger, Bigger thinks to himself that "Mr. Britten was familiar to him; he had met a thousand Brittens in his life." What is it about Mr. Britten's thinking that makes him so easy for Bigger to understand, and how does Bigger intend to use Mr. Britten's prejudices to his own advantage?
CARTER
ReplyDelete1) Bessie Mears is trapped in a life chosen for her because she is black. She always tells Bigger that "She worked long hours, hard and hot hours seven days a week, with only Sunday afternoons off," (Wright 139). Bigger says her life has a "narrow orbit" (Wright 139), that her life revolves around her tedious work for the whites to the small amount of time she gets for rest that she usually passes away with drinks.
2) Bigger is hunted down by a coalition of angry mob and police. The newspaper says that, "Police and vigilantes, armed with rifles, tear gas, flashlights, and photos of the killer, began at 18th Street this morning and are searching every Negro home..." (Wright 244). Because Bigger is black, the city is using the murder as a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorizing the black community, whereas if he were white, they would just go about as if it were a normal crime, probably heightened a little due to the status of the victim.
3) The reason Mr. Britten's thinking is so easy to understand is that it fits perfectly into Bigger's premade mold for what white men should act like. Bigger plans to "have them pack the money in a shoe box and have them throw it out of a car somewhere on the South Side," (Wright 137). This fall right in with Britten and Mr. Dalton's pretenses about communists when he signs the letter "Red". This makes them turn to the Communist Party as their prime suspect, and away from the "naive" Bigger.
CARTER
ReplyDelete1) Bessie is a drunk, and she uses alcohol to escape from the world, much like Bigger uses the theatre. It is this alcoholism that drives Bigger to wonder if he should take her along on the run. She eventually prove to him, at least in his mind, that she cannot handle the pressure, so he has one last hurrah with her that kills her.
2) The press uses the murder as a way to incriminate and dehumanize the black population without fear. Since Bigger is black, they can fan the flames of hatred within the white population, but if he was white, this kind of thing would not occur as it would be slandering their own race.
3) Britten and his beliefs fall right into Bigger's plans. Due to his hatred of Communists, Bigger knows that it would be easy to turn the tables and make the police think it was the Communists that performed the disappearance/murder.
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ReplyDeleteROY
ReplyDelete1) Bessie is trapped in a world of suffering. She is forced by Bigger to live this way. This is because Bigger pressures her to do things against her own will which results in a vicious cycle. First, she works hard, all day long. Then she gets drunk, with the help of Bigger's money. Then she has involuntary sex with Bigger because she is drunk and does it all over again the next day and so on...
2) Because Bigger was black, the process of finding him was vastly different from if he was/were a white man. If he was white, the police wouldn't have quarantined the entire city just to find him, they would have gone about the matter in a procedural matter. Although still heightened by the crime, they would have given Bigger due justice and most certainly wouldn't have used a water hose.
3) Bigger has prematurely created a mold into which seemingly, every white man fit. He has studied the ways of the white man for his whole entire life and Mr. Britain was just another white man to him. He was out to get Bigger and try and stick some sort of blame onto him, no matter what the evidence revealed.
Amelia
ReplyDelete1)She is poor, uneducated drunkard. She is trapped in her job, always forced to do things she doesn’t want to. "She worked long hours, hard and hot hours seven days a week” Wright describes. She’s trapped in a job where she is forced to work by the white oppressors. She is trapped by alcohol, for she is addicting to drinking, to find her escape from this world. She describes herself as “a blind dumb black drunk fool” (Wright 230). And finally, she is trapped in her relationship with Bigger. It is a relationship of common lifestyles, not shared love. They both are in a bad part of town, a life of hardship and having less than others. Bessie wants love, but Bigger only uses her.
2)I think the manhunt would not have been as intense. If a white had actually killed Mary, the area of town that they searched would not have been the same. For Bigger, they searched “black hotspots” and the public transportation, while if they were searching for a white, they would have looked in the nicer area of town, and probably would not have searched public transportation, because the richer whites could most likely afford a car of their own. I think the fact that Bigger is black gave the whites in the story even more reason to hunt him down so vehemently. They already see the African Americans like animals and less than human, so an excuse to remove one from society would have been jumped upon. On the other hand, if it was a white who killed her, they would have been lenient to suspect him in the first place.
