Table of ContentsThe Great White ForceThe Road to HellDestination Death RowSourceFear is a common emotional thread woven deep into the human fabric. It determines our actions, dictates our beliefs, and sometimes, as in the case of Bigger Thomas, determines the type of person we become. An old adage says that the greatest source of human fear is the unknown; we are most afraid of what we cannot predict given our limited capacity for foresight. Bigger Thomas was a glaring exception to this theory. What Bigger feared most, more than anything in the world, was the inexorable certainty of his future. Bigger feared that as a young black man living on the South Side of Chicago, his life journey would be unalterable. For this, he feared his own fate: the inevitable result of a life constrained by social forces determined by a bloated and intangible oppressor. The Bigger Tragedy was a three-part progression. Imprisoned by a congenital situation, placed on a rigid path and plunged into an atrocious fate, Bigger was born with the death sentence that he would officially receive twenty years later. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Great White Force In the novel's introduction, Wright called Bigger a "dispossessed and disinherited man" who "lives amid the greatest possible abundance." on earth” but was locked in a distinct and dystopian social substrate (xx). Wright wanted the reader to experience what he called "No Man's Land" – the unbridgeable gap between the "stunted" Bigger and the America in which he existed but could never live (xxiv) . Free will never applied to Bigger Thomas. His every move and every thought was determined by the stifling society in which he lived. “He was their property, heart and soul, body and blood; what they did claimed every atom of him, sleeping and waking: it colored life and dictated the conditions of death” (307). As a result, Bigger's frustration was twofold: he could neither reach the desired resources of American culture nor locate a tangible source of the blockade. White oppression has spread throughout society in elusive and enigmatic ways. “To Bigger and his ilk, white people weren't really people; they were in some way a great natural force, like a stormy sky looming above us, or like a deep swirling river suddenly spreading out at our feet in the darkness” (109). Bigger described the pressures of this “great natural force” as both external and external. internal. Its effects loomed from the outside world and permeated the deepest recesses of his soul. For Bigger, white people did not reside in the immaculate homes of Mary Dalton. Instead, they lived deep in his stomach. “Every time I think about them, I feel them,” he told Gus (24). In every moment of Bigger's life, he was acutely aware of who he was and what he wasn't, how little he had and how much he lacked. Every time I think about it, I feel like someone is shoving a hot iron down my throat… We live here and they live there. We are black and they are white. They have things and we don't. They do things and we can't. It's like living in prison (23). And in many ways, Bigger's life was a lot like living in prison. Although he had the freedom to live, it was only within certain constrained parameters. He enjoyed a certain sovereignty overhis own actions, but the large-scale course of his life was already chosen for him. Highway to Hell Settled on this path, Bigger was trapped by a situation from which he could not escape. His fear resulted from the realization that he was on a one-way road to a future he dreaded every moment of every day. As the novel progressed, Bigger became hyper aware of this predicament. These were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence; periods of abstract thinking and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger, like water that ebbs and shines from the tug of a distant and invisible force. (31) Outwardly, Bigger's intense fear of the certainty of life—and his own inability to do anything about it—translated directly into his characteristic anger and rage. He was undeniably hostile at home because he realized his family's difficulties were irreparable, but he was "powerless" to help them in their suffering. Bigger knew that "the moment he allowed himself to fully feel how they lived, the shame and misery of their lives, he would be swept away from himself by fear and despair" (13). Bigger believed his mother had escaped the fear he suffered by hiding from the reality of the world. His life, he asserted, "had a center, a core, an axis, a heart that he needed but could never have unless he laid his head on a pillow of humility and abandoned his hope." to live in the world. And he would never do that” (238). Bigger disdained his mother for finding complacency in a life he saw as empty and meaningless, but he also realized the narrowness of their options as black Americans. Even when Bigger was given the opportunity to work in the Dalton household – a “good” job by his mother’s standards – he remained dissatisfied and angry. “It exasperated him to think that he did not have a wider choice of action” (16). In fact, Bigger's entire adult life was defined by the pull he felt between acts of deviance and acts of convention. He could join his friends and rob a local black salesman or take a "respectable" job as the Dalton's driver. It ultimately didn't matter. Nothing did. All of Bigger's choices inevitably led to the same outcome, and no decision he made along the way could alter his path. The poster in red letters hanging above the black belt read: "If you break the law, you can't win." But what was perhaps more obvious to the region's residents was the unwritten message that permeated their entire lives: "If you don't break the law, you still can't win." » Destination Death Row Bigger knew he was destined to die a victim of an America that few would recognize as the beloved country touted for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For this, he suffered mental and emotional anguish every day of his life. He often said that he felt “like something terrible [was] going to happen to him” (25). Additionally, Bigger said Mary Dalton's murder “seemed natural; he felt that his whole life had been leading up to something like this” (101). Bessie's death was no different. “It must be like this,” Bigger said. “This is how it was supposed to be” (222). Bigger's friend Gus, like his mother, made fun of his apocalyptic paranoia. He advised Bigger to “stop thinking about it” before he went “crazy” (25). But Bigger's obsessive fear of the future strained every fiber of his being until the crime engraved in his head manifested itself into reality. After having.. 1940.