Node your homework seems popular for this node, and touched by the spirit of it all, I think I'll share one of my own.
Bigger is Better: Bigger and the Nietzschean Ideal
The development of the character Bigger in
Richard Wright’s Native Son is strikingly unique and can be difficult for some to understand. Native Son was written, according to Wright, in light of some very serious meditation he had done on his own experiences with people he’d known, observations he’d made from his relationships with others, and a philosophic consideration of human development in a state of
subjugation. Such thought echoes the writings of
Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century philosopher whose thought centered on a force he dubbed the
will to power. Throughout Native Son, the character of Bigger can be described and understood in terms of Nietzschean philosophy---his development, struggle, and conclusion on the nature of himself all coincide with Nietzsche’s thought.
Wright’s conclusions on the state of man do not stop with
political commentary. His examination of the human mind goes far beyond a statement about blacks in America and becomes something more universal, a consideration of something true on a larger scale. “I made the discovery that Bigger Thomas was not black all the time; he was white, too, and there were literally millions of him, everywhere” (Wright xiv). The fact of Wright’s and Bigger’s being black tends to halt any discussion of his text in the state of being regarded as something merely political---in fact, Wright’s later works (written after having gone to study with the French
existentialists, upon whom Nietzsche’s conclusions had like influence) never managed to attain the height of fame that he had with his earlier, less philosophic writings. “The critical consensus dismissed Wright's philosophy and scolded him for straying from what they believed was his natural subject matter” (Brucker). It seems that there’s a certain reluctance in reading a black American author’s subject matter beyond the scope of issues specifically black-related.
In particular, it’s important for us to consider the novel Native Son in the context of Wright’s own commentary on its subject matter. One fact he makes expressly important is that the novel is based on the character of Bigger Thomas, and that the aspects of his individual character are the main topic of the novel. In fact, the plot itself (when the book was written) was an afterthought, and Wright was “not for one moment ever worried about it” (Wright xxvii). In the novel, Bigger undergoes some very important changes based on the events that surround him (and the decisions he makes in response to them), but at center what’s important about the novel is the property of his individual character. Bigger might strike us as shockingly amoral, unless we learn to regard him through a certain point of view. As I’ve mentioned, Nietzsche’s thought is most appropriate and useful in seeking out this understanding.
The starting point of Bigger’s development comes from the political commentary Wright makes on the state of America in his time---primarily, the state of the common black person as having been rendered incapable of achieving the status of respectable and capable individuals. The conflict of masters and slaves is a major theme in Nietzsche’s writings; for him, the relationship between masters and slaves is based on a system of written morals, rather than physical power. This that he calls the “slave morality” holds in place those who he would regard as truly virtuous, the strong and powerful who rightfully rule---a “master morality” causes those in power to consider themselves as “good” for holding a position of rule over the “slaves.” Nietzsche traces this back to the Jews in ancient Egypt:
The Jews---a people “born for slavery… the chosen people among the peoples…” have brought off that miraculous feat of an inversion of values, thanks to which life on earth has acquired a novel and dangerous attraction for a couple of millennia: their prophets have fused “rich,” “godless,” “evil,” “violent,” and “sensual” into one… (BGE 195)
The moral rule of the planet that came from this involves an established law based on morals that grew out of the “slave morality,” sympathizing with the common victim who is too weak to stand up and establish a rule of his own over his oppressors. This state of being restricted by the moral stronghold upon life is something that constricts spirits who possess within them what Nietzsche would consider virtue, a strong will to power. “It is the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit, with which the sound of all puritan litanies, all moral homilies and old-fashioned respectability won’t go” (BGE 216). Bigger, over the course of Native Son, is in the process of learning to come to terms with this dance in his spirit. Of course, this process involves a great deal of rebellion, of asserting his will to power.
Early symptoms of Bigger’s virtue can be identified in the way that he engages his peers. When Gus challenges Bigger’s integrity in wanting to commit robbery, Bigger reacts by asserting his physical power upon the boy until he’s so established himself that he commands the boy to lick his knife. So Nietzsche relates the early development of the
free spirit: “That commanding something which the people call ‘the spirit’ wants to be master in and around its own house and wants to feel that it is master; it has the will from multiplicity to simplicity, a will that ties up, tames, and is domineering and truly masterful.” (BGE 230). Bigger’s spirit finds nourishment wherever his will has free roam, and he seeks out those situations by reverting to physical force---the strength of his character most able to directly control his surroundings, by threatening those around him. This strength of will is something Nietzsche identifies as a power nourished by the state of Bigger’s life. “The discipline of suffering, of great
suffering---do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?” (BGE 225). Bigger has indeed undergone suffering, and both Wright and Nietzsche seem to agree on the consequence of such an environment upon an individual spirit: “The moment a situation became so that it exacted something of him, he rebelled. That was the way he lived; he passed his days trying to defeat or gratify powerful impulses in a world he feared” (Wright 44).
