Native Sons

Native Son is a novel written by Richard Wright, about a young black male,Bigger, in 1930's Chicago. Throughout the novel Bigger makes poor decisions, unfixable mistakes, and a life for himself that was cut short. In the book, Bigger kills two women, and raped one of them. Bigger case is brought to trial, and the jury deems Bigger guilty, and he is sentenced to death. If I were a member of the jury, I too, would've found Bigger to be guilty IF there was a significant amount of evidence behind the case. I believe that if you kill someone (unless out of self-defense), you too should have your life taken away, not via the death penalty, because that is not a belief of mine, but through getting life and jail, and being able to reflect on what you've done. But with reading the novel, I have a huge amount of sympathy for Bigger. And I hate this! Even though this book is fictional, murder is terrible and no one is given that right to take a life away. But I don't feel Bigger killed out of loving to kill and being a monster, he killed to have once in his life feel accomplished. Bigger is a man who throughout the book was fearful, lacking in confidence, weak, and intimidated. Once he had accidentally killed Mary, burned her, and knew something that no one else didn't he felt power. In Bigger's mind he accomplished something and he loved that feeling. Which is why he continued on to write the ransom note, rape and kill Bessie. Towards the end of the book, Bigger tells Max all he wanted to do was "do something." And he did. Of course, murder should never be the answer, but Bigger felt some type of meaning through killing. Which is what makes Bigger such a person to feel sympathy for.