The Impossible Dilemmas

We've only covered 5 books in African-American Literature, but there are certain symmetries and oppositions that have arisen between certain novels. The dissections of Native Son and Invisible Man, where each tries to create a great, thesis-driven African-American novel, have similarities in goal but many differences in their separate approach, namely humor and character agency. The White Boy Shuffle and Invisible Man have an eerily comparative sense of satire despite being over 40 years apart, and both are just as (or even more, depending on your own perspective) funny as Their Eyes Were Watching God, though each brand differs so strongly. There are also repeated scenes and characters of across the books, like power figures Joe Starks and Dr. Bledsoe, the host of "white liberal" presences in each story, and situations such as racist "old Americana" trinkets in IM and Beloved. Like their humor similarities, Ellison and Beatty share a disdain for the education system as it's worked for the black community as is evident in their novels. Plenty of this stuff has been covered in blog posts and research papers, even mine! Though one particular parallel I'd like to explore though is in the first and final books of this course. Both Native Son and Beloved have a "critical scene" that the rest of the novel rotates around; Bigger is caught in an inescapable accidental murder of Mary Dalton, while Sethe is driven by the encroaching forces of slavery to kill her children so they may avoid the atrocities she experienced. Each situation has incredible gravity on the story, but Wright and Morrison both have differingly nuanced approaches in writing and explicating their scenes, that I believe informs the themes and style of their novels. 

Native Son's Bigger Thomas is a predestined figure in Wright's naturalist perspective. Due to the singular control racism has on his life, he is put in certain interactions that he can simply not get the upper hand in. When Jan and Mary try to soften up to him, his unfamiliarity with white friendliness from so many years of oppression combined with their general obliviousness shields him away even further from them. In the pivotal moment of Wright's piece and Bigger's life, when he is forced to carry a passed out Mary to her room and her mother comes in, the sight of white person possibly knowing that a black man was in a white woman's room while she was sleeping drives him to panic. Specifically, his reactionary effort to keep him and Mary silent leaves him with a smothered and completely dead Mary. From then on, Bigger is caught in an inescapable path to his incarceration and eventual execution, all in a situation that, due to his race, he couldn't really do anything to come away scot-free. If he explains himself to Miss Dalton, he creates suspicion and possible outrage for being with a pass-out drunk Mary. If he tries to leave, he might get noticed and will still end up being interrogated for what happened. But both of those hypothetical's don't matter, as by Wright's reasoning, the primal fear that Bigger and African-Americans have of being caught anywhere close to trouble by white people drove him to this inevitable conclusion. By getting a 3rd person perspective that's still informed on the thoughts of Bigger, we get the full picture of his fear in action, and of how predisposed he is to the eventual result. Important to note is the clarity of what's going on in this scene, as Wright's direct protest novel style is built to illustrate his points. The flowchart of action and reaction that occurs is as mechanical and unquestioned as the all-encompassing force of racism is on Bigger's life. 

Sethe's particular moment is just as pivotal as Bigger's, but key alterations to the context, narrative, characters, and novel itself distinguish it from the one seen in Native Son. In short, Sethe's horrid experience in slavery combined with her incredible love for her children leads her to, when confronted with the figures of Sweet Home, kill most of her offspring to put them away from the life she had to go through. Again, like Bigger, due to her race and the trapping conditions set by it (being a runaway slave in pre-Emancipation America) by her own self she is unable to do anything else but slaughter her kin to protect them. This is where those differences we’ve been waiting for come in though. Part of the dilemma that comes in for Sethe is her own emotional attachment, rather than simply racism determining her actions. The context of racism necessitates her to act, but her incredibly strong sense of motherhood forbids her from ever putting her children in the harm of slavery. Sethe’s slaughter is unavoidable for her, but is intentional and out of action rather than out of complete instinct like Bigger. Also, I’d say the complete justification of her actions are still left somewhat ambiguous. Taking the negative reactions to her murders of other Cincinnatians, who were all former slaves and no doubt faced hardships of comparable horror to Sethe, Morrison really wants us to ponder the act for ourselves rather than explicate its unavoidability like in Native Son. For real, the entire third part of Wright’s novel is a breakdown of how this was inevitable, which we just don’t get in Beloved. Instead, we have the short justifications of Sethe, her own emotional profile, and the events and relationships that are affected in her life from doing the unthinkable.

Oh, and one final thing. Both events are absolutely central to their respective books, and set off huge domino effects for the rest of them. But for Bigger, his act seems like just one potential misstep that he happened to fall into, considering how little room he has for error in Wright’s novel. For Sethe’s particular predicament, there is a unique setup required for her to be backed into such a dark corner, though that’s not to say she would never face any difficult situations because of her pre-existing dispositions ever again. It’s more that Bigger’s potential paths all seem to lead to the same result, while Beloved would be entirely different if not for this exact situation of the encroaching four horsemen and Sethe’s indomitable and selfish motherly love.

I might be stating the obvious here a couple times, but it’s a distinction I think is important and interesting to make. And I’m certainly leaving out a few key differences, and would like everyone’s input on how they line up similarly or differ in the comments below!