Native Son Characters

A Grinding Daily GrindBigger Thomas lives a life so small, it’s claustrophobic. It's stifling. It's unimaginable... which is one of the reasons that Native Son is so important. Because many peopl...

Boris To The MaxAt the end of Native Son, a book that can make you say "Humanity is jacked up" and crawl under the comforter with a pint of ice cream, we finally get Boris Max. And—get this—he'...

A Jan With A PlanWe admit it: we started out wanting to punch Jan in the mouth. By the end of the novel, though, we wanted to buy him an ice cream sundae. (Native Son pro-tip: make sure you read th...

Mary Mary, Quite ContraryMary Dalton, the only daughter of a wealthy capitalist in Chicago, rebels the only way she knows how: she starts dating a Communist. (We could have suggested throwing wet t...

Bessie, Bigger’s girlfriend, works so hard that all she wants on her day off is to get shmammered. Bigger wants a little loving and she’s willing to exchange sex for liquor money. Needless to s...

Mrs. Dalton is a wealthy blind woman who takes an interest (in a pandering, hobbyist sort of way) in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and encourages her husban...

Mr. Dalton, Bigger’s employer, positions himself as a liberal, progressive white citizen of Chicago. In reality, he's pretty much a racist. Sure, he's not actively evil or cruel, but he fails to...

Bigger’s mