Native Son

Is Bigger Thomas a HERO, VILLAIN, or an ANTI-HERO?

Give evidence from the book, (quotes, scenes, etc.)

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I see Bigger as no hero, therefore the anti-hero; I'd call him a villain, but that would almost be a compliment so I won't. He was a bully, enjoyed terrorizing other children, and believed that making those children beg made him powerful. Bigger took whatever he wanted by any means necessary excusing it by saying whites had everything and blacks had nothing; he'd be foolish to do anything else.

Bigger quotes;

"I’d just as soon go to jail as take that relief job." (1.470)

"It was all over. He had to save himself. But it was familiar, this running away. All his life he had been knowing that sooner or later something like this would come to him. And now, here it was. He had always felt outside of this white world, and now it was true. It made things simple. He felt in his shirt. Yes; the gun was still there. He might have to use it. He would shoot before he would let them take him; it meant death either way, and he would die shooting every slug he had." (2.1962-1963)

"And, yet, out of it all, over and above all that had happened, impalpable but real, there remained to him a queer sense of power. He had done this. He had brought all this about. In all of his life these two murders were the most meaningful things that had ever happened to him. He was living, truly and deeply, no matter what others might think, looking at him with their blind eyes." (2.2123-2124)

"I don’t know. Maybe this sounds crazy. Maybe they going to burn me in the electric chair for feeling this way. But I ain’t worried none about them women I killed For a little while I was free. I was doing something. It was wrong, but I was feeling all right. Maybe God’ll get me for it. If He do, all right. But I ain’t worried. I killed ‘em ‘cause I was scared and mad. But I been scared and mad all my life and after I killed that first woman, I wasn’t scared no more for a little while." (3.1109)

Source(s)

Native Son