Native Son

Buckley tells Bigger that he is only prolonging the trouble he has caused, as Jan and Max can’t really help him. He leads Bigger down the hall and shows him a crowd gathered outside of the jail that wants to lynch him. Vaguely, Buckley threatens that they can only hold them back for so long. Buckley wants him to confess and implicate Jan. Then Buckley asks about Bessie. Bigger is taken aback, having forgotten about Bessie since the focus has been on Mary. Buckley reveals that Bigger hadn’t immediately killed Bessie; she froze to death trying to escape the airshaft. In her purse, police had discovered a letter to Bigger in which Bessie had stated that she wouldn’t take part in his ransom scheme. Then Buckley accuses Bigger of committing several other rapes and murders over the last few years. Bigger protests, but Buckley asserts that no one will believe him. Buckley badgers him to confess and give up Jan.

Bigger is surprised when Buckley mentions the derailed plan to rob Blum’s Delicatessen. Finally, Bigger confesses to killing Bessie and to accidentally killing Mary. Buckley knows that he had had sex with Bessie, but Bigger swears that he didn’t rape Mary. Bigger becomes frustrated, unable to put into words the way he had felt and why he had killed the two women. Buckley comments that Bigger feels that he has been treated unfairly in life because he’s Black. He suggests that if Bigger will confess, he can send Bigger for an evaluation at a mental hospital where they might decide that he is mentally incompetent and shouldn’t be executed. Bigger refuses. He wants to explain why he did it, but he can’t. A man enters to write out Bigger’s confession as Buckley questions him about the events surrounding Mary’s death. Giving up, Bigger answers his questions and signs the confession. Buckley and the other man speak about Bigger as if he isn’t there, congratulating themselves for easily eliciting a confession from “just a scared colored boy from Mississippi” (358).

The two men leave and Bigger sinks to the floor. He doesn’t understand why no one else seems to feel the way he does. Four officers enter to escort him to the inquest. On the way, he his crowded by people who shout insults and threats. One punches him in the side of the head and Bigger reels. Guided into the inquest room, he sees a table bearing several bones and other evidence such as the ransom note and the trunk. Mr. and Mrs. Dalton are present. Max assures Bigger that he won’t need to say anything. Mrs. Dalton is called to testify and give biographical information about Mary. The coroner asks Mrs. Dalton to identify, by touch, the earring found in the fire. She recognizes it as one of a pair that had been passed down to Mary as a family heirloom. Mrs. Dalton describes entering Mary’s room the night she died and feeling concerned about her but leaving her alone because she had smelled alcohol. But before she had left the room, Mrs. Dalton had prayed for her daughter.

The coroner leads the jurors walk by the table to look at Mary’s remains. Then, he calls Jan to the stand. Bigger wonders if Jan will turn against him. But Jan only agrees that he believes in racial equality and is a member of the Communist Party. The coroner asks about Mary’s level of intoxication and whether he had done anything to her sexually that might have left her “stunned, too weak to have gotten out [of the car] alone” (368). Jan says that he didn’t. The coroner suggests that Jan had incapacitated Mary with alcohol and then left her for Bigger, “a drunken Negro” (369), to convince him to join the Communist Party. Max objects, as the inquest isn’t supposed to be a trial, only a testimony about the cause and manner of death. The judge denies his objections, demonstrating bias against Bigger. The coroner continues to suggest that by talking to Bigger about racial equality and treating Bigger as an equal, Jan had given him permission to rape Mary as a communist recruiting tactic, even asking if the Party had paid for the alcohol that made her vulnerable. Jan insists that he had never expected anything to happen to Mary when he left her with Bigger.

Next, Mr. Dalton takes the stand and talks about his charity work and his history of hiring “Negro boys [who] were handicapped by poverty, lack of education, misfortune, or bodily injury” (376). When Max questions Mr. Dalton, he asks about his real estate company, which charges Black tenants (including the Thomas family) a much higher rent than white tenants. The coroner objects, but Mr. Dalton offers to answer anyways. He explains that the rent is high due to the housing shortage on the South Side. And Mr. Dalton claims that he adheres to the housing segregation that keeps Black renters in areas with shortages because it’s customary and he believes that “Negroes are happier when they’re together” (378). Additionally, charging less rent would be an unethical business practice as he would be undermining competing companies. Mr. Dalton states that he funds Black education to improve their lives but admits that he has never hired any of them after they’re educated. Max asks if Mr. Dalton sees a connection between Bigger’s family living in poor conditions and his daughter’s death, but Mr. Dalton doesn’t understand.

