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Name ____________________________________ Native Son Book 1 Part 3Use text coding: Main ideas(!), details(*), connections(C), questions(?), circle unknown words

He flushed warm with anger. Goddamn her soul to hell! Was she laughing at him? Were they making fun of him? What was it that they wanted? Why didn’t they leave him alone? He was not bothering them. Yes, anything could happen with people like these. His entire mind and body were painfully concentrated into a single sharp point of attention. He was trying desperately to understand. He felt foolish sitting behind the steering wheel like this and letting a white man hold his hand. What would people passing along the street think? He was very conscious of his black skin and there was in him a prodding conviction that Jan and men like him had made it so that he would be conscious of that black skin. Did not white people despise a black skin? Then why was Jan doing this? Why was Mary standing there so eagerly, with shining eyes? What could they get out of this? Maybe they did not despise him? But they made him feel his black skin by just standing there looking at him, one holding his hand and the other smiling. He felt he had no physical existence at all right then; he was something he hated, the badge of shame which he knew was attached to a black skin. It was a shadowy region, a No Man’s Land, the ground that separated the white world from the black that he stood upon. He felt naked, transparent; he felt that this white man, having helped to put him down, having helped to deform him, held him up now to look at him and be amused. At that moment he felt toward Mary and Jan a dumb, cold, and inarticulate hate.

“Let me drive awhile,” Jan said, letting go of his hand and opening the door. Bigger looked at Mary. She came forward and touched his arm.

“It’s all right, Bigger,” she said. He turned in the seat to get out, but Jan stopped him. “No; stay in and move over.” He slid over and Jan took his place at the wheel. He was still feeling his hand

strangely; it seemed that the pressure of Jan’s fingers had left an indelible imprint. Mary was getting into the front seat, too.

“Move over, Bigger,” she said.He moved closer to Jan. Mary pushed herself in, wedging tightly between him

and the outer door of the car. There were white people to either side of him; he was sitting between two vast white looming walls. Never in his life had he been so close to a white woman. He smelt the odor of her hair and felt the soft pressure of her thigh against his own. Jan headed the car back to the Outer Drive, weaving in and out of the line of traffic. Soon they were speeding along the lake front, past a huge flat sheet of dully gleaming water. The sky was heavy with snow clouds and the wine was blowing strong.

“Isn’t it glorious tonight?” she asked. “God, yes!” Jan said. Bigger listened to the tone of their voices, to their strange accents, to the

exuberant phrases that flowed so freely from their lips. “That sky!” “And that water!” “It’s so beautiful it makes you ache just to look at it,” said Mary. “This is a beautiful world, Bigger,” Jan said, turning to him “Look at that skyline!” Bigger looked without turning his head; he just rolled his eyes. Stretching to one

side of him was a vast sweep of tall buildings flecked with tiny squares of yellow light. “We’ll own all that some day, Bigger,” Jan said with a wave of his hand.

“After the revolution it’ll be ours. But we’ll have to fight for it. What a world to win, Bigger! And when that day comes, things’ll be different. There’ll be no white and no black; there’ll be no rich and no poor.”

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Write your own thoughts on this side.

Summarize the Main Ideas on this side.

Why does he hate Mary here? How does this connect to what we have talked about before?


Bigger said nothing. The car whirred along. “We seem strange to you, don’t we, Bigger?” Mary asked. “Oh, no’m,” he breathed softly, knowing that she did not believe him, but

finding it impossible to answer her in any other way. His arms and legs were aching from being cramped into so small a space, but he dared not move. He knew that they would not have cared if he had made himself more comfortable, but his moving would have called attention to himself and his black body. And he did not want that. These people made him feel things he did not want to feel. If he were white, if he were like them, it would have been different. But he was black. So he sat still, his arms and legs aching.

