1. What are some of the reasons that Bigger begins to trust Jan and Boris Max?
2. Why does Bigger attack Reverend Hammond and discard the cross Hammond has given to him?
3. What two incidents in the novel indicate that the author believes that the psychiatric profession has contributed to racism?
Amelia, Carter, Lauren, Roy-
ReplyDelete1. They are the first people to see Bigger as a human and not as an animal. They also believe him unconditionally. The reason that he trusts Jan and not Mary because Mary treated him like a toy while Jan treated Bigger as a human and as a friend. He trusts Max because Max is also oppressed and Max can sort of, “Step in Bigger’s shoes.” Also, Max and Jan aren’t part of the “White Majority,” they are still oppressed and are still minorities just like Bigger. Also, they both wanted to listen to Bigger. Max said, “Bigger I know my face is white, and I know that almost every white face you’ve met in your life had it in for you… but I want you to know that you can trust me” (Wright, 346).
2. He sees the burning cross which makes him lose the faith in the pastor. “It gripped him: that cross was not the cross of Christ, but the cross of the Klu Klux Klan” (Wright, 338). Also he sees that his mother and his family are very religious yet religion didn’t ever seem to help them in a physical way on Earth. He also thought that Reverend Hammond was trying to make him feel guilty. He also thought that he was trying to set him up.
3. Bigger was put together with a mentally unstable man, as if they were trying to state or group Bigger into the same group. The white public saw him as a complete social taboo and saw him as crazy, deformed, and mentally unstable. The author believes that the psychiatric profession views being black as a condition. He believes that their profession views being black as a disease or state of mind.
ROY-
ReplyDeleteHere are some quotes:
1. "Max caught Bigger's shoulders in a tight grip; then his fingers loosened and he sank back to the cot; but his eyes were still fastened upon Bigger's face. Yes; Max knew now. Under the shadow of death, he wanted Max to tell him about life." (Wright, 424)
2. "He had a cross of salvation round his throat and they were burning one to tell him that they hated him! No! He did not want that! Had the preacher trapped him? He felt betrayed. He wanted to tear the cross from his throat and throw it away..." (Wright, 338)
3. "The boy got the idea from the newspapers. I'm defending this boy because I'm convinced that men like you made him what he is. His trying to blame the Communists for his crime was a natural reaction for him... If I can make the people of this country understand why this boy acted like he did, I'll be doing more than defending him." (Wright, 292)
ROY-
ReplyDeleteI would also like to add:
1. Bigger believes that Max, although not in the beginning, can ultimately help him to make a statement about who he is and what he stands for. He believes that max can help him achieve, not in physical terms, but mentally, a state of stability and a state in which he would be more than happy to leave this Earth; a state in which he has fulfilled his destiny.
2. Bigger feels, after looking at the burning cross of the KKK, that he has been betrayed by his own kind, by Reverend Hammond. He sees no hope in religion; his mother was an avid Christian yet he sees no hope in following in her steps...
3. The author stresses the physical and emotional stress in being black in this time period. The author continuously tries to make that point that being black is a disadvantage and that when you are born black and oppressed, it only leads to a life of segregation and turmoil/social strife.
CARTER
ReplyDelete1) Max and Jan make Bigger feel a kind of hope that there may be a way out, even though he knows this is not possible. They are a "someone near him, something physical to cling to," (Wright 344).
2) Bigger does not want to feel binded to anyone or anything, he has "killed his own faith". Reverend Hammond and Mrs. Thomas finally convince Bigger to wear the cross, and it provides a solace for him in his isolation. However, the burning of the cross make him doubt his faith again, as he sees it as another instrument of the white oppression.
3) Another (possible, as i don't entirely understand the question) example could be the crazy man in the jail. With constant shouts of "Bring me my papers or I'll tell the President and have you dismissed from office..." (Wright 343), this inmate terrifies his fellows and is eventually carted away. This man makes an impression on Bigger, who begins to dread his own blackness.
1. Jan and Boris Max are significantly different than the white people, or anyone, that Bigger has ever met. What they have in common are that they have also been oppressed by the white majority. At the same time they are different than Bigger because they are communists and Boris is a Jew and are oppressed for that while Bigger has only known being oppressed for being black. i think it is key to see that Jan and Boris Max could change if they want or hide what they are more to fit in while Bigger never can. Bigger describes this life he has no choice of living as: "They don't even let you feel what you want to feel. They after you so hot and hard you can only feel what they doing to you. They kill you before you die." (353). Bigger feels as though hes trapped and cannot do anything, but at the same time suffers from it and is pained and finishes it with a powerful statement of "They kill you before you die"
ReplyDelete2. Bigger really lets out a lot of his frustration at Reverend Hammond. Almost as thought Reverend Hammond is symbolistic of the black people who suffer but still think religion will help, like his mother. I think he treats Reverend Hammond with his pent up feelings he has toward his mother. Reverend Hammond also comes off as being quite annoying from the text i think, especially with his ebonic-style talk. Reverend Hammond says, "This worl' ain' our home. Life ever' day is a crucifixion.There ain' but one way out, son, 'n' tha's Jesus' way, the way of love 'n' fergiveness" (287). I think this sounds like the Reverend is trying to say that its not life on earth that should be great but the afterlife. He says that they should have like a clean slate every day. I dont think Bigger will ever show "love 'n' fergiveness" toward the people he hates..."the white cloud"
3. First of all i dont think i understand this question completely. I think maybe the incident of actually killing Mary and all of that in the first book is noteworthy psychiatrically because it is so bizarre. Bigger describes it as "Mr. Mac, so help me God, I couldn't do nothing when i turned around and saw that woman coming to that bed. Honest to God, I didn't know what i was doing...Naw; naw... I knew what i was doing, all right. But I couldn't help it. That's what i mean. It was like another man stepped inside of my skin and started acting for me." (352). I think because of everything Bigger had suppressed acted as though it was "another man". his suppressed emotions about racism was a weighty part of his emotions. Another incident that i thought was peculiar was his way of trying to escape everything in the Flight chapter. Would most people make the choices he did? Would you try so hard to live and be difficult for the police if you already knew you had no chance to live for what you did? Those are my main questions towards his decisions. He knew he was going to die and his actions are related to him being so oppressed: "I don't know. Maybe this sounds crazy. Maybe they going to burn me in the electric chair for feeling this way. But I ain't worried none about them women i killed. For a little while I was free. I was doing something. It was wrong, but i was feeling all right. Maybe God'll get me for it. If He do, all right. But I ain't worried. I killed 'em 'cause I was scared and mad. But I been scared and mad all my life and after i killed that first woman, I wasn't scared no more for a little while." (354). The racism towards him his whole life got him up to killing for being "scared and mad" but at the same time it made him finally feel free.
