How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Paragraph)
Quote #4
He spoke without looking. His entire body hungered for keen sensation, something exciting and violent to relieve the tautness. It was now ten minutes to three and Gus had not come. If Gus stayed away much longer, it would be too late. And Gus knew that. If they were going to do anything, it certainly ought to be done before folks started coming into the streets to buy their food for supper, and while the cop was down at the other end of the block.
"That bastard!" Bigger said. "I knew it!"
"Oh, he’ll be along," Jack said.
"Sometimes I’d like to cut his yellow heart out," Bigger said, fingering the knife in his pocket.
"Maybe he’s hanging around some meat," G.H. said.
"He’s just scared," Bigger said. "Scared to rob a white man."
…
"There you go again, Bigger," G.H. said. "Gus was just talking about how you act this morning. You get too nervous when something’s coming off…"
"Don’t tell me I’m nervous," Bigger said. (1.530-539)
Bigger doesn’t really want to be a criminal, as evidenced by his deep desire for Gus to stay away so they don’t have to rob Blum’s store. The problem is he feels he has few other choices. So when Gus shows up after all, Bigger’s reaction is senseless violence. Subconsciously, however, he is trying to prevent them all from going to rob Blum’s store.
Quote #5
He stood and listened. Mrs. Dalton might be out there in the hallway. How could he get out of the room? He all but shuddered with the intensity of his loathing for this house and all it had made him feel since he had first come into it. He reached his hand behind him and touched the wall; he was glad to have something solid at his back. He looked at the shadowy bed and remembered Mary as some person he had not seen in a long time. She was still there. Had he hurt her? He went to the bed and stood over her; her face lay sideways on the pillow. His hand moved over her, but stopped in mid-air. He blinked his eyes and stared at Mary’s face; it was darker than when he had first bent over her. Her mouth was open and her eyes bulged glassily. Her bosom, her bosom, her – her bosom was not moving! He could not hear her breath coming and going now as he had when he first brought her into the room! He bent and moved her head with his hand and found that she was relaxed and limp. He snatched his hand away. Thought and feeling were balked in him; there was something he was trying to tell himself, desperately, but could not. Then, convulsively, he sucked his breath in and huge words formed slowly, ringing in his ears: She’s dead…
The reality of the room fell from him; the vast city of white people that sprawled outside took its place. She was dead and he had killed her. He was a murderer, a N***o murderer, a black murderer. He had killed a white woman. He had to get away from here. (1.1353-1354)
Bigger realizes he’s inadvertently killed Mary. As a black man who has killed a white girl, it doesn’t matter that it was an accident because the white courts will see him as a criminal.
Quote #6
"I know," Max said. "But those things don’t touch the fundamental problem involved here. This boy comes from an oppressed people. Even if he’s done wrong, we must take that into consideration." (3.190)
Boris Max suggests that Bigger’s crime was, in part, a product of the racist environment in which he grew up. In other words, though it might not have been Bigger’s fate to murder Mary, it was inevitable when he was put in that situation due to factors outside of his control.