The specific themes in Wright beyond the power and nature of Bigger’s willpower are likewise similar to Nietzsche’s, while along the same lines, and the similarities between some of the language used by the two writers makes it difficult to believe that it was any coincidence that the character of Bigger so closely resembles the philosophy of Nietzsche. First, there is much argument made by both men about the nature of religion, and their conclusions are similar. “High spirituality itself,” Nietzsche says, “exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities” (219). For Nietzsche, the existence of religion is something merely to placate the slaves, to promise them the things denied them in life in some sort of afterlife. It is the utmost result of moral oppression, and its purpose is solely to hold in place the slaves, that the masters might maintain their grip on them without any fear of revolt. Nietzsche describes religion in the same way that Bigger discusses it in a conversation with Max, when he describes how he felt about organized religion.
“I didn’t like it. There was nothing in it. Aw, all they did was sing and shout and pray all the time. And it didn’t get ‘em nothing. All the colored folks do that, but it don’t get ‘em nothing. The white folks got everything.” (Wright 329)
Bigger’s objection to organized religion is based on his having come to a conclusion on the nature of himself, and the relationship between the masters and slaves of his world. The problem that religion presents is a cheapening of his individuality---if there’s an afterlife, then there is no inequality, and his will to power is meaningless. The strength of his conviction allows him to reject this equalizing notion of an afterlife and exist as he has become---a free spirit, unbound by the moral and religious chains in which he’s been bound.
I’d like to explore his freedom a bit more explicitly, because the fine print of his newfound strength of character is still deeply embedded in Nietzschean principles, and again, Wright explicitly uses Nietzschean language in his description of Bigger’s newfound liberation. “He had murdered and had created a new life for himself. It was something that was all his own, and it was the first time in his life he had had anything that others could not take from him” (Wright 101). Nietzsche’s primary value in the free spirit, as he makes clear in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, places primary importance on the role of the free man as creator. From the section On The Three Metamorphoses:
To create new values---that even the lion cannot do; but the creation of freedom for oneself for new creation---that is within the power of the lion. The creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred “No” even to duty---for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. To assume the right to new values---that is the most terrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much. Verily, to him it is preying, and a matter for a beast of prey. He once loved “thou shalt” as most sacred: now he must find illusion and caprice even in the most sacred, that freedom from his love may become his prey: the lion is needed for such prey. (TSZ 139)
The key word here is
creation, and what is meant by it is the creation of new values, of a freedom from traditionally established moral obstacles to one’s own willpower. The character of Bigger asserts himself by the virtue of creation---what he has created for himself, as Wright describes, is a set of distinct and personal values based on the strength of his will. He does not allow himself to be restrained by morals anymore, and in doing so, he comes to a firm and sincere belief about his true self, which is why he can so comfortably tell Max towards the end that he’s “all right” (Wright 392).
It is interesting that Buckley, when he is concluding his prosecution, says that “the intellectual and moral faculties of mankind may as well be declared impotent” if Bigger is found to be innocent (Wright 352). The irony in this statement is clear from a Nietzschean point of view---Bigger has in fact declared impotent the intellectual and moral faculties of mankind, and in doing so, has concluded on the nature of himself and shaken off the chains placed on him by his white masters. In order to understand Wright’s argument about Bigger’s character, and the virtue of his free spirit, we must be willing to make similar reservations about our moral prejudices, and look further than the socio-political elements of Wright’s brilliant novel to see the
Bigger picture.
Cited:
Brucker, Carl. “
Richard Wright.” Popular Fiction in America, Beacham Publishing, 1987.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. “
Beyond Good And Evil.” Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Ed/Tr.
Walter Kaufmann. Modern Library: New York, 2000.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. “
Thus Spake Zarathustra.” The Portable Nietzsche. Ed/Tr. Walter Kaufmann.
Penguin: New York, 1976.
Wright, Richard. Native Son. Perennial: 2001.