3) Britten is the quintessential white oppressor. He sees African Americans as less than, very stupid, but also a scapegoat, someone whom they can always put the blame on. Bigger uses the fact that Britten thinks of him as uneducated, and not very bright to his advantage. When questioned, he keeps quiet, respectful, and submissive. He plays up his stupidity, to seem like he could never pull off a crime of this magnitude.
CARTER
ReplyDelete1) Bessie is a tool being used by Bigger. She has little control over when things in her life occur. She is forced to take part in the ransom scheme, and was killed because she could not comply.
2) If Bigger where white, the trial would not have contained so much hate. Boris Max, Bigger's lawyer, gets death threats for defending a black man from white wrath, while this would probably not be the case if Bigger were not of the persecuted minority.
3) Because of the prejudice against Communists that Britten and the others have, Bigger found no qualms about directing the blame towards Jan. Max later states that this kind of behavior has been programmed into him by the media.
ROY
ReplyDeleteHere are some quotes to back up my answers:
1) "Will they come for me, too, Bigger? I didn't want to do it!' Yes; he would let her know, let her know everything; but let her know it in a way that would bind her to him, at least a little longer..." "All my life's been full of hard trouble. If I asn't hungry, I was sick. And if I wasn't sick, I was in trouble. I ain't never bothered nobody. I just worked hard every day as long as I can remember, till I was tired enough to drop; then I had to get drunk to forget it. I had to get drunk to get to sleep. That's all I ever did. And now I'm in this..."
2) "Police and vigilantes, armed with rifles, tear gas, flashlights, and photos of the killer, began at 18th Street this morning and are searching every Negro home..."
3) "... Bigger, lowering his eyes because he felt that it would be better to do so. He knew that whites thought that all Negroes yearned for white women, therefore he wanted to show a certain fearful deference even when one's name was mentioned in his presence."
ROY
ReplyDeleteWould also like to add:
1) Bessie is stuck in a perpetual downward spiral, that leads to no avail. She can do nothing about it... SHe is inevitably stuck in a downward spiral that will ultimately lead to her ultimate demise. Through alcohol and sex, she has written her own death sentence.
2) Also, the whites have automatically assumed that Bigger raped and killed Mary, while if he was white, they would not have automatically assumed this and the blame would be held upon Jan still.
3) With Mr. Britain fitting into the mold, Bigger went to work through due diligence. He played his cards right and almost accomplished his goal, of getting out of the essence and blame of the crime. He placed blame on the communists and played dumb, as to play into the, "Stupid African-American stereotype."
Amelia
ReplyDelete1) This quote is the summation of Bessie's addiction to alcohol. "I just worked hard every day as long as I can remember, till I was tired enough to drop; then I had to get drunk to forget it. I had to get drunk to get to sleep. That's all I ever did" She is completely dependent upon the alcohol, never able to make it through the day without it.
Amelia
ReplyDelete2) Also on the topic of being lenient of a white man, the automatic assumption of rape would not have been made. It is given as a black stereotype, not white, of violating women, even though the whites in the story are just as disrespectful to women.
Amelia
ReplyDelete3) Britten is the white monster, filling the idea of whites that Bigger has always accepted. Bigger’s idea of whites is reinforced by Britten’s bigotry. Because he acts exactly as Bigger expects a “white monster” to, Bigger plays off his stereotypes of stupidity.
CARTER
ReplyDeleteTo Roy: I like your idea that if Bigger was white, the blame on Jan would have been upheld longer, as the fear of blacks would not have been taken into his accusal. However, I don't think that Bigger was the only one supplying Bessie with drinks, as Bigger probably couldn't afford that much for himself, let alone someone else.
To Amelia: I like how you included the point that Bigger played just as much into Britten's stereotype of blacks as he did Bigger's white mold. However, I don't think you should assume it would be a rich white person, as a poor one would have more motivation to perform this crime.