How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It gripped him: that cross was not the cross of Christ, but the cross of the Ku Klux Klan. He had a cross of salvation round his throat and they were burning one to tell him that they hated him! No! He did not want that! Had the preacher trapped him? He felt betrayed. He wanted to tear the cross from his throat and throw it away. They lifted him into the waiting car and he sat between two policemen, still looking fearfully at the fiery cross. The sirens screamed and the cars rolled slowly through the crowded streets and he was feeling the cross that touched his chest, like a knife pointed at his heart. His fingers ached to rip it off; it was an evil and black charm which would surely bring him death now. The cars screamed up State Street, then westward on Twenty-sixth Street, one behind the other…
With bated breath he tore his shirt open, not caring who saw him. He gripped the cross and snatched it from his throat. He threw it away, cursing a curse that was almost a scream.
"I don’t want it!"
The men gasped and looked at him, amazed.
"Don’t throw that away, boy. That’s your cross!"
"I can die without a cross!"
"Only God can help you now, boy. You’d better get your soul right!"
"I ain’t got no soul!" (8.878-895)
The way some white people use religion to express their hatred of an entire race causes Bigger to reject religion altogether. He realizes that religion doesn’t offer salvation or hope here on earth. Instead, he suddenly realizes religion only offers hope of help after death, and that is not the help he needs or wants.
Quote #5
"Did you ever go to church, Bigger?"
"Yeah; when I was little. But that was a long time ago."
"Your folks were religious?"
"Yeah; they went to church all the time."
"Why did you stop going?"
"I didn’t like it. There was nothing in it. Aw, all they did was sing and shout and pray all the time. And it didn’t get ‘em nothing. All the colored folks do that, but it don’t get ‘em nothing. The white folks got everything."
"Did you ever feel happy in church?"
"Naw. I didn’t want to. Nobody but poor folks get happy in church."
"But you are poor, Bigger."
Again Bigger’s eyes lit with a bitter and feverish pride.
"I ain’t that poor."
"But Bigger, you said that if you were where people did not hate you and you did not hate them, you could be happy. Nobody hated you in church. Couldn’t you feel at home there?"
"I wanted to be happy in this world, not out of it. I didn’t want that kind of happiness. The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to us." (3.1135-1148)
Bigger explains that church simply helps "poor folks" feel better about their lot in life. Religion is only for those folks who have nothing left in life. Bigger’s not yet ready to accept that his own life on earth is hopeless.