SECTION F: NON - AFRICAN PROSE NATIVE SON - RICHARD WRIGHT What is Bigger’s attitude towards religion?

Answer Details

In Richard Wright's Native Son, Bigger Thomas has a hostile and dismissive attitude towards religion. To him the Christianity of black America offers no answer to the oppression and fear that define his life, and he rejects it as an evasion rather than a comfort.

Scorn for his mother's faith. Bigger's first exposure to religion is his mother's devout Christianity. She sings hymns, prays, and urges him to trust in God, but Bigger regards her piety with impatience and contempt. He sees her religion as a way of enduring suffering rather than ending it, a means of accepting misery instead of fighting the conditions that cause it.

Religion as escapism and passivity. To Bigger, Christianity keeps black people submissive. He believes it teaches them to look for reward in heaven while accepting humiliation and poverty on earth, blinding them to their real situation. He wants to face the hard facts of his life directly, and he feels that religion would only lull him into passivity, robbing him of the energy of his anger.

Rejection of the cross in prison. In prison, the Reverend Hammond brings Bigger a cross and urges him to seek salvation. For a moment the old comfort tempts him, but Bigger ultimately rejects it. His revulsion is deepened when he associates the cross with the burning cross of the racist mob and the Ku Klux Klan, so that the very symbol of Christian salvation becomes for him a sign of white hatred. He throws the cross away, refusing the consolation of faith.

Seeking meaning in himself. Instead of religion, Bigger searches for meaning in his own actions and in a bleak self-understanding. Even his crimes give him a terrible sense of identity and freedom that religion never offered him.

Conclusion. Bigger's attitude to religion is therefore one of rejection and contempt. He sees Christianity as an opiate that pacifies the oppressed, and tainted by the hypocrisy of a racist society, and he turns away from it to confront his existence on his own harsh terms.