Carollo - Dialectical Model #2
Native Son(Wright).
“Mah po’ boy! May the good Lawd have mercy on yuh.”(282)
Reverend Hammond, the black preacher from Mrs. Thomas’ church, is the first character
to visit Bigger after his arrest. Substantively, I chose this quote not for what it explicitly says,
but what it represents. Hammond’s dialect speech sticks out clearly by the time he appears in
Book Three. If I’m not mistaken, all of the characters have spoken some form of standard
English—from the verbose introspection of the narrator to the inarticulate utterances of Bigger
himself. In reading the passages with the preacher, it got me thinking about Wright’s intent. Was
the preacher merely another character with a different manner of speaking? We’ve seen Bigger
and his struggle to articulate what he feels. We’ve seen the Dalton’s and their upper crust
plainness. We go on to see Buckley’s calculated appeals to mob mentality and Max’s earnest and
well-spoken attempts to put Bigger’s complex emotions into words. So is the preacher’s use of
dialect simply another way to give a character nuance with speech, or was there more to it? I
also reflected on Wright’s criticisms of Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Now, I’m aware that Wright’s criticisms extend beyond dialect speech, but they did appear to be
a significant part of his argument. He felt dialect speech fulfills a white expectation of black
characters to be uneducated, silly, and inarticulate. I couldn’t help but wonder of the significance
that the sole character in Native Son to speak in dialect is a preacher. Is Wright attacking
religion here as something intellectually lacking? During Max’s final speech, he claims that the
only outlets for black angst are sex, violence, and religion. Wright establishes the first two as
equally empty and damaging, but inevitable outcomes for the poor state of black life. I get the
impression Wright is writing religion off as a false suppression of that anger; an institution that
encourages passivity without questioning.
“…Pretty soon you get so you can’t hope for nothing. You just keep moving all the time,
doing what other folks say. You ain’t a man no more. You just work day in and day out so
the world can roll on and other people can live…”(353)
This quote appears during Bigger’s first true conversation with Max. Bigger, out of
desperation and probably some genuine trust, begins explaining his feelings to Max. Most of our
insight concerning Bigger’s feelings and motivations has come from an omniscient narrator
capable of far greater articulation than Bigger can personally. So while the content of what he’s
saying comes as little surprise to the reader; it simply being a more clumsy reiteration of what
the narrator has conveyed to us earlier, hearing it through Bigger’s modest, sparse language
renders it even more heartbreaking. Bigger’s a complex character, who commits some truly
horrendous acts before we’re asked to understand him as a product of a culture, as a “native son.
It’s one thing to learn about him, specifically and articulately through the narrator for ourselves.
It’s another thing entirely to watch Bigger try to reconcile his complex emotions with his limited
speech capacity as he struggles to make his state of mind and state of living clear to another
person within the novel.
“Tell…Tell Mister…Tell Jan hello….”(430)
Bigger’s final exchange with Max ends on a somewhat unsettling note. Max tries to
leave Bigger with some comfort, assuring him that he grew up without much of a shot but it’s not
too late for him to find some personal meaning in it all. Bigger begins expressing that he was
“right” to murder, that there was “good” in it. Max becomes uncomfortable and leaves. What
are we to take of this? Is Bigger simply struggling with language, failing to clearly express
himself? Or are Wright’s parting words to us that Bigger is ultimately satisfied with killing? My
chosen quote leads me to believe the former. It’s a small, subtle act of compassion. Bigger, not
only has the presence of mind to consider Jan and ask Max to extend a kind word to him, but he
also manages to drop his guard enough to, after a minor slip, refer to him by his first name.
When confronted with the insistence that Bigger interact with Jan and Mary casually, it inspired
an ugly loathing in Bigger for them and himself. Ultimately, Bigger is not happy he killed, at
least, not in the way Max clearly reacts to it. I’d argue that, here at the end of his life, before the
door “[clangs] shut”, Bigger sort of accepts that his killing brought him into such a position to be
confronted with his actual emotions and the state of the world around him. Through some
convoluted, circular logic, it’s almost like the act of killing proves to Bigger that he’s not a
monster. So, Bigger’s slow-processing tendency to vocalize his feelings has him expressing
sudden satisfaction at his killing, to passing on word to his mother that his okay, and eventually
expressing a kind sentiment towards Jan.