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By: Hilary Holladay In the following excerpt, Holladay dissects the motivations behind Max and his faulty defense of Bigger Thomas. Boris Max’s speech defending Bigger Thomas in Native Son has been called [by James Baldwin in "Many Thousands Gone," Notes of a Native Son, Dial, 1963] "one of the most desperate performances in American fiction." By the time Max arrives on the scene late in Richard Wright’s novel, Bigger has already been sentenced to death by the white mobs who hate and fear him for killing Mary Dalton. We have little reason to expect that Max’s oratory will reverse Bigger’s apparent fate. Max, however, seems to feel otherwise. Brought into the case by Jan Erlone, Mary’s fantastically forgiving boyfriend, Max sees Bigger not as the brutal, apelike murderer portrayed by the prosecutor but as a living symbol of black oppression. His closing speech is a long, impassioned appeal to the judge. But it is not a sound argument. Not only is the speech "desperate"; it is riddled with flaws. Max, in effect, is verbally propelling Bigger toward the electric chair. Though critics [such as John Reilly in his "Afterword" to Native Son, 1966] often see Max as Wright’s two-dimensional attempt to "assimilate the dogma" of the Communist Party into his novel, I view him differently. He is not simply, as Keneth Kinnamon believes [in his book The Emergence of Richard Wright, 1972] an "authorial mouthpiece" espousing communist ideology. Nor can we say definitively [as Dorothy Redden does in her essay "Richard Wright and Native Son: Not Guilty," Bigger Thomas, edited by Harold Bloom, 1990] that he is "clearly intended to be the most intelligent and humane person in the book." On close inspection, Max emerges as a troubling character, more complex than a cardboard communist but much less heroic than the exalted tone of his speech suggests. Max is suspect from the beginning. Wright describes him in almost the same terms he uses to describe Mary Dalton’s father, who is "a tall, lean, white-haired man." Similarly, Max has "a head strange and white, with silver hair and a lean white face," and he, too, is tall. Max’s whiteness does not bode well: White-haired white men, blind white women in white clothes, white cats, white buildings, and white snow invariably presage discomfiture and desperation for Bigger. Max’s name, furthermore, implies that he may not be Bigger’s best advocate. His last name is one letter removed from "Marx," and, as Max tells the prosecutor, Buckley, "If you had not dragged the name of the Communist Party into this murder, I’d not be here." He comes to the case, then, as an ideologue. He embodies a doctrine disliked and rejected by most of his courtroom audience, and he is Jewish. The prejudices the audience feels toward Max will not aid Bigger’s cause. Max’s first name provides another clue to his personality:"Boris Max" may be recast as "Bore is Max." He is almost always referred to as Max or Mr. Max, but his full name, with its punning revelation, often seems more apt during his seventeenpage speech, which is part secular sermon and part filibuster. If the pun seems unlikely, consider the wordplay in the other characters’ names. "Bigger Thomas" harks back to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom and Wright’s own Big Boy in "Big Boy Leaves Home"; it also [remarks Kinnamon] evokes "nigger" and "big nigger." And when Bigger says he is not worth the effort being put into his trial. Max brings him up short: "Well, this thing’s bigger than you, son." Max himself is "bigger" or more powerful than his client if his name is read as an abbreviation for "maximum." "Dalton" also has ironic resonance; Daltonism is a form of color blindness [as noted by Kinnamon]. Suffice it to say that Wright probably did not select the name "Boris" at random. The prosecutor, however, far from boring his audience, knows just how to fuel the fires of outrage. He has rounded up sixty witnesses, including fifteen newspaper reporters and virtually all of Bigger’s acquaintances. Because the Dalton murder case centers around the ghastly fate of a beautiful young woman, the trial cannot be drawn out long enough for the perversely fascinated spectators and newspaper readers. Buckley gives the people exactly what they crave: all the key players in a horrifying spectacle. Max, for his part, would do well to bolster his defense by bringing in psychiatrists, social workers, and character witnesses. But he complains that the time he had to prepare his case was "pitifully brief " and declines to call any witnesses. Without reliable authorities to back him up, he must depend on his own rhetorical skills to carry his argument. These skills are not good enough. Max’s speech is often evasive. He spends an inordinate amount of time talking about himself, perhaps because he feels the need to justify the guilty plea he has entered on Bigger’s behalf. Sometimes his argument sounds like a sleepless man’s late-night soliloquy. After stating that he is "not insensible" to the burden the guilty plea places on the judge, Max pontificates: But, under the circumstances, what else could I have done? Night after night, I have lain without sleep, trying to think of a way to picture to you and to the world the causes and reasons why this Negro boy sits here a self-confessed murderer. How can I, I asked myself, make the picture of what has happened to this boy show plain and powerful upon a screen of sober reason, when a thousand newspaper and magazine artists have already drawn it in lurid ink upon a million sheets of public print? Dare I, deeply mindful of this boy’s background and race, put his fate in the hands of a jury (not of his peers, but of an alien and hostile race!) whose minds are already conditioned by the press of the nation; a press which has already reached a decision as to his guilt, and in countless editorials