Finished: Native Son (Wright) A very powerful, intense book. The story of 20 year old Bigger Thomas, a young black man living in the terribly poor black south side of Chicago in the 1930's. He lives in a one room apartment with his mother, brother and sister, and he's got a chip the size of the entire tenement building on his shoulder. Not that it's not justified. This book is a powerful statement as to the destitute lives of the poor black population and how they could not get a foot forward in the rich white man's world. Slavery was over, but how did these people survive in this horrific limbo of non-equal rights for so many years?? So, the story opens with Bigger's mother begging him to take the job their family has been offered by the "relief" committee. One of the richest men in Chicago, Mr. Dalton is looking to hire a new chauffeur for himself, his blind wife, and his 23 year old feisty daughter, Mary. Mr. Dalton is actually a man who is trying to do the right thing by the black community. He donates loads of money to the NAACP. However, he also owns several of the buildings that the black families are crowded into. Instead of understanding their more basic problems and trying to put his money into perhaps decreasing their rent or improving their living circumstances, he makes generous donations of things like ping pong tables for the black youth center. I guess you can say his heart is in the right place, while his head is in the sand. Anyway, Bigger goes to interview with Mr. Dalton for the chauffeur job. Throughout the entire book, we hear and see everything from Bigger's point of view....including his terrifying interactions with white people. He doesn't know how to talk to white people, other than to say "yessur" and "nossur"...and he most definitely has trouble looking white people in the eyes. He doesn't feel like it's his right...yet, those feelings make him angry. He meets the very kind, and blind, Mrs. Dalton. She is one of the huge reasons her husband is so generous. She asks Bigger right off the bat if he'd like to further his education? He says he doesn't know. He only made it through 8th grade. Then...in pops Mary Dalton. She's a vivacious girl who has given her folks a bit of trouble with her wildish ways. She is very forward thinking and is dating a communist white American named Jan Erlone, who her parents highly disapprove of. The first thing out of her mouth when she meets Bigger is to ask him if he belongs to a union for chauffeurs. She wants to make sure his rights are protected. He doesn't know what a union is, much less why this white girl is speaking to him. That's just unheard of for him. Mr. Dalton hires Bigger and puts him to work immediately. Bigger will have his own room, a weekly salary, new clothes, and even a little extra salary for himself that he doesn't  need to give his mother for her living expenses. Bigger's first job is to take Mary to the University that night. And....this is the beginning of things going terribly, terribly wrong. As Bigger drives the chatty Mary to the University, she suddenly tells him to take a different road. Bigger is conflicted as to whether he should do what Mary says, or do what his employer asked him to do. He takes Mary where she asks, which is to meet Jan. Jan actually extends his hand to shake Bigger's and Bigger is floored. He's never touched a white man before. Jan and Mary talk Bigger into taking them into the black neighborhood to eat at a black restaurant. They want Bigger to eat and drink with them...not to wait for them in the car. Their motives are good....they don't think there should be any difference in how black people and white people are treated. What they are fighting, though, is that it is ingrained in Bigger not to trust or socialize with white people. They have no idea how uncomfortable and frightened they are making him. So...Bigger finally relaxes a little when they've all had a few drinks. After eating and drinking he drives Jan and Mary around for a couple of hours while they "make out" in the back of the car. Then, Bigger drops Jan off and drives the very, very drunk Mary home. Mary can barely stand up so Bigger is forced to help her up the stairs. He is uncomfortable in every way touching her, helping her, taking her to her bedroom, laying her on her bed...and then she kisses him! He kisses her back, but goes no further. It's after 2:00 a.m. and Mary's mother comes to her door! Bigger knows that she can't see him, but she can hear Mary mumbling on the bed. Afraid that Mary will indicate that Bigger is in the room, he covers her mouth with a pillow...tighter and tighter until she's struggling, and then not struggling anymore. Mrs. Dalton comes close to the bed and can smell that Mary has been drinking. She tries to wake her but then leaves the room figuring she's passed out. Bigger releases the pillow and horrifyingly realizes that he has smothered Mary. She's dead! Bigger panics as he tries to figure out what to do. Mary is supposed to leave the next day for a trip and her trunk is half packed. Bigger is supposed to take that trunk down to the train station in the morning. He decides to put Mary in the trunk and take the trunk to the train station and dispose of Mary somewhere along the way. By the time he gets the trunk down to the basement, he realizes it's far too heavy to take further and he'll never get it up the back stairs and into the car. So, the horror gets worse. Bigger eyes the furnace and decides to stuff Mary's body in there to burn. While he's doing so, he realizes she's not going to fit, so he chops her head off with the hatchet and shoves it in with the body. While the body is burning, Bigger takes the trunk to the train station and drops it off. The next morning, when her parents discover that Mary never made it to her destination and she is suddenly reported missing, Bigger tells the Dalton's how he and Mary really met up with Jan. However, he also lies and says that Jan came home with them and went up to Mary's bedroom with her. Eager to believe that the communist party is evil, the Dalton's have Jan arrested. Meanwhile, Bigger digs himself in deeper and deeper. He decides to tell his girlfriend, or rather, bed buddy, Bessie, that they should capitalize on the missing Mary by writing a ransom note. He thinks they'll be able to get alot of money and leave Chicago before authorities discover that Mary is dead. Bessie knows that something bad has happened and doesn't want anything to do with a ransom letter, but Bigger is very insistent. When Bigger goes back to the Dalton's, he leaves the ransom note on the steps and then goes to the basement where the newspaper men have gathered to get their story. They want to question Bigger, but Mr. Dalton doesn't want the poor, young black man questioned. While trying to fix the smoke coming from the furnace, one of the newspaper men actually rakes out some of Mary's bones that haven't burned up yet! :-( Seeing this, in the commotion, Bigger climbs up the steps and goes out a window. It is now known that he is the guilty party, not Jan...and furthermore, that poor Mary is dead! Authorities immediately claim that Bigger has raped, murdered and dismembered Mary. He runs to Bessie's and drags her with him to an empty tenement building. Sadly, though, his motives are not altruistic or loving towards Bessie. He doesn't want to go on the run with her because she will slow him down...but he doesn't want to leave her behind to blab everything to the police, so he takes her with him. After pretty much forcing her to have sex, he then bashes her head in with a brick and throws her down a shoot in between the buildings....along with the little bit of money they had in her dress pocket. Bigger alludes police for a day, but then is finally caught. His trial comes fast, and amazingly, he is visited by Jan who forgives him because he thinks he understands what motivated him. Also, Jan says that he has a friend who is an attorney who will defend Bigger, Borris Max. After finally getting Bigger to explain his own feelings and motivations and fears as a young black man with no hope for a future as he would have hoped,  Max waxes eloquently and passionately about how not just Bigger, but the entire black community has been wronged. He fights to keep Bigger from receiving the death penalty and just being sentenced to prison for life. The prosecutor waxes just as eloquently and passionately in the opposite direction. Sadly, Bessie's battered body is rolled in on a gurney as evidence. Bigger's not on trial for killing the black woman, because that's not as horrific to the public as the killing of a white woman..but she's "sufficient enough" to be evidence. In the end, the judge sentences Bigger to death. I can't even explain how sad the entire story is. It's a powerful story, though, and I can see why it is on most of the Top 100 lists of books that I found!