Native Son is split into three books: Fear, Flight, and Fate. The books are the narration of the last days of African American Bigger Thomas, a resident of the "Black Belt" Depression stricken Chicago. He lives in a one room apartment with his mother and two siblings. The story begins with by setting the very morose tone of the novel when his sister's screams about a rat, wake him up. Later that day he meets with his friends and they discuss a robbery but in a turn of events, they do not go through with it. Bigger then leaves his gang to take up a job as a chauffeur for a rich white man's family. He is then interviewed and given the job by Mr. Dalton, the owner of the house. Bigger then meets Mrs. Dalton who is blind, the Irish maid Peggy, and the Daltons daughter Mary. His first assignment is to drive Mary to her afternoon classes at the university. Instead Mary tells Bigger to go pick up her boyfriend Jan Erlone, who is in the communist party. They ask him to take them to the South side and eat at a common black food place. They get drunk and he returns them home, Mary is too drunk to stand and passes out. Afraid that Mrs. Dalton may hear her drunken moans he accidentally suffocates her. In a panic he puts her body in …show more content…
The note asks the Daltons for $10,00 as ransom. The plan fails as Mary's body is found in the furnace, Bigger goes on the run. Bigger is afraid that Bessie will snitch on him and by the end of the day he had raped her and then killed her with a brick to the head. The next day the newspapers and the cops are aware of the murderer and "rapist" of the Dalton heiress. The police begin to savagely search the Black Belt and they finally spot Bigger on the roof of a building. Bigger struggles hurting many of the officers but he is eventually brought down and beaten by the