After Peggy, Britten, and several other witnesses testify, the coroner calls Bigger to the stand. After a burst of anticipation from the onlookers, Max announces that Bigger wishes to assert his right not to testify. The coroner presents other evidence for the jury to examine, then notes that the condition of Mary’s remains make it impossible to investigate her manner of death. Offering to produce another piece of evidence that will serve to illustrate Mary’s death, the coroner signals the dramatic entrance of two assistants who wheel a gurney in the room bearing the “raped and mutilated body of one Bessie Mears” (381). There is a wave of outrage and disorder. Max interjects that presenting her body is indecent, and since Bigger has already confessed, the only purpose it serves is to make the crowd more violent and hostile. But the coroner argues that selecting which evidence to present is his legal purview, threatening to eject Max from the room. Defeated, Max returns to his seat.

Bigger is dejected and stunned, noting that the white faces in the room are shocked. Bessie’s death hasn’t been acknowledged in the inquest, and he knows that she is being used only as a means of shoring up the case against him for killing Mary. White courts aren’t concerned when a Black person kills another Black person. Bigger knows that Bessie would hate having her dead body used like this, just as she had been used and controlled while laboring for white people in life. When Bessie’s body is revealed, the cameras flash and Bigger wants to look away. He forces himself to stare, trying not to see, until he no longer can, covering his face with his hands. The jury leaves and then returns. The coroner reads their decision: Mary’s manner of death is ruled a murder and Bigger will be charged and tried. Numb, Bigger stops listening, knowing that his future will be returning to jail, a trial, and then execution. Max promises to see him later at the jail.

Two officers handcuff him to themselves and lead him out to a car, forcing him to walk through the angry, shouting mob outside. They sit on either side of him in the cramped backseat. Bigger is confused when instead of going to the jail, the car takes him to the Dalton house. A mob gathered outside shouts when they see him. The policemen lead him to Mary’s bedroom, already full of reporters and officers. They urge Bigger to act out Mary’s rape and murder. Filled with sudden outrage and fury, Bigger insists that he didn’t rape her and refuses to participate. Police drag Bigger back to the car; the crowd screams and spits at him. Across the street, a roof bears a burning cross.

Bigger notices the weight of the cross around his neck, feeling as if the preacher had lured him to this betrayal by Christianity. He sees the cross as a talisman of his own death, and as soon as he is returned to the jail and uncuffed, he rips it off and curses it. The guards are astonished, prodding him to keep it, but he throws it away. Reverend Hammond comes to see Bigger, but Bigger screams at him to leave. He shoves the cell door closed as a guard unlocks it, slamming into Hammond’s face and knocking the preacher to the ground. Sighing, Hammond leaves. Bigger throws the cross again hard, realizing that his anger had come because the reverend had made him feel hope and he never wants to feel hope again. Bigger has no interest in friendship or trust with anyone, including Jan and Max: “He wanted no more crosses that might turn to fire while still on his chest” (394). Another prisoner whispers to Bigger, but Bigger ignores him.

The guard gives him a tray of food, commenting that it had been sent by Max. Bigger asks for a newspaper and the guard agrees, adding that Max had told him that he would be coming by to bring Bigger some clothes. Uninterested in the food, Bigger focusing on the paper but pauses to notice that the guard had been unexpectedly friendly and unthreatening. The newspaper expresses an expectation that Bigger’s communist defense will enter a plea of not guilty, even though Bigger is undoubtedly guilty and will be executed for his crimes. The article emphasizes the role of the Communist Party, and Buckley uses it as a platform to state his assertion that they ought to be wiped out and are likely connected to a multitude of unsolved crimes.

Suddenly, a group of guards maneuver a struggling, screaming Black man into his cell. His new cellmate demands that the guards set him free and return his papers or he will report them to the president. Bigger sympathizes with the man’s rage. From another cell, a white man explains to Bigger that the man had gone crazy “from studying too much at the university” (397). Bigger’s cellmate has claimed that his research has discovered the root of racism and that one of his professors has had him jailed for it before he can inform the president. The man was arrested while waiting, in his underwear, in the post office for an audience with the president. Bigger tries to put as much space between himself and the man as possible. He continues to shout until several men in white uniforms put him in a straitjacket and haul him away on a stretcher.

