Social Circumstance and Aesthetic Achievement: Contextual Studies in Richard Wright’s Native Son Page: 68

                                
68     Social Circumstance and Aesthetic Achievement
perspective that lead to the downfall, alike, of Bigger
and Babo.
This study argues the pertinence for Richard
Wright's Native Son (1940) of Herman Melville's
"Benito Cereno" (1856) since these narratives illus-
trate in similar ways how racial stereotypes corrupt
Bigger Thomas, inWright's novel, and Babo, the leader
of the slave revolt in Melville's story.1 The difference
resides in the narrative artistry of each tale. Native Son
advances this lesson in perspective through the eyes
of a black man; "Benito Cereno" dramatizes racial
categorization via the outlook of a Northeastern
Caucasian sea captain, Amaso Delano, who is inca-
pable of fathoming the iniquity and duplicity of
Babo, Bigger's self-effacing predecessor. In Native Son,
Bigger Thomas abides by conventional stereotypes by
staying within the idea of what a black man should
do, in the process conveying an acceptable image of
himself. What is deemed appropriate and unaccept-
able pervades his mind, as does self-hatred: "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" (Wright 67). To
Bigger's mind, whites are in charge; and whatever
they believe about blacks must be in some measure
true. Such is his misguided self-effacement, whether
in minor self-characterization or when, to honor the
taboo against sexual intimacy between a black man
and a white woman, he ends up killing Mary Dalton.