There is perhaps no more harsh criticism of the society of this country, with a special focus on the societal structures around crimes than Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son of a poor Black man who finds himself waiting for the electric chair. Bigger Thomas is 20 years old and lives in a one room apartment with his mother, brother, and sister. He is constantly pushed by his mother to get a job to support his family, with the final impetus being their threatened eviction if he does not begin work. He has a few "friends" that together form a gang, committing muggings and small time robberies, as well as Bessie, a girl that he really only keeps around for sex. His job is to be the chauffeur for the rich Dalton family. One night (actually his first night on the job) Mary Dalton, roughly the same age as Bigger, goes out with her boyfriend Jan. She is so drunk by the end of the night that Bigger must carry her from the driveway up to her room. As he gets Mary to her room, her blind mother walks in, and to keep Mary quiet he puts a pillow over her face. She dies accidentally, but Bigger realizing how it will look, hides her body and goes on the run. Along the way he picks up Bessie to assist in his fake ransom scheme before raping and killing her. He is subsequently caught and put on trial.
Sound familiar? Camus writes a (relatively) similar story with The Stranger. In both the trial and punishment phase take on an entire section of the novel. Each trial is much more an indictment of the ideas Bigger and Meursault represent then the men themselves. The trials are sensational on both sides, the prosecutors in each play the role of the keeper of righteousness, while the defense lawyers make impassioned speeches detailing the humanity of their clients (Wright spares us no detail in the closing argument of the lawyer, Mr. Max. The argument lasts roughly 30 pages in total). Both clients are sentenced to death, and in each we see what prison does to them, with special emphasis paid to their disbelief of religion.
Each author is arguing against the court systems, for they are killing someone just as much as Bigger or Meursault did. For each of the men, the death by their hand was an accident of sorts, while the all powerful court is very deliberate in its murder. The outcome seems decided before the trial really begins, with the witnesses serving more as stories for the press than the jury. Bigger is tormented by everyone around him, Whites hate him for killing Mary Dalton, Blacks hate him for the negative attention he has brought their ghetto. Meursault of course hopes for the hatred of the masses on the closing page.
Christianity also has a similar role in each novel. Both Bigger and Meursault violently reject the religion that pervasively dominates their cultures. For each, it is seen as a giving up of hope for the current life, and is tied very closely to the idea of escaping their prisons (for Bigger this extends earlier into his childhood prison of the Black Belt). This rejection alienates them from everyone, though this is met with some level of appreciation that they no longer have to try to explain themselves to others.
Both authors are calling for people to start valuing the current life and stop shutting their eyes in prayer for the next one. Many viewed Wright's story as a call to arms of sorts, to get Blacks up on their feet and push, physically if necessary, for more equal rights. Camus is writing during the Nazi occupation of France, and as an active member of the Resistance, he too it can be argued is making a similar call to his compatriots. Their anti-justice system views make sense, as the system only works if it goes along with whatever group is in charge, even if that means bastardizing the principles of its laws, and at that point the justice systems of the U.S. and Vichy France were seriously doing just that.
While certainly the philosophies of existentialism and naturalism that so greatly influenced these two works are different, the approach to a similar end can be to some extent disregarded. These two novels were published within only a few years of each other, and in relatively similar social environments (though importantly Meursault comes from the ruling side, while Bigger is part of the exploited side) so the use of them in conjunction with each other I find is a compelling one. That is not to say that they are sister novels, meant intentionally to compliment one another, but I certainly see that it works out that way.
I can see the similarities between these two novels, but I think this ignores a critical discontinuity across them. In Native Son, the argument made by the defense is that society has, in effect, created Bigger Thomas, and forced him to act the way he does. On the other hand, Meursault is just the way he is. Nothing caused that. He exists apart from society, in spite of it, and that's what makes him so terrible. Bigger's awfulness is argued to be the fault of all the people around him; Meursault, on the other hand, is the only one to blame for his faults. The books are similar, but very different in message.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about this comparison but it actually makes a lot of sense. In both novels the authors attempt to create a crime that wasn't the criminals fault. With Bigger, though, he gets involved in even more crime (partly society's fault but partly his own too), where Meursault is much worse at hiding his crime and doesn't even attempt to hide it. The crimes do resemble each other a lot.
ReplyDeleteI was actually waiting for one of my AALit alums to make this connection in class. There are significant differences, of course, as Tristan points out--the naturalist worldview is pretty central to Wright's novel, and thus to the court case and his lawyer's defense. And Max is treated much more sympathetically than Meursault's incompetent court-appointed attorney.
ReplyDeleteBut in terms of the existential consciousness that emerges in the jail cell (in both cases stimulated by an angry confrontation with a clergyman), there are striking parallels. Reread the ending of _Native Son_ in light of Camus and you'll see all kinds of links, as Bigger struggles and eventually succeeds in finding some meaning in his life, and it has to do with walking like a man to his execution and affirming the absurdity that has led him to this trap.
_Native Son_ was published two years before _The Stranger_, and I don't know for certain that Camus had read it. But Wright's work was very well received in France, and the existentialists in particular saw him as a kindred spirit. He eventually relocated to France and even wrote his own quasi-existentialist novel, _The Outsider_ (the title itself a kind of nod to Camus).
I think this is a very interesting and compelling difference. There is of course, one crucial difference in the nature of the crimes. Wright sets out to show that Bigger is trapped from the start of the story. There's nothing he can do to avoid it—because of his family's financial situation he has to take the job, because he just took the job and because of his race he can't afford to risk standing up to any of the Daltons, because Mary gets drunk and can't walk back to her room he has to carry her there or he could lose his job, because Mary's mother walks in he has to keep her quiet or Mrs. Dalton could realize he's there and think the worst and he could be accused of rape, etc.
ReplyDeleteWith Meursault we have a sort of polar opposite situation. Meursault does involve himself with Ramond sort of by accident, but part of what's so shocking about the crime is the fact that Meursault has no real reason to kill the Arab. He just sort of... does... and describes it as being an accident as well, but he could have easily avoided the situation by not going back there, with a gun, to where the Arab was, in the hot sun, which we know he hates.
After this difference, we do see a similar story—the person who did commit the crime is tried largely with evidence that has nothing to do with the crime itself as a spectacle for the people, and ends up getting condemned as a result.
Also, as Mr. Mitchell points out, though Camus may not have read Native Son, his work seems to show perhaps a view that's a product of the time, such as the way the discoveries of calculus and the theory of evolution were each discovered by two people nearly simultaneously.