After a while, Max shows up and asks Bigger how he’s feeling. Bigger doesn’t answer, wishing that he could give up and stop existing. Max tells Bigger that he has bought some clothing for Bigger to wear to his arraignment. Bigger exclaims suddenly that Max shouldn’t bother to defend him. He insists that he can’t win and doesn’t care what happens. Max responds calmly, suggesting that Bigger had shown that he cared when he wouldn’t reenact Mary’s death. Bigger replies that he refused because he won’t help white people who hate him. Max explains that they don’t just hate Bigger. They hate people like Jan, and trade unions, and Jews, and anyone who tries to organize. Max asks Bigger about his confession, which Bigger affirms is true, adding that he hadn’t planned it. He also asserts that he didn’t rape Mary, but it makes no difference because no one will believe him because “they say black men do that” (404). Max questions why Bigger had killed her. He describes a confusion of emotions. Max asks if Bigger had liked Mary and Bigger explodes, yelling that he hated her and he still hates her. Max calms him, wondering why Bigger hates Mary when she was trying to be nice to him. Bigger tries to explain that Black men are killed for getting close to white women like Mary, so they stay away from them. It had made him furious for her to act so friendly and familiar.

Max counters that Mary had been trying to help him but didn’t know how to show that by acting any differently than she had. Bigger replies that Black people and white people don’t know each other well enough to understand each other. He didn’t perceive her behavior as kindness, even though Max insists that Mary was blameless in what had happened. Max points out that Bigger had been sexually aroused by Mary in her bedroom. Bigger considers this and suggests that he found himself fulfilling the stereotype when he was attracted to her and decided to behave the way he was expected. He knew that his life would be over with one accusation and had reacted involuntarily. Max mentions Bessie and Bigger explains that he hadn’t hate or loved Bessie, he had killed her out of self-preservation. But Bigger had hated Mary even before he had met her because white people have always limited what he can do with his life. Surviving means endless labor for the benefit of other people, and whites have all the power.

Bigger feels emasculated by the way they exert their control, noting, “They kill you before you die” (409). Bigger explains that he had once dreamed of becoming a pilot but wasn’t allowed to attend the school where he could learn how. He had considered joining the army, but he knew that Black soldiers are segregated and only allowed to do dirty jobs and manual labor. Bigger didn’t want to be stuck. Max argues that for all the things that make Bigger feel like he has no agency, he had done something by killing two women. Bigger tries to describe the fear he had endured his entire life and that after killing Mary, the fear had disappeared for a while, and he had felt free. Hoping and wanting seems pointless to Bigger. He agrees that he has always wanted happiness, but as part of the world, not living as an outsider. Bigger isn’t sure if he believes in God or religion, but he also doesn’t want to die. He thinks that church is “for whipped folks” (413).

Bigger also has no faith in burgeoning civil rights leaders; he seems them as politicians and they see men like him as enemies of the cause. Bigger had only voted on occasions when he had been given money to. No one before Mary and Jan has ever spoken to Bigger about labor unions. Bigger feels remorse for attempting to pin the murder on Jan and the communists, acknowledging that Jan doesn’t seem to hate him like other white people. Bigger informs Max, “it seems sort of natural-like, me being here facing that death chair … something like this just had to be” (415). Max explains that they will plead not guilty at the arraignment. Max will explain what Bigger has said to the judge, asking for mercy and life imprisonment instead of death, and they will switch his plea to guilty at the trial. But there are a lot of white people who hate Bigger and are demanding vengeance, angry that Bigger had managed to break through the limitations to commit the crimes he had committed. Any white jury will be composed of men like this, but Max promises to try.

Bigger thinks Max is kind and feels sad that Max is attracting so much hate by defending him. Max asserts that a fear of being hated is what keeps a lot of white people from helping to improve Black lives. As a Jew, Max is accustomed to being hated and can handle it. Max asks Bigger again how he feels and Bigger replies, “I don’t know. I’m just setting here waiting for ‘em to come and tell me to walk to that chair. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk or not” (416). Max leaves, and Bigger realizes that he feels at peace after saying so many things that he has never said. Then for a moment, he feels angry at Max before recognizing that Max had only listened to him. Bigger becomes afraid. When he’s taken to the electric chair, he will only be able to walk there without collapsing if he protects himself with either unrelenting hope or unrelenting hatred. Considering what he had expressed to Max, he questions if he even has the right to feel these things or think about anything other than his Blackness, the murders, and the inevitability of his death.

