Richard Wright’s Native Son has a lot to unpack with each scene containing even just the slightest detail to hint at a bigger picture. One of the many things to unpack in this novel is the depiction of the female characters particularly Bessie and Mary. They are both portrayed and betrayed in somewhat similar ways yet treated differently based on race in class. All of the female characters in Native Son are all 2D, their stories don’t really get told the way the male characters' stories and personalities get dove into.
For starters, we don’t really get to learn a lot about who Bessie is as a person from the time that she is first introduced through the time that she is killed. She’s constantly labeled in the book as Bigger’s girlfriend or just not really looked at twice at all. From the beginning we can see how Bigger sexualizes her while at the movies and doesn’t really seem to emotionally care for her. Later in the book he tries to get her in on his plans and she repeatedly says no and all Bigger thinks is “she'll come around” or “she’ll follow after me.” Bigger has this mentality until he realizes she won’t actually help out and abuses her to the point where she has no choice but to go. At that moment all he cares about is saving himself from getting caught, he then proceeds to rape her, and kill her. Bigger's treatment of Bessie as an object is mirrored when Bigger is put on trial for the killing of Mary. The prosecution uses Bessie’s body as mere evidence against Bigger and then again proceeds to sexualize her (along with Mary) by making comments like “white women are more attractive than women of their own race.” Bigger is tried for the killing of Mary and other crimes committed by black men but not for the raping and killing of Bessie even though her body is brought in as evidence.
Mary Dalton is also portrayed in a 2D way where we don’t really get to see who she is as a person and how she thinks. She, like Bessie, is always defined by other people. She’s repeatedly referred to as Mr Dalton's daughter, and she's portrayed as a jump on the boat kind of character. For example, since she hangs out with Jan, she begins by asking Bigger if he's a communist. And any time that Jan presents an idea to Bigger (specifically in the car scene) Mary seems to automatically agree in an almost “yeah what he said” manner. We never really get a sense of what Mary’s personal opinion of the communist party is. Like Bessie, she is also sexualized at points throughout the book like Bessie is. The biggest example of this is during Bigger's trial. They talked about Mary like she was an object, but she was only more cared about because she was a rich white guy’s daughter. As said before, one of the arguments the prosecution uses is how white women are more attractive to black men than women of their own race. Which shows that yes, even though Mary is more cared about than Bessie because of her race and class, Mary and Bessie are both women portrayed as objects and in a 2D way.
Hi Lili, I really enjoyed reading your blog post and your topic is really great too. I think you phrased it very well that Mary and Bessie are portrayed as 2D characters and we see their personalities and opinions through the lens of a male perspective. You summed it up really well by saying that even though Mary gets more importance due to her race and class, at the end of the day, they're both basically objects. Great job!
ReplyDeleteMary is an interesting case to consider in this context: if the narration reflects Bigger's perceptions of these other characters, rather than an "objective" depiction of them, his perception of Mary would seem to be warped and distorted to a profound degree by how baffling and incomprehensible her behavior is. Can we pick up on something of Mary's character, despite the fact that Bigger has no idea what to make of her? A number of readers (on blogs and in essays) in both classes have been quite confident analyzing her character--her presumed rebellion against her father and his values, her "flirtation" with radical politics, her possibly sincere but tone-deaf desires to "do something" about racism. More than any character in this novel, perhaps, readers in this class believe they have Mary's character nailed down--almost as if we "recognize" her in some way. Bigger has never met anyone like Mary, but perhaps some readers have, and they "see" her despite all the distortion she causes to Bigger's psyche.
ReplyDeleteI thought about this a lot while reading this book and I think you make a great point. I especially like how you bring up the way Mary seems to always agree with what Jan says and doesn't seem like a completely developed character. The treatment of women throughout this novel could very well be by design by Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas is supposed to see women as 2 dimensional, however the way the author has these characters act wouldn't be something that can be completely warped by Bigger's own thoughts.
ReplyDeleteHey Lili. I definitely agree that Wright didn’t fully flesh out the women characters in Native Son. This is almost the exact opposite of what we have read so far in Their Eyes Are Watching God, where the narration is told through the lens of a woman. Good blog.
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