35 pages • 1 hour read
Richard WrightBig Boy Leaves Home
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1936A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Dehumanizing Effects of Racism
The violent plot of “Big Boy Leaves Home” demonstrates how racist views dehumanize both those who hold them and those who are subject to them.
Racism is perpetuated by assuming that cultural others are less evolved and lack the qualities of independent thought and fellow feeling that supposedly define what makes us human. Indeed, the white people in the story seem to think that the Black characters are less than human. Old Man Harvey believes that it’s acceptable to shoot at any Black person trespassing on his property. Bertha automatically assumes that the boys will hurt her and makes no attempt to speak with them or correct her deadly misunderstanding. Jim kills two of them without even questioning what is going on. While Black lives are disposable, Big Boy killing Jim in self-defense is considered beyond the pale. Members of the white mob refer to Black people as if they’re a homogenous group without independent identities. They are spoken about as another species that should be exterminated: “Gawddam them sonofabitchin n-----!’ / ‘We oughta kill ever black bastard in this country!” (52).
The characterization of white people in the story demonstrates how racist sentiments and actions undermine humanity. While Wright presents the boys and their families as round characters with hopes, fears, and dreams, the white characters are flat—defined entirely by their opposition to Black people. They take pleasure in killing and terrorizing, singing songs as they lynch Bobo and laughing about Big Boy’s mother’s screams. Likewise, while racist ideology insists that white people are more civilized, this white population operates entirely outside of the law. Jim kills Lester and Buck for trespassing, and the consequences for Big Boy killing Jim in self-defense radiate outward; the mob lynches Bobo and burns down Big Boy’s family home. Here, Wright indicates that society dehumanizes Black people by considering them interchangeable, and any transgression is an excuse to terrorize an entire community.
This dehumanization is underscored through animalistic imagery and language. When Big Boy and his friends come into contact with two white characters, they are hunted down like animals. Big Boy, who is introduced as bright, friendly, and adventurous, is reduced to the bare struggle for survival, fighting for his life again and again. As soon as he sees Bertha, his “fight-or-flight” instincts kick in as he thinks “there was but one thought, and he clung to that one blindly. He had to get home, home to ma and pa” (34). His instincts don’t rest until he finally lays his head down to sleep in the truck, after riding many “asphalt miles” north. With each fresh threat he faces, his features warp into a picture of animal aggression. When he brutally exterminates the snake hiding in his kiln, he fights with “his eyes red, his teeth bared in a snarl” (47). When a dog sniffs him out in his hiding place, his instincts take over to strangle the dog and save his own life. The vivid descriptions of these survival-of-the-fittest type showdowns highlight how Big Boy has been forced into a dehumanizing ordeal, precipitated by years of physical and psychological repression.
Collectivism Versus Self-Interest
A communist when he wrote “Big Boy Leaves Home,” Wright frequently writes from a Marxist lens, implying or outright arguing that working-class solidarity is the best way to solve the structural inequalities that enforce racist oppression. In “Big Boy Leaves Home,” these politics are not obvious, but there are subtle Marxist critiques in the text, and Wright juxtaposes the collective action and self-interest within the narrative.
The opening section of the story presents the boys as a cohesive unit, but their camaraderie breaks down when they jostle for physical advantages over each other. Big Boy takes his chokehold on Bobo well beyond a friendly game, squeezing his neck tighter and tighter, telling him “N Ahma break it too less yuh tell em t git t hell offa me!” (24). Tears stream down Bobo’s face before the other boys finally put a stop to it. Big Boy’s willingness to sacrifice Bobo’s neck to gain the upper hand foreshadows his instinctive desire to ditch him later on, a decision that leaves Bobo vulnerable to the lynch mob. The scene at the swimming hole highlights the importance of working together, as Big Boy would never have survived without Bobo. Jim is “taller and heavier” and has a gun, but Bobo jumps on his back to disarm him, giving Big Boy the chance to strike. Still, when the two boys flee the scene, Big Boy rejects Bobo’s plea to stay together. While Big Boy hopes that Bobo will join him in the escape plan, their separation allows the lynch mob to capture and kill Bobo.
Big Boy’s family and the community “brothers” and “elders” exhibit solidarity by coming together to enable Big Boy’s escape. Big Boy knows that he can count on them for help, immediately running home when he knows he’s in trouble. Brother Sanders willingly puts his son’s life at risk to facilitate Big Boy’s escape, knowing the value of passage north to Chicago. Despite their feelings, his family does not hesitate to save Big Boy’s life, giving him shoes, clothing, and food for his journey and rushing him out of the house. Without this community support, Big Boy would have been caught. Likewise, the family is willing to suffer together, losing their home to the lynch mob.
In the end, Big Boy survives, but his friends all die, and his family home is burned down. He also loses his community, exiled to a new city where he’ll have to make it on his own. The community members band together to save his individual life, but this resistance does not affect the system of oppression that generated this crisis. Wright links collectivism with Marxism and self-interest with capitalist individualism, but “Big Boy Leaves Home” is not a wholesale critique of Big Boy’s self-interest. After all, it does seem to be the only reason that he survives. Instead, the story suggests that fighting for your life is the first step toward fighting against the structures that lead to systemic inequality.
The Uncertain Promise of Escape
The opening scenes of “Big Boy Leaves Home” see the story’s protagonist and his friends contemplating escape. They sing “Dis train boun fo Glory” (19) as a train heading north passes by, and when they hear it whistle again, they explicitly voice their desires: “‘Lawd, Ahm goin Noth some day.’ / ‘Me too, man.’ / ‘They say colored folks up Noth is got ekual rights.’” (28). This moment of candid conversation happens when they are naked and vulnerable after swimming. It occurs immediately after they jokingly consider what they’ll do if Old Man Harvey comes after them with a gun. As such, this interlude is precipitated by acknowledging the everyday danger and oppression of their lives in the rural South. There are no dialogue tags to identify who is speaking which line, implying that this longing for escape is deeply felt by all of them and, by extension, their community.
Later, in Section III, the reader learns that Big Boy, Bobo, Buck, and Lester went to the swimming hole that day because they skipped school. Their day spent “laughing easily” and walking “lollingly in bare feet” (17) is an escape from a day of drudgery in an underfunded, segregated school and the work they’re obliged to do to keep their struggling families afloat. Indeed, the only other scene in which readers see the boys “playing” is a flashback, where their games occur in the context of digging and feeding the kiln fires—very hard labor. Their day in the woods was a small taste of the freedom they crave, motivating their defiance of the prohibition against swimming in Old Man Harvey’s creek. Their temporary escape from the strictures of their existence is harshly punished with death, battering, and lynching. Soon, Big Boy is trying to escape being murdered instead of just his feeling of repression.
When Big Boy does escape, Wright pointedly does not represent it as a joyful release. It comes at a cost; his friends are dead, and his family loses their possessions and home to get him to freedom. The journey up North is presented in physical terms, without emotions: “[H]e sat up, breathed softly. The truck swerved. He blinked his eyes. The blades of daylight had turned brightly golden” (61). While daybreak is generally seen as hopeful, Wright twice describes the sunshine with the threatening image of “blades.” The ambiguity of Big Boy’s escape to an uncertain future contrasts sharply with the romantic escapes Big Boy and his friends once imagined together. The boys’ harsh punishment for their innocent escape suggests that no escape is possible under the current conditions. This is also represented by the snake in the kiln, a deadly predator hiding inside Big Boy’s safe refuge. With this, Wright asserts that rather than indulging in fantasies of escape, African American people must join together to change the society they wish to flee.
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