suggested the measure of his punishment? Far from garnering sympathy for Bigger or Max, this aside suggests, first of all, that Max has deep-seated doubts about his ability to defend Bigger. He feels that the odds are against him, and he does not expect to win the case. This excerpt also reveals Max’s condescending attitude toward his audience. The judge, a member of the "alien and hostile race," may not take kindly to Max’s characterization. Since Max, too, is white, the slur on white people implies that Max believes he alone is a superior specimen, capable of rising above racial prejudice. But his own repeated references to the twenty-year-old Bigger as a "boy" contain a hint of racism: While the word might portray Bigger as a youth incapable of comprehending murder, the rest of Max’s defense hinges on Bigger’s adult reactions to a life and heritage of racial oppression. Finally, the excerpt is one of many examples of Max’s overblown rhetoric. He says in many words what could be said in a few; he says things that probably should not be said at all. Whatever else he is, Max is a ham who enjoys being in the spotlight. Furthermore, Max is so intent on generalizing about black oppression that he barely mentions the most convincing—and accurate—defense available to him. Instead of arguing that Bigger smothered Mary solely by accident, he portrays his client as "a self-confessed murderer" and the perpetrator of "one of the darkest crimes in our memory." As if these descriptions were not damning enough, he later rages nonsensically: "The truth is, this boy did not kill! Oh, yes; Mary Dalton is dead. Bigger Thomas smothered her to death. Bessie Mears is dead. Bigger Thomas battered her with a brick in an abandoned building. But did he murder? Did he kill?" It seems as if Max is inciting his opposition to riot, but he appears oblivious to the incendiary possibilities of his rhetoric. He reminds the judge and everyone else that Bigger not only killed Mary but savagely murdered Bessie as well. And then he expects his appalled audience to agree that Bigger’s behavior "was an act of creation!" Furthermore, "[h]e was impelled toward murder as much through the thirst for excitement, exultation, and elation as he was through fear! It was his way of living!" If Max is indeed "one of the best lawyers" working for the Communist Party in Chicago, as Jan Erlone has said, then the party is in trouble. Buckley’s outraged response is inevitable: "And the defense would have us believe that this was an act of creation! It is a wonder that God in heaven did not drown out his lying voice with a thunderous ‘NO!’" Max, however, seems blind to the ways in which he is destroying his own case. Although he puts on a show of passionate commitment to Bigger, his faulty argument undercuts his purpose. Although Max appears to believe that philosophizing is his strong suit, he does not flesh out his philosophical claims well enough to make them convincing. For example, his assertion that Bigger’s crimes were creative acts reflects a Nietzschean ideology. In Nietzsche’s essay "‘Good and Evil,’ ‘Good and Bad,’" in On the Genealogy of Morals, the discussion of the relationship between oppressors and oppressed supports Max’s seemingly outlandish claim. The powerless members of society, Nietzsche writes, define themselves by striking out against those who wield power. Their defining, or "creative," acts enable them to label themselves "good" in contrast to their oppressors, whom they perceive as an omnipotent "evil." This kind of creation is reactionary, springing from a deeply ingrained hatred of the ruling class. Such a paradigm may apply to Bigger and his situation, but Max does not prepare his audience for a Nietzschean revelation. Out of context, his claim that Bigger murdered others to create himself hardly inspires sympathy. The judge, unless he has a Nietzschean bent of his own, is unlikely to fill in the gaps Max leaves in his argument. Whatever logic underpins his claim, it does little good if it remains unarticulated. Max’s argument is further weakened by a series of logical fallacies. Several examples will illustrate the point. First, in assuming that Bigger’s crimes followed naturally from his perceptions of a hostile world ("This is the case of a man’s mistaking a whole race of men as a part of the natural structure of the universe and of his acting toward them accordingly."), Max is guilty of a post hoc, or "doubtful cause," fallacy. He is unable to prove that coming of age in a racist society caused Bigger to act as he did. Without defense witnesses or testimony from Bigger himself, the judge has nothing to go on but Max’s word in this instance. And, as in his allusions to Nietzsche, Max omits the crucial connections in his argument. He admits that he speaks "in general terms"—but these terms do not substantiate his claim. Max also uses the fallacy known as "two wrongs make a right." Instead of focusing his discussion on Bigger, he lashes out at other people whom he considers wrongdoers. This, of course, does not lessen Bigger’s crimes. Having rhetorically asked who is responsible for the mob raging outside, he answers: The State’s Attorney knows, for he promised the Loop bankers that if he were re-elected demonstrations for relief would be stopped! The Governor of the state knows, for he has pledged the Manufactur- ers’ Association that he would use troops against workers who went out on strike! The Mayor knows, for he told the merchants of the city that the budget would be cut down, that no new taxes would be imposed to satisfy the clamor of the masses of the needy! The prosecutor, the governor, and the mayor may well be scheming—even crooked—politicians, but they are not on trial. Since he is speaking in a court of law, Max’s unsubstantiated accusations are dangerously disrespectful as well as illogical. The attack, which occurs early in his speech, does not strengthen his