He asks himself whether the white people who hate him have the potential to be like Max and see him as human, whether they’re “a white looming mountain of hate” (418) or individuals. Bigger stands up tries to think of himself “in relation to other men” (418), something that has always terrified him because he hasn’t been able to imagine himself as anything but an object of hatred. Bigger tries to understand his own hatred and fear and how it keeps him, and others who hate and fear, isolated and imprisoned. Bigger is struck by the desire to feel connected to others and join the battle for equality. He wonders if he has been as blind as the others. But suddenly, Bigger feels like he is running out of time to answer these questions. Shaking and crying, Bigger tries to hold himself up on the bars but collapses onto his knees, weeping, “I don’t want to die” (421). 

Less than a week later, Bigger has been arraigned and indicted. He has pled not guilty to the charge of murder and waits in his cell to be taken to court for the start of his trial. Since his revelations, Bigger has felt even more vulnerable to the hatred directed at him, but he can no longer guard himself and unlearn what he understands about life and humanity. Bigger has been wondering if there are words that could make people feel what he feels. He has two images of his future in his mind: dying alone in the electric chair and standing amid others as a part of the world. When his family visited, Bigger lied that he had prayed and feels at peace. But this had made him feel worse, so he told Max that they can’t come to see him again. A guard gives Bigger a newspaper, sent by Max, and learns that the National Guard is present for his trial to hold back potentially violent mobs. The paper suggests that Bigger is living a life of leisure and luxury in jail, sponsored by the communists.

Max appears to walk with him to court. He is kind and reassuring, but as they pass a window, Bigger spies the National Guard and the angry mob. Before entering the courtroom, Max prepares Bigger by telling him that he will need to speak once to plead guilty, despite his fear. Additionally, although Bigger doesn’t want his friends and family to be present, Max has asked everyone who supports Bigger to show up in the courtroom, although Bigger doesn’t feel that he is worth this kind of effort. Max explains, “Well, this thing’s bigger than you, son. In a certain sense, every Negro in America’s on trial out there today,” to which Bigger replies, “They going to kill me anyhow” (426). But Max believes that they can make people understand Bigger. Prompted by a guard, Max leads Bigger into the courtroom. The flash of cameras makes him feel awkward. He sees familiar faces and imagines that they must see Bigger’s trial as what he deserves for his temper and posturing.

Proceedings begin when the judge enters. Bigger hears shocked gasps from the crowd when the charges are read. Then there is an uproar when Max announces that Bigger is pleading guilty. Max asks that the court allow him to present evidence as to Bigger’s mental state, including considering the guilty plea as evidence, for consideration in determining his sentence. Although Max isn’t pleading insanity, he is arguing that Bigger wasn’t entirely responsible for his actions. Buckley interjects, protesting that Max is describing an insanity plea, but Max reiterates that he is not because “there are degrees of insanity” (430). Buckley argues that he will also present evidence and witnesses to demonstrate that Bigger is sane and fully culpable. The two lawyers are asked to the bench, where they argue for more than an hour before the judge calls on Bigger and asks him to stand. Terrified, he does. The judge explains that pleading guilty will mean that he will be sentenced and could receive anything from a minimum of fourteen years in prison to life imprisonment or the death penalty. Bigger agrees.

Buckley gives his opening statement, arguing that Bigger’s crimes are monstrous, and the case is unambiguous. And the citizens who voted Buckley into office are telling him clearly that his job is to ensure that Bigger is executed. This incites outbursts from people in the courtroom calling for Bigger to be lynched. Additionally, Buckley finds the notion absurd that a guilty plea should be considered mitigating evidence in lessening a sentence. Buckley calls the crimes “two of the most horrible murders in the history of American civilization” (434), arguing that claiming that Bigger is sane yet not fully responsible for his actions is unthinkable, and that an insanity plea warrants a jury trial. If the plea is guilty, Buckley exclaims, “then the State demands the death penalty for these Black crimes” (435). Max objects, reasserting that Bigger’s plea is guilty and not, as Buckley is insinuating, not guilty by reason of insanity.

