“Native Son” by Richard Wright (post 3): Bigger, the protagonist, switches to a gun-shooter alternate personality

Bigger (who killed the white girl, Mary, and disposed of her body) has been interviewed by a detective. He has told lies to implicate Mary’s communist friend, Jan, in her disappearance.

Jan confronts Bigger on the street, asking why Bigger has lied about him. Bigger takes out his gun, as he switches to his gun-shooter alternate personality. But before the personality switch is complete, Jan backs off and walks away.

“Jan backed farther away, then turned and walked rapidly off…Bigger stood still, the gun in hand. He had utterly forgotten where he was…The tension in him slackened and he lowered the gun…He was coming back into possession of himself; for the past three minutes it seemed he had been under a strange spell, possessed by a force which he hated, but which he had to obey…” (1, p. 172).

Comment

The novel does not label or identify the above as having anything to do with multiple personality. I don’t know how Richard Wright thought about it, privately.

In his text, he uses the words “possession” and “possessed.” Before multiple personality was understood psychologically, it was thought of as spirit or demon possession.

1. Richard Wright. Native Son [1940]. New York, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005.