defense of Bigger, nor is it likely to endear him to the judge, who also holds political office. But Max makes an even greater mistake in lashing out at the Daltons, the object of sympathy in the courtroom and throughout the city. He does not seem to realize that his attack on Mary’s parents is obtuse to the point of being cruel: The Thomas family got poor and the Dalton family got rich. And Mr. Dalton, a decent man, tried to salve his feelings by giving money. But, my friend, gold was not enough! Corpses cannot be bribed! Say to yourself, Mr. Dalton, "I offered my daughter as a burnt sacrifice and it was not enough to push back into its grave this thing that haunts me." And to Mrs. Dalton, I say: "Your philanthropy was as tragically blind as your sightless eyes!" These comments are another example of the "two-wrongs-make-a-right" fallacy. Max does not stand to gain anything by accusing the Daltons of complicity in Bigger’s crimes. While they may not be as well-intentioned toward blacks as they say they are, Mr. and Mrs. Dalton are no more on trial than the mayor of Chicago is. Further, they are in mourning, and it is unrealistic of Max to expect the judge or any of his listeners to see the aging couple as guilt-ridden schemers. The "slippery slope" fallacy is at the crux of Max’s argument. He insists that sentencing Bigger to death is tantamount to starting an open war between the races: The surest way to make certain that there will be more such murders is to kill this boy. In your rage and guilt, make thousands of other black men and women feel that the barriers are tighter and higher! Kill him and swell the tide of pent-up lava that will some day break loose, not in a single, blundering, accidental, individual crime, but in a wild cataract of emotion that will brook no control. But Bigger’s death will not necessarily lead to more violence in Chicago’s Black Belt or elsewhere. In fact, Bigger’s death in the electric chair may come as something of a relief, even to those who don’t despise him. Bessie Mears’s friends and family, though they do not appear in the novel, would probably be glad to see Bigger die. He has murdered one of his own race, after all. Blacks have as much reason as whites do to fear him. At the close of his speech, Max declares: "With every atom of my being, I beg this in order that not only may this black boy live, but that we ourselves may not die!" The statement implies that all of American society will collapse if Bigger is put to death. Though personally convinced that Bigger’s fate is momentous enough to rock civilization, Max has no sound basis for this claim. In Max’s eyes, Bigger is a symbol of all the oppression blacks have suffered since they first arrived in America, but in most other people’s eyes, Bigger is a self-confessed murderer, an object of terror. And it is the judge’s responsibility to decide the man’s fate, not a symbol’s. Max’s illogical hyperbole does not effectively further his case. His inability—or refusal— to make sound connections between his generalizations and Bigger’s own experience ultimately undermines his argument In spite of his generalizations, self-doubts, long-winded tangents, and logical fallacies, Max might still win his case if he could characterize Bigger Thomas as a flesh-and-blood man, not a symbol to be inflated like a balloon and floated over white people’s heads. He makes a start on this late in his speech when he suggests that life in prison "would be the first recognition of his personality [Bigger] has ever had." But overall, Max’s defense amounts to little more than an extended exercise in convoluted philosophizing and moralistic fingerpointing. His patronizing air does not help his case, either. We can imagine the judge gritting his teeth as Max informs him: "There are times, Your Honor, when reality bears features of such an impellingly moral complexion that it is impossible to follow the hewn path of expediency." Max is so caught up in his own windy rhetoric, in fact, that he ignores two glaringly obvious means of winning the case: pleading not guilty or pleading insane. The former plea would place the burden of proof on the prosecution, and the latter would at least give him the opportunity to recast Bigger’s crimes in a different light. By making Bigger plead guilty, Max puts himself center-stage, and his own hubris takes over. The length of his speech and its rambling content suggest that Max has wanted to tell off the world for a long time. He picks the wrong occasion to do so. The judge cannot be faulted for sentencing Big- ger to death: One man’s diatribe does not blot out two dead women, sixty witnesses for the prosecution, and a city full of outraged citizens. Buckley, despite being an almost absurdly abrasive, racist figure, knows how to play the legal game much better than his opponent does. In his opening statement, Buckley announces, long before Max’s speech, "There is no room here for evasive, theoretical, or fanciful interpretations of the law." He is right. And Max, [as Dorothy Redden suggests] hardly "the author’s spokesman for the truth," is wrong to assume the role of an angry prophet when his client desperately needs a levelheaded lawyer. The question remains: How does this interpretation of Max alter our reading of Native Son? Put briefly, when we view Max as a subversive presence destroying whatever slim chance Bigger has to survive, book three becomes an even darker denouement to the action in books one and two. Max, like the Daltons, attempts to assuage his own conscience by championing Bigger. In the end, he fails himself as well as his client. Perhaps in Bigger’s final facial expression, "a faint, wry, bitter smile," we see his recognition of this failure. Max, too, is guilty, but only Bigger will die. Source: Hilary Holladay, "Native Son’s Guilty Man," in The CEA Critic, Winter, 1992, pp. 30-36.
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