When Max refers to Bigger as “this poor boy, Bigger” (435), Buckley objects to his use of his first name and “poor boy” to elicit sympathy. The judge agrees that Max must refer to Bigger only by his full name. Buckley announces that he has sixty witnesses to attest to Bigger’s sanity. Max points out that this is excessive for a guilty plea, and Buckley has rushed the case to trial solely because the defendant is Black, seeking the death penalty “while the temper of the people is white-hot” (436). Because Bigger has pled guilty, Max has no witnesses. He is the only witness to Bigger’s story. Max insists that he is not suggesting that Bigger is insane, but his youth, as well as his emotional and mental state, should be considered in his punishment. Leopold and Loeb had received such consideration and Max argues that Bigger shouldn’t be denied this because he’s poor and Black. The wide range of sentencing suggests that Bigger’s reason for killing should be considered. Max asks the court to spare Bigger’s life because his limited and brutal experience of life had affected his judgment.

During a one-hour recess, Bigger despairs, rejecting food and cigarettes. Afterward, Buckley presents his sixty witnesses, including people who Bigger has never seen before. Max is uninterested in cross-examining any of the state’s witnesses. He protests Buckley’s insistence upon including fourteen reporters, but they are allowed, and all tell the same story. After another hour recess, the court returns in the evening and Bigger becomes numb watching handwriting and fingerprint experts, doctors, servers from the restaurant where Bigger had eaten with Jan and Mary, and former teachers, white women who called Bigger “a dull boy, but thoroughly sane” (440). When court finally adjourns, Bigger doesn’t want to come back and continue, but Max encourages him to keep fighting. The next morning, Jan testifies, as well as Gus, G.H., and Jack, and Doc from the pool hall. They bring forth every moment from Bigger’s interactions with others, including the fight with Gus and masturbating in the movie theater. The witnesses repeatedly refer to Bigger as “sane” (441).

Buckley presents a barrage of physical evidence, including the furnace itself, which he has reconstructed in the courtroom so that a white girl who is the same size as Mary can crawl into it and prove that it was large enough to hold her, but not until “the sadistic Negro” (442) had decapitated her. The state finally rests its case and it’s time for the defense to present theirs. Max announces that he will not present witnesses or dispute the evidence. Buckley gives a lengthy summation, calling on the court to “impose the death sentence upon Bigger Thomas, this despoiler of women” (442), and court is adjourned for the day. Exhausted, Bigger hopes that tomorrow will be the last day of the trial. When he wakes in the morning, Bigger wonders if there is any chance that Max can keep him from execution. Arriving in the court room before Max, Bigger feels naked and scrutinized, afraid to look around. Max looks exhausted but promises Bigger that he will do whatever he can.

Max gives his plea, arguing that Bigger’s case isn’t just about him. It’s about the future of the country. As a Black man, Max asserts, Bigger is at a disadvantage in the court room. Understanding Bigger as a person is a step toward shedding prejudices, and Bigger should be sentenced as an individual rather than as a symbol for Black men. Max had entered a guilty plea because he knew that any jury would be unable to see past the bias that has been ingrained in them, and any person deserves to be tried by people who haven’t already decided the outcome. The state has already purposefully stirred anger and hatred in the public mind, as proven by the violent riots and discrimination against other African Americans during the manhunt. And Bigger’s crime didn’t cause this racialized hatred. Max argues that the rage and fear incited against Bigger and other Black people is a way of avoiding responsibility for the massive oppression perpetrated by white people throughout the nation’s history.

Max explains that he isn’t asking for sympathy or the recognition of Bigger as a victim of social injustice. In fact, pity would be dangerous, since it comes with a sense of guilt that can function just like hate. Rather, Max asserts that the conditions under which Black people in the United States are forced to exist make such crimes become inevitable as they are pushed to fight for their lives. Executing Bigger will solve nothing because until the system of racial oppression is addressed, murders and violence will continue in an endless cycle. Bigger’s death might serve as a warning to other would-be Black murderers, but it also tightens the strain of oppression, churning more anger and frustration that will eventually break loose. Bigger may have killed Mary by accident, but the hatred and rage that had caused the accidental killing came before him.

