Native Son pages 62-93

Native Son pages 62-93 2nd period

       Mary is kind, careless, and misguided. She is kind to Bigger because of his position in society. She wants to help him and she wants them to be friends. She says, "I can trust you...I'm on your side." (Wright 64) As soon as she meets Bigger she wants to let him know that she will trust him and that he will trust her. She is starting to build a foundational friendship with him. She also says, "That's what we Communists are fighting. We want to stop people from treating others that way. I'm a member of the Party," (Wright 75) and "we'd like yo be your friends." (Wright 75) Mary is very kind because she wants to stop the inequality between the black and the white races, but she does not understand the concept of connecting with black people. Jan and her take him out to dinner in his neighborhood, buy him alcohol, and treat him like a human, but even though these are very kind moves from a white person to a black person it does not change how Bigger sees himself. He will always see himself through white eyes.
       Even though Mary is kind to Bigger, she is careless about her actions and consequences for others. She tells Bigger to lie to her father, to go to a different location than before, and she also gets completely hammered. She shows here carelessness when she says, "I want you to drive me to the Loop. But if anyone should ask you, then I went to the University, see, Bigger?"(Wright 64) This shows that she is only caring about herself, if she gets caught by her father it's no big deal, but if Bigger gets caught lying, larger consequences would occur. She is only focused on the point of not getting caught by her dad. By the time she gets home she is completely gone because of all the alcohol she had consumed. By doing this she puts all the responsibility on Bigger to make sure she gets to bed safely without waking her father up. I just feel like Mary is crazy and always wants to be on the non-common side of the spectrum. She just wants to be different and have fun. She is a lying Communist getting drunk with a black man at night. Then she lies dead at the end of Book One. Her craziness, carelessness, and Communistic ideas killed her.
       The most obvious point about Mary, is that she is misguided. She tries to feel for Bigger because of the way society is against him, but it is impossible. She thinks African Americans are a different being in my mind. She says, "They have so much emotion, what a people! What a people! if we could ever get them going...They've got spirit. they'll give the Party something it needs. And their songs- the spirituals! Aren't they marvelous?" (Wright 77) When Mary says this it seems like she thinks of blacks as materials and that she thinks blacks need help to start there life. She is generalizing the whole black race. She doesn't know anything about them. She only feels bad for them because her father is taking all their money and letting her spend it. Bigger doesn't feel connected at this point, "never were they on a common level." (Wright 72) He can't feel like she understand because she is white. She never will understand because she is rich and white. He is black and poor. Bigger wants to be white but he never will be. Kindness, carelessness, and misguidance characterize Mary, but by the time Bigger cuts her head off and throws her into the furnace her white ghost is only left to haunt him.

http://jg007kill.blogspot.com/ Joey Guerra