Lauren Steiner
CARTER
ReplyDelete1) Bigger may also begin to trust them out of a sort of respect. These two white men, with little to no reason to take his side, are risking their own personal safety and views of their peers to defend this guilty enemy of society.
2) Like the enemies in a Gothic Literature story, Reverend Hammond represents one of Bigger's repressed emotions. Bigger is repressing his want for a faith, a belief in something greater than life. Bigger wants to be happy in his current life, not just in an afterlife.
3) Still don't understand the question, but. In a way, the courts are a psychiatric profession for determining guilt. In that sense, it perpetuates racism by passing unfair verdicts on blacks that perpetuate stereotypes, which cause the courts to pass more of these verdicts, creating a cycle of racism.
1. Jan and Boris Max are friendly to Bigger, but in a different way than the other white people he has met. Others, like Mr. Dalton, are nice to him to free their own kind of guilty conscious, but on the inside think differently of them. Jan and Mr. Max are as friendly to him as they would be to any other human. They do not judge Bigger and try to make that clear. Before Bigger could get to know Bigger he thought: "He was very conscious of his black skin and there was in him a prodding conviction that Jan and men like him had made it so that he would be conscious of that black skin." (67). The other white men, before Bigger trusted Jan, made him feel mindful of himself and his color indirectly.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that Bigger liked Mr. Max because he asked him the right questions and in the right way. Bigger liked answering them and he never answered anyone else. I think this is because it helped him organize everything he had pent up inside of him that he wanted to get out. Subsequently, Mr. Max and Bigger discuss and begin their conversation and Bigger connects Mr. Max and Jan when he thinks,"Bigger knew that Max was trying to make him feel that he accepted the way he looked at things and it made him feel as self-conscious as when Jan had taken his hand and shaken it hat night in the car. It made him live again in that hard and sharp consciousness of his color and feel the shame and fear that went with it, and at the same time it made him hate himself for feeling it. He trusted Max." (347).
2. Bigger attacks Reverend Hammond as he would attack the concept of religion being helpful and helping him. Bigger identifies this when he conjectures, "He hated his mother for that way of hers which was like Bessie's. What his mother had was Bessie's whiskey, and Bessie's whiskey was his mother's religion." (240). Bessie's whiskey lessened the pain of her life, which is what religion did for Bigger's mother. Bigger didn't agree with Bessie's drinking just as much as his mother's religion. After seeing the flaming cross it angered him because it was confusing and made him feel fear and panic. The cross now made him, "...want to kneel and cry, bu this cross made him want to curse and kill. Then he became concoius of the cross that the preacher had hung round his throat..." (338). Then he goes onto saying, "It gripped him: that cross was not the cross of Christ, but the cross of the Ku Klux Klan. He had a cross of salvation round his throat and they were burning one to tell him that hey had hated him!" (338). Bigger gets rid of the cross because he now assumes that it against him as much as the KKK is.
3. Maybe because Bigger always felt he was restricted racially it contributed to the decisions he made. For instance he says, " Maybe I would've been all right if i could've done something I wanted to do. I wouldn't be scared then. Or mad, maybe. I wouldn't be always hating folks; and maybe I'd feel at home, sort of." (355). Psychiatrically, feeling as though you cannot do things, because of your color, can cause hate, madness, and fright.
Lauren Steiner
CARTER
ReplyDeleteTo Lauren: I like your comment about how the prejudice Boris and Jan face is different from Bigger's. Despite being hunted and accused, Boris and Jan are still part of the white majority, something Bigger can never be.
To Roy: I like how you put that Bigger thinks Max can help him achieve his destiny. Bigger wants to make a name for himself to last forever, like the characters in Beowulf.
Amelia
ReplyDelete1)Jan and Max treat him as an equal, not as a toy or an item in a museum. To them he is human, while others like Mary and Mr. Dalton bully and demean him, and then people like Britten and Buckley treat him like dirt.
2) He feels betrayed by everyone around him. His people live by religion, yet the KKK completely violated it. What little faith he could have was taken away by the white oppressors.
Amelia
ReplyDelete3)The psychiatric profession deals with the mind, and the power thought has. Buckley abuses the power of the mind. He inflames the minds of the whites in the mob to help control the jury. He knows that the masses can control the few.
Amelia
ReplyDelete3) My example wasn't exactly one incident, but an ongoing problem in the book. But by controlling the media and inserting phrases like "ape", "rapist" and "monster" into the minds of the people, it instills fear, and therefore gives Buckley power.
CARTER
ReplyDelete3) Now that I know the second part, here we go. The "psychologists" have a heaping portion of "psycho". Their claims show that blacks are to be treated as a raping, white lustful mass, not people. this shows that the prejudice and hate has even reached the intellectuals in society, who should see it as false.