Native Son: Mood 1 key example

At one point, Jan and Mary show that they truly want to be friends with Bigger, but he has been treated so poorly by white people for his whole life, so he doesn't believe them. In some ways, there might have been some hope for Bigger in this moment, as he perhaps could have lived a happy life in the Dalton house like Green did, with white friends who treat him as an equal. But even in early Book 1, it is clear that the power of racism in 1930s Chicago is too strong to ever allow such a thing to happen. Before Bigger's murder of Mary at the end of Book 1, he is a complicated but still sympathetic figure, and this makes his accidental murder of Mary all the more tragic. After all, Bigger never meant to murder Mary and seemed to genuinely care for her well-being.

What's more, it's arguable that an unshakeable fear of white people is what leads him to kill her, since he holds the pillow over her face for fear that she might announce his presence in her bedroom when her mother comes to check on her. Throughout Book 2, Bigger becomes steadily more reckless and, in his words, "pulled taut." He feels his only choice is to act. This leads him to extort and emotionally torture the Dalton family with the fake ransom note, and it eventually leads him to the unforgivably horrible emotional abuse, forced intoxication, rape, and murder of Bessie at the end of Book 2. These acts are made yet worse by the fact that the reader perhaps still feels lingering sympathy for Bigger, recognizing that, though his actions are reprehensible, the events that led him to this situation were largely out of his control.

In sum, the mood of Native Son depends on the way Bigger's crimes are viewed in contrast with his essential humanity. The reader feels disgust and horror at Bigger's acts of violence, but also at the acts of violence done unto Bigger by the police. The reader feels the constraining, claustrophobic feeling of Bigger's inability to communicate effectively with white people in a racist system, which ultimately leads to most of his problems. The reader feels shame, disdain, and more disgust at the rampant injustice of the racist system that, according to Max, is the primary cause of Bigger's crimes.