Native Son -381 (?)

"'Well, this thing's bigger than you, son. In a certain sense, every Negro in America's on trial out there today'" (368).

Max says this to Bigger about his trial. I think this is a very important sentence, where is proves that the whole minority can be judged by one member of the group. Max is saying that it's not just Bigger whose life and reputation is on the line, but each and every black person in America.

Cagy: adj. showing self-interest and shrewdness in dealing with others

lauds: n. glorification

Native Son Post -363

"For the first time in his life he had gained a pinnacle of feeling upon which he could stand and see vague relations that he had never dreamed of. If that white looming mountain of hate were not a mountain at all, but people, people like himself, and like Jan- then he was faced with a high hope the like of which he had never thought could be, and a despair the full depths of which he knew he could not stand to feel" (360-361).

Bigger sees the white people as actual people. He doesn't just see them as one force and he's trying to pick them out as individual human beings. If the mountain is not just a mountain but a large group of small pebbles, then he had a chance that he would not be killed, because all of those pebbles had feelings, and were not evil.

arraignment: n. calling into question or finding a fault

drawled: v. to speak in drawn out vowels

Native Son -340 (3)

"Not only had he lived where they told him to live, not only had he done what they told him to do, not only had he done these things until he had killed to be quit of them; but even after obeying, after killing, they still ruled him. He was their property, heart and soul, body and blood; what they did claimed every atom of him, sleeping and waking; it colored life and dictated the terms of death" (332).

I sympathize with Bigger here, like I have through the whole book. It's really sad how he feels about these things, and how unfair his life is. How he sees the world and the white people.... it's disgusting what he has to go through, and how, after being an obedient lap dog to the white people, they still judge him and hate him. They don't even know him! They just assume! Why would they call him an ape, a nigger, and all those other things? So he's dark. So what? It's outrageous! I can't stand people like them. I'm glad I wasn't around in this time.


Couched: v. to word in a certain manner

Stolidly: adj. unemotional

Native Son -340 (2)

"He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was apart of him, not only in blood, but in spirit" (298).

I think that here, Bigger finally opens up to his family in his mind. He knows that his actions hurt them, and he sort of opens up and gives himself the ability to love them here. Although, I think instead he will hate them because he is unsure how to love.

Implicate: v. to show to be also involved, usually in an incriminating manner

Incredulous: adj. indicating unbelief.

Native Son -340 (1)

"For the first time in his life a white man became a human being to him; and the reality of Jan's humanity came in a stab of remorse: he had killed what this man loved and hurt him. He saw Jan as though someone had preformed an operation upon his eyes, or as though someone had snatched a deforming mask from Jan's face." (289)

Because of Jan's kindness to Bigger after Bigger killed someone Jan loved, Bigger is now seeing Jan as a human being and not as a part of the huge white force. That's important because it opens up trust between the two. Bigger sees Jan as a human who can be trusted and who trusts, not just as a huge blob of white hate.

horning: v. to pry
imperious: adj. urgent

Native Son -286

"Toward no one in the world did he feel any fear now, for he knew fear was useless; and toward no one in the world did he feel any hate now, for he knew that hate would not help him" (273)

This makes me feel really bad for him. He's so pathetic here, and lost. He's trapped, and I know he deserves it, but I can't help but pity him, because I don't necessarily see this as all his fault. I mean, of course it's his fault that Bessie and Mary are dead; I don't blame anyone but him, but I still feel like he, obviously, was forced into a corner and had no other way out. And now, the people who forced his back against the ropes, are persecuting him for fighting back. It was a lose/lose situation from the start for him

obliquely: adj. Not straight

configuration: n. the relative disposition or arrangement of the parts or elements of a thing.

Native Son -270

"It was reported that several hundred Negro employees throughout the city had been dismissed from jobs. A well-known banker's wife phoned this paper that she had dismissed her Negro cook, 'for fear the she might poison the children'" (244).

I think this is racism at its finest, no? How sad that is, to persecute all of them because of Bigger's actions! I mean, I'm sure white people have done the same, but they never fired their white workers! It's not like all of the black people of the world are going to band together to kill all of the white people. The thirties sure were stupid...

vigilante: n. any person who takes the law into his own hands, as to avenge a crime

exhorted: v. To urge by strong, often stirring argument, admonition, advice, or appeal

Native Son

"Britten was familiar to him; he had met a thousand Brittens in his life" (164)

Britten is really, really racist. It's sad that that is so familiar to Bigger. This makes me sympathize with him more. No one should have to put up with that sort of hate.

incredulous: adj. showing disbelief

Native Son

"He felt that he had his destiny in his grasp. He was more alive than he coul ever remember having been; his mind and attention were pointeddd, focused toa goal." (149)

He sounds a little crazy here, but I like this quote. He sounds really determined to rise above his situation, even iif he has to do it in a dirty way. I feel baqd for him and it's sad that he's doing this all wrong, but he's doing it alone, and so of course he'd stray off the right path.

allay: to lessen or relieve

bated: with breath drawn in or held because of anticipation or suspense