There is a gentle rain falling this morning on Richmond, and I'm haunted by the book I'm reading.
In Native Son, Bigger Thomas gets a job as a chauffeur for a rich white family. It's 1940, and the daughter, college-aged, is socializing with communists and developing her own ideas of a union of blacks and whites who will rise up against communism. When she first meets the chauffeur Bigger, she asks, "Bigger, are you a member of the union?"
Bigger is a caustic figure. He is poor, black, and frustrated with how the white world keeps him down. His character shows some of the ways in which the people who live under oppressive systemic violence are likely to then act violently themselves. He is a taut wire, which snaps often and inflicts costly destruction on himself, his friends and his family. Here's an early look at how he sees his situation:
"Yes, he could take the job at Dalton's and be miserable, or he could refuse it and starve. It maddened him to think that he did not have a wider choice of action. Well, he could not stand here all day like this. What was he to do with himself? He tried to decide if he wanted to buy a ten-cent magazine, or go to a movie, or go to the poolroom and talk with the gang, or just loaf around."
Unemployment is a scourge. Jean Zaru describes peace as "employment". And as the story continues, one gets a sense for how Bigger's lack of employment leads to corrosion of social fabric in more ways than one. As we will note later though, it's not any old employment that will do.
Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you have not read this book and plan to.
Within the first hundred pages Bigger gets into quite a fix. I thought I was going to stop reading the book when he smothered the communist-sympathizing daughter and killed her in her bed while trying to conceal her presence from her blind mother who had entered the room. It seemed like too far fetched and too outrageous a plot twist this early in a 500 page book. But the way Bigger has responded to his deed is disconcerting in such a way that I can't walk away from it now.
I'm used to reading Macbeth, about a man who planned a murder, angsted over it, did it, then was consumed by guilt. Bigger's story is decidedly different - he didn't plan this murder, he didn't angst over it, and he never expresses regret at it. The most chilling part of the story so far has been his own characterization of his reaction to the deed:
"Though he had killed by accident, not once did he feel the need to tell himself that it had been an accident. He was black and he had been alone in a room where a white girl had been killed, therefore he had killed her. That was what everybody would say anyhow, no matter what he said. And in a certain sense he knew that the girl's death had not been accidental. He had killed many times before, only on those other times there had been no handy victim or circumstance to make visible or dramatic his will to kill. His crime seemed natural; he felt that all of his life had been leading to something like this."
What chills me as I read this on as the rain falls against my window, is that this must be true for so many men who are constantly pushed down by the systems that oppress them. Bigger is strangely stimulated by this murder, because it has given his life a focus, and intensity that it has heretofore lacked. Society has so thoroughly stripped him of meaningful employment that he latches onto this deed with an intensity and alacrity that really make Macbeth look like a pansy in his remorseful, blubbering state.
I'm starting to sound like the communist daughter, but really, how can we start imbuing all citizens' lives with a sense of purpose and meaning? Malcolm Gladwell says that meaningful work requires three things:
As a teacher, I'm blessed that these things exist in my work. We need a society and economy based on the goal of providing this kind of work to everyone.
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| Chicago housing in a poor neighborhood, 1940 |
Bigger is a caustic figure. He is poor, black, and frustrated with how the white world keeps him down. His character shows some of the ways in which the people who live under oppressive systemic violence are likely to then act violently themselves. He is a taut wire, which snaps often and inflicts costly destruction on himself, his friends and his family. Here's an early look at how he sees his situation:
"Yes, he could take the job at Dalton's and be miserable, or he could refuse it and starve. It maddened him to think that he did not have a wider choice of action. Well, he could not stand here all day like this. What was he to do with himself? He tried to decide if he wanted to buy a ten-cent magazine, or go to a movie, or go to the poolroom and talk with the gang, or just loaf around."
Unemployment is a scourge. Jean Zaru describes peace as "employment". And as the story continues, one gets a sense for how Bigger's lack of employment leads to corrosion of social fabric in more ways than one. As we will note later though, it's not any old employment that will do.
Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you have not read this book and plan to.
Within the first hundred pages Bigger gets into quite a fix. I thought I was going to stop reading the book when he smothered the communist-sympathizing daughter and killed her in her bed while trying to conceal her presence from her blind mother who had entered the room. It seemed like too far fetched and too outrageous a plot twist this early in a 500 page book. But the way Bigger has responded to his deed is disconcerting in such a way that I can't walk away from it now.
I'm used to reading Macbeth, about a man who planned a murder, angsted over it, did it, then was consumed by guilt. Bigger's story is decidedly different - he didn't plan this murder, he didn't angst over it, and he never expresses regret at it. The most chilling part of the story so far has been his own characterization of his reaction to the deed:
"Though he had killed by accident, not once did he feel the need to tell himself that it had been an accident. He was black and he had been alone in a room where a white girl had been killed, therefore he had killed her. That was what everybody would say anyhow, no matter what he said. And in a certain sense he knew that the girl's death had not been accidental. He had killed many times before, only on those other times there had been no handy victim or circumstance to make visible or dramatic his will to kill. His crime seemed natural; he felt that all of his life had been leading to something like this."
What chills me as I read this on as the rain falls against my window, is that this must be true for so many men who are constantly pushed down by the systems that oppress them. Bigger is strangely stimulated by this murder, because it has given his life a focus, and intensity that it has heretofore lacked. Society has so thoroughly stripped him of meaningful employment that he latches onto this deed with an intensity and alacrity that really make Macbeth look like a pansy in his remorseful, blubbering state.I'm starting to sound like the communist daughter, but really, how can we start imbuing all citizens' lives with a sense of purpose and meaning? Malcolm Gladwell says that meaningful work requires three things:
- Autonomy: Being in control of our own choices
- Complexity: Being able to master new skills and improve
- Direct connection between effort and reward: Seeing the payoff—whether financial, spiritual, or other—of your work
As a teacher, I'm blessed that these things exist in my work. We need a society and economy based on the goal of providing this kind of work to everyone.
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