Fishbelly In Native Son, Bigger Thomas

Tucker’s dream was to make his son a unique person not only among the blacks but also among the whites. Fishbelly becomes a unique person in a real sense.

The deep rooted segregation created inferiority complex in the blacks. Education was given to them but it was insufficient. The feeling of self-hatred was dangerous for their healthy development. Margret Walker rightly observed that : With segregation the white child was educated to regard race as more important than humanity, and the black child was educated to regard a white world as superior to his own. And thus, taught to hate himself. (Walker, Margret, 49)

The protagonist of Native Son, Bigger Thomas lives in a slum area of Chicago’s ‘Black-Belt’. Dey Manak Kumar rightly observes :

While he had witnessed the beatings of a Black Boy by a white police man and had heard stories of violent encounters between blacks and whites, it is not until he visits granny in Jackson that he begins to understand the seriousness of the hostility which exists between “the two races who lived side by side but never touched. It seemed except in violence, (Andrews &Taylor, 121)

Bigger Thomas, an existentialist hero, searches for the meaning of his life. He searches for the reasons of his death. He searches for his true identity. He is isolated from the world but he wants to be a part and parcel of the outside world. He wants to live like others and merge with others. His yearning is depicted as follows :

He did not want to sit on a bench and sing, or lie in a corner and sleep. It was when he read the newspapers or magazines, went to the movies, or walked along the streets with crowds, that he felt what he wanted: to merge himself with others and be a part of this world, to lose himself it so he could find himself, to be allowed a chance to live like others, even though he was. (Native Son,

She prayed, leaning forward with shut eyes, too terrified to look. “Chris baby, this ain’t you, naw, naw, Gawd! This can’t be! It ain’t true? It ain’t right!” Mrs. Sims cried, clinging hysterically to the dead body. Then she keened with shut eyes. “Gawd didn’t do this to me? ... I carried you in my body; I felt you growing; I birthed you in pain; I gave you life with my blood! Naw, this … God… You got to do something to stop this from happening to black women’s children. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t have a child! I’d tear it out of my womb! Women don’tbring children into the world to die like this! … I don’t want your wind to blow on me when my son can die like this … I’m standing ‘fore your throne asking you to tell me.” I what did I ever do wrong? Where’s my sin? If my only son was to be killed, then tell me and I’d kill’im. Notthem white folks… Lawd, we ain’t scared to die. BUT NOT LIKE THIS! Gawd, talk to me. As long as I live, I’ll be asking you to tell me why my son died like this.” (LD,