“Say, Bigger,” asked Jan, “where can we get a good meal on the South Side?” “Well,” Bigger said, reflectively. “We want to go to a real place,” Mary said, turning to him gayly. “You want to go to a night club?” Bigger asked in a tone that indicated that he

was simply mentioning names and not recommending places to go. “No; we want to eat.”“Look, Bigger. We want one of those places where colored people eat, not one

of those show places.” What did these people want? When he answered his voice was neutral and

toneless. “Well, there’s Ernie’s Kitchen Shack….” “That sounds good!” “Let’s go there, Jan,” Mary said. “O.K.,” Jan said. “Where is it?” “It’s at Forty-seventh Street and Indiana,” Bigger told them. Jan swung the car off the Outer Drive at Thirty-first Street and drove westward

to Indiana Avenue. Bigger wanted Jan to drive faster, so that they could reach Ernie’s Kitchen Shack in the shortest possible time. That would allow him a chance to sit in the car and stretch out his cramped and aching legs while they ate. Jan turned onto Indiana Avenue and headed south. Bigger wondered what Jack and Gus and G.H. would say if they saw him sitting between two white people in a car like this. They would tease him about such a thing as long as they could remember it. He felt Mary turn in her seat. She placed her hand on his arm.

“You know, Bigger, I’ve long wanted to go into these houses,” she said, pointing to the tall, dark apartment buildings looming to either side of them, “and just see how your people live. You know what I mean? I’ve been to England, France and Mexico, but I don’t know how people live ten blocks from me. We know so little about each other. I just want to see. I want to know these people. Never in my life have I been inside of a Negro home. Yet they must live like we live. They’re human…. There are twelve million of them…. They live in our country…. In the same city with us….” her voice trailed off wistfully.

There was silence. The car sped through the Black Belt, past tall buildings holding black life. Bigger knew that they were thinking of his life and the life of his people. Suddenly he wanted to seize some heavy object in his hand and grip it with all the strength of his body and in some strange way rise up and stand in naked space above the speeding car and with one final blow blot it out— with himself and them in it. His heart was beating fast and he struggled to control his breath. This thing was getting the better of him; he felt that he should not give way to his feelings like this. But he could not help it. Why didn’t they leave him alone? What had he done to them? What good could they get out of sitting here making him feel so miserable?

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“Tell me where it is, Bigger,” Jan said. “Yessuh.” Bigger looked out and saw that they were at Forty-sixth Street. “It’s at the end of the next block, suh.” “Can I park along here somewhere?” “Oh; yessuh.” “Bigger, please! Don’t say sir to me…. I don’t like it. You’re a man just like I am;

I’m no better than you. Maybe other white men like it. But I don’t. Look, Bigger….”

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How does Bigger feel here? Why?


Bigger, Mary and Jan go inside. Bigger’s friend sees them and teases Bigger without Jan and Mary noticing. They order a round of beers, then move on to rum, a drink with a higher alcohol content. Jan asks questions in order to get to know Bigger. Bigger responds, but briefly, as before with Mr. Dalton. Mary and Jan discuss the Communist Party, during which Bigger tries to hide his confusion. Jan notes that he needs to recruit more African Americans to the Communist Party. Jan and Mary are now drunk, and the three decide to drive around, with Bigger behind the wheel, sipping occasionally on the bottle…

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Why does Bigger feel he has to be mean to Mary?


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Bigger drives back to the Dalton’s. Mary is very drunk. Bigger tries to pay minimal attention to her. They arrive at the Dalton house.

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What might Mr. Dalton say if he saw them now? Why?

What might a neighbor say? Why?

Should Bigger be concerned? Why?


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Why is he terrified?

Why might Mary’s fingers have loosened their grip?


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Explain the irony of Bigger’s situation.

(Why didn’t he rob Blum’s store? What is his situation now?)

What is Bigger’s plan? Why does he feel it might work? What do you think?


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Who does he mean?


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Explain the writing strategy/ literary element that the author uses here. Why is this an effective strategy to use here?


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END OF BOOK ONE.

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Name ____________________________________ Native Son Book 1 Part 3

Compose a 5 sentence summary of this reading.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Even though they are being nice to him, how do Jan and Mary make Bigger feel? What lesson can the reader learn from their interactions? Mark (underline, highlight) 2 pieces of TBE that support this lesson.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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