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neutrality is different in kind from Wechsler's and far closer to Whitman's -
though constrained, as Whitman's is not, by the specific institutional require–
ments of the judicial role. The stigma of racial hate and shame emerges as
fundamentally deforming of human personality and community, and the novel–
reading stance calls out for political and social equality as the necessary condition
offull humanity for citizens on both sides of "the line."
These notions arise from an inadequate reading of Richard Wright's
novel. Nussbaum takes Bigger Thomas as a representative of his social
group, but he is not. He is exceptional to his group, in that he deals with
his helplessness by murdering one woman and burning her body in a fur–
nace, and by raping and murdering a second woman. The case Nussbaum
makes for Bigger Thomas is not nearly as persuasive as the one made in
the novel by his lawyer, Mr. Max, in tenns of black history and depriva–
tion. But in any event, Nussbaum's advocacy is based upon a simplistic
analysis. It is as if her engagement with the novel ended when she had
extracted a banal moral from the story. I hope that judges will read
Wright's book more carefully. But even if Nussbaum had read it more
carefully - more critically - her use of it to modify the prejudices of poli–
ticians and judges would still have been pointless. Nothing but confusion
arises from a reading of
Native Son
as an explanation of a representative
case of rape and murder. A reading ofWordsworth's poems evidently had
a certain effect on John Stuart Mill, helping to release his otherwise con–
gealed feelings. But
Native Son
is a mere cartoon, a bizarre fantasy: as
evidence, it is no more reliable as a picture of deprived blacks than
Boyz
In
the Hood.
I will stop short of claiming to know, in a particular case, what rela–
tions a novel bears - or might bear - to the general culture. But it is only
by its being first recognized as a work of art that it is ready to establish
any genuine relation to this culture. On the last page of
Native Son we
read this: " 'I didn't want to
kill!'
Bigger shouted. 'But what I killed for, I
am!
It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill!' " Clearly this is
not Bigger Thomas thinking, but Richard Wright thinking and speaking
for him. There is much to be said about the statement, the claim, the self–
justifying cry. But the first consideration is the statement in its structural
force within the novel. There is no merit in confounding one discipline -
literary criticism - with the methods of another - social science, crimi–
nology, or whatever.
Indeed, I am impelled to recall a sentence from Malraux which I ha–
ven't made a point of noting. Speaking of the masterpieces of art, he says
that their common message is that of their existence. That sentence refers
to the artist's motive, his "motive for metaphor," but it is salutary, too, in
