Justice In The Native Son

The book The Native Son by Richard Wright, portrays an African American man, named Bigger Thomas, who lived in Chicago in the early 1900’s. Bigger is faced with the challenge of poverty and the dominance of white people. In the setting, African Americans do menial work for little pay. Bigger strives to live a normal life, but is hindered by white supremacy. Bigger throughout the story is exasperated by the white population, who he feels have an unfair advantage over him. Black people in Bigger’s time, were regularly unjustly accused of crimes by white people, just because of their skin color. However Bigger is served justice as he does not fall under this category as he truly did commit murder more than once and is rightfully sentenced to death.

The Story starts off by showing the reader that Biggers family is poor and doesn’t have a very well living condition. They all lived in a single room, which is infested rodent like the rat that Bigger attempted to kill, “There he is! The mother screamed again. A huge black rat squealed and leaped at Bigger”(pg5). As you can see in this scene Bigger is living in a very horrific apartment as result of his family’s poverty

but this was not uncommon for black people in this time to live in these conditions. If we skip forward in the story to Bigger’s first murder, he had just started working for the Daltons, a rich white family. Bigger was trying to quite Mary Dalton who was on her bed drunk when Mary’s blind mother walked in. Bigger knew he shouldn’t have been in the room with Mary so, “He caught the pillow and covered her entire face with it”(pg 85). Bigger accidently killed Marry by suffocating her with a pillow. This is classified in the United States as second degree murder, which is punishable for fifteen years in a penitentiary jail. This however isn’t the worse part, as Bigger puts Mary’s body into a furnace and burns it to conceal the evidence, which is also against the law. When her head didn’t fit, he goes to the extreme by cutting off her head with an axe and putting it into the furnace as well. This was Biggers first murder in the story and even though it was unplanned it was still very gruesome and many criminal acts were committed.

Soon after Bigger kills Marry, he commits a second murder.

The police start looking for him as they found Mary’s bones in the furnace, where Bigger left her remains. Bigger goes into hiding with his girlfriend Bessie Mears, an alcoholic black women. They find an abandoned apartment to hide from the police while they figure things out. This is the point where Bigger realizes that Bessie is more of a liability than an ally. He then contemplates that he needs to kill her. Bigger than rapes Bessie, as she falls asleep Bigger remembers that he saw a two bricks near him. He then beats her skull with a brick to the point of her death, then throws her body down an air shaft. This is classified as first degree murder as he planned the murder then went through with it, which is punishable by death in some

states.

At this point in the story, Bigger had committed two grusome murders, first “He had killed a rich white girl and had burned her body after cutting her head off”(pg 186). The second murder was of his girlfriend who he killed because he believed she was a risk that he didn't need anymore. When the cops finally caught Bigger they put him in jail, so he could await his trial. Bigger was represented by Boris Max a communist lawyer, who argued that Bigger did what he did because of the environment that he was raised in and how he was discriminated all his life. The defendant, Buckley who made a stronger case argued that Bigger was responsible for his crimes and that he should be punished for what he had done. In a recent article by The Huffington Post, the argument was made that black prisons populate the majority of jails, “Black prisoners made up 47 percent of the administrative segregation population”(Dana Liebelson). The article argued that black people are treated unfairly in our court systems because they are still racist views dictating people's opinion on blacks. However this is not the case with Bigger Thomas as he did commit murder twice. The court concluded that Bigger will be put to death for his crimes against the people. A punishment that Bigger truly deserve, regardless of his color. Bigger murdered two innocent women and justice was served as he was sentenced to death. A punishment that fit the crimes he committed.

Bigger Thomas was raised in poverty due to his race and being discriminated by white people. He was deprived of many opportunities, like a proper education. When Bigger works for the Daltons he mistakenly kills Mary Dalton but instead of confessing to his crime he attempts to conceal the evidence by burning her body. After her remains were discovered, Bigger goes into hiding with Bessie, but he soon realizes she is a liability and he murders her as well. Bigger is sentenced to death for his crimes. Bigger was served justice for his violations of the law, because even though he is black and is deemed inferior by the white dominated court, he did murder two women and should rightfully be sentenced to death.