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An only child, Mary is a wealthy girl who has far leftist leanings. She is filmed frolicking with Jan, a known communist party organizer. Consequently, she is trying to abide, for a time, by her parents’ wishes and go to Detroit. She is to leave the morning after Bigger is hired as the family chauffeur. Under the ruse of a University meeting, she has Bigger take her to meet Jan. When they return to the house, she is too drunk to make it to her room unassisted, and Bigger thus helps her. Mrs. Dalton comes upon them in the room, and Bigger smothers Mary for fear that Mrs. Dalton will discover him. Mary, as a symbol of white America, is destroyed by Bigger, who symbolizes what America hates and fears. Father of Mary, Mr. Dalton owns a controlling amount of stock in a real estate firm. This firm manages the black ghetto in town. Blacks in the ghetto pay too much for rat-infested flats. As Max points out at the inquest, Mr. Dalton refuses to rent flats to black people outside of the designated ghetto area. He does this while donating money to the NAACP and buying ping-pong tables for the local black youth outreach program. Mr. Dalton’s philanthropy, however, only assuages his guilt but does not change his shady and oppressive business practices. Mary Dalton’s mother is blind, and this condition accentuates the motif of racial blindness throughout the story. Both Bigger and Max comment on how people are blind to the reality of race in America. Mrs. Dalton betrays her metaphorical blindness when she meets Mrs. Thomas. Mrs. Dalton hides behind her philanthropy and claims there is nothing she can do for Bigger. She cannot prevent his death nor can she admit to her family’s direct involvement in the creation of the ghetto that created him. A communist, Jan is the boyfriend of the very rich Mary Dalton. Bigger attempts to frame him for the murder of Mary. Jan sees the murder as an opportunity to examine the issue of racism. Jan had already been seeking a way to understand the ‘negroes’ so as to organize them along communist lines against bourgeois people like Mr. Dalton. He is able to put aside his personal trauma and persuade Max to help Bigger. He represents the idealistic young Marxist who hopes to save the world through revolution. Gus is a member of Bigger’s gang, but he has an uneasy relationship with Bigger. Jack is Bigger’s friend. Bigger views him as a true friend. A lawyer from the Communist Party, Mr. Max represents Bigger after the murders. As a Jewish American, he is in a better position to understand Bigger. It is through his speech during the trial that Wright reveals the greater moral and political implications of Bigger Thomas’s life. Even though Mr. Max is the only one who understands Bigger, Bigger still horrifies him by displaying just how damaged white society has made him. When Mr. Max finally leaves Bigger, he is aghast at the extent of the brutality of racism in America. Bessie is Bigger’s girlfriend. He murders her because he fears she might speak against him. She is representative of all the women in the ghetto, like Bigger’s mother and sister. All these women have the same tired look about their eyes and the same dreary occupations of washing clothes or working in kitchens. Bessie is so tired and depressed by the drudgery of her life that she only wants to drink when not working. Bigger provides drink, and she has sex with him, yet there seems to be no love between them. Still, as oppressed as she is, she cannot acquiesce to the murder of Mary. Fearing her inability to sanction the crime, Bigger brings her out with him to hide. He rapes her, bashes her head, and tosses her body into an airshaft. Peggy is the Irish-American housekeeper for the Daltons and, like Max, can empathize with Bigger’s status as an "outsider." However, she is more typical of poor whites who are sure to invest in racism if only to keep someone below themselves. Like everyone in the Dalton family, Peggy hides her dislike for blacks and treats Bigger nicely. The protagonist of the story, Bigger commits two ghastly murders and is put on trial for his life. He is convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. His act gives the novel action, but the real plot involves Bigger’s reactions to his environment and his crime. Bigger struggles to discuss his feelings, but he cannot find the words or the time to fully express himself. The voice of the narrator relates that Bigger—typical of the "outsider" archetype— has finally discovered the only important and real thing: his life. His realization that he is alive—and able to choose to befriend Mr. Max—creates some hope that men like him might be reached earlier. Even though Bigger seems to be developing as a person, Bigger is never anything but a failed human. He represents the black man who feels he has few options in life and, as a result, turns to crime. As he says to Gus, "They don’t let us do nothing … [and] I can’t get used to it." He even admits to wanting to be an aviator and later, to Max, he admits to wanting to be a great number of things. He can do nothing but be one of many blacks in the ghetto and maybe get a job serving whites; crime seems preferable. Not surprisingly, then, he already has a criminal history, and he has even been to reform school. Ultimately, the greatest thing he can do is transgress the boundary the white world has set for him. Buddy, Bigger’s younger brother, idolizes Bigger as a male role model. He defends him to the rest of the family and consistently asks if he can help Bigger. Mrs. Thomas is Bigger’s mother. She struggles to keep her family alive on the meager wages she earns by taking in other people’s laundry. She is a religious woman who believes she will be rewarded in an "afterlife," but as a black woman accepts that nothing can be done to improve her people’s situation. Moreover, she knows that Bigger will end up hanging from the "gallows" for his crime, but this is just another fact of life. Vera is Bigger’s sister, and in her, Bigger sees his mother. Bigger knows that Vera will inevitably have the same tired look in her eyes and bear the continual strain of a family. The other option for Vera is to become a drunkard like Bessie.
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