White people feel guilt for racial injustice and try to bury it like a corpse that won’t stay underground. And when it raises its head, there is violence and more violence in return. Black people and white people are kept separate, unable to understand each other. Mary, as well as her parents, had meant well and wanted to help Bigger. But Mr. Dalton is also complicit in keeping Bigger a stranger from white people like his daughter by perpetuating housing discrimination. Giving back some of the money earned by exploiting Black families isn’t enough to satisfy the animated corpse of racial injustice. Max proclaims that if Mary Dalton can hear what he says, he is trying to give her death meaning. Bigger and other African Americans are allowed to see the incredible wonders of civilization, but they are taught their entire lives what is and isn’t for them. Finding himself in a situation with a drunk white woman, Bigger had known it wasn’t safe to simply inform her parents and had accidentally killed her instead.

Max compares Bigger to a soldier at war, killing to save his own life and feeling, like a soldier, as if he had freed himself by killing. Bigger seems cruel and depraved for killing a woman who only wanted to help him. However, Max points out, how could he recognize and understand that she was trying to be kind when no other white woman had ever treated him with kindness? He says, “Your Honor, remember that men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread! And they can murder for it, too!” (465) What Bigger had done, Max contends, wasn’t an act of murder but an affirmation of his own life. Max brings up Bessie, pointing out that Bigger is not on trial for her murder because her life isn’t valued by the court as much as Mary’s. Knowing that, Bigger had killed Bessie to save himself. Sparing Bigger’s life is a way of acknowledging that the court sees the larger issues. Killing him will only further the crush of oppression for the millions of Black people who will one day find the power to fight back.

The court takes a recess and Bigger wonders if his life is worth Max’s effort. But Max’s speech has made him feel proud and significant even if he didn’t fully understand it. Max tries to get him to eat, stating, “I did the best I could.” Although Bigger is too anxious to eat, he reassures Max, “I’m all right” (473). They return to court for Buckley’s summation, and looking at his expression, Bigger is certain that Buckley will win. Buckley calls Max’s ideas dangerous to the many people who live lawfully, demanding that Bigger be sentenced to death. He takes offense at Max’s discussion of hatred born out of racial and class struggles. Buckley describes the events that began when Bigger woke up on the day he would go to the Daltons, framing him as lazy and ingrateful with no regard for his family. And despite Max’s “characteristic Communistic cunning” (478), the true motive for killing Mary was that Bigger had seen Mary in a newsreel and made up his mind to rape her. Mary had shown Bigger kindness and Bigger had responded with violence, burning her body to cover up evidence of his brutal actions. Buckley argues that Bigger’s crimes were premeditated and deliberate, and the people outside deserve the mercy of knowing that Bigger will be executed.

The judge calls for a one-hour recess. Max protests that the judge needs more time to consider, but the judge insists that he will return in an hour with a decision. Bigger sees this as confirmation that he will be put to death. Max suggests that the governor could be called upon to intervene, but Bigger is ready to give up. Returning to court, the judge pronounces that Bigger is sentenced to be executed at the end of the week. Back in his cell, Bigger lays on his bed. Max comes in, promising to contact the governor, but Bigger tells him to leave. He cries alone in the dark. He tries to shut out the world, refusing to eat and telling his family to forget about him. On the last day, Bigger longs to speak to Max as he tries to parse out his own existence. A telegram from Max informs him that the governor has ignored his pleas. Bigger waits for death. Then Max shows up to see him. Bigger wants to talk badly but is too nervous to articulate what he needs to say. However, Max sees Bigger and understands that he needs to speak. Bigger is sure that Max has already dismissed him as dead, then resolves that he needs to show Max that he’s still alive. Bigger blurts, “I’m glad I got to know you before I go!” (494)

Bigger attempts to explain that when Max had asked him questions to prepare for his statement, it had been meaningful that Max had spoken to him like a man. Max, not quite understanding, tries to comfort Bigger about his imminent death. Bigger asserts that the questions had awakened him and made him think. Max explains that civilization is built on people wanting and dreaming, but when a few men have everything, they stop believing and become as restless as Bigger. They push men down to keep what they have. Just as Bigger feels no remorse for Mary’s death, they don’t feel sorry for the people they oppress. Bigger exclaims that he hadn’t felt alive until he wanted something badly enough to kill for it. Bigger’s words frighten Max. He wants to touch Bigger but stops himself. They say goodbye, Max’s eyes full of tears. As Max walks away, Bigger calls out to him, “Tell… Tell Mister… Tell Jan hello…” (502) Without turning around, Max says that he will. They say goodbye again, and Bigger smiles bitterly.