When I first began the book, it struck me as an allegory. I could not relate to the story in a realist fashion. At first I could not relate to Bigger Thomas. I could not connect to the characters and the plot in a visceral way. I could not get inside Bigger's head. Jan and Mary were funny more than anything, spouting their communist slogans. I saw them as two naive, silly young people who thought there was about to be a revolution in this country. I laughed when Mary called her father a "Capitalist." The 30's were the heyday of the Communist Party in this country with the great depression planting the seeds of an "uprising' if ever there was going to be one in this country. I wonder if the author took Jan and Mary seriously. Maybe he did, but they are comic characters to me.
We all know now in retrospect that the center held and once WW II began and the depression ended that was the end of any prospective revolution from below. But we know that Richard Wright was writing this novel around 1940 and he became a communist and his perspective must have been different.
When Bigger kills Mary everything changes for me. The realism kicks in. I find myself pulling for Bigger as Book II commences. All of a sudden the characters and the plot become very real. I am fully connected and involved in the story now. Let's see where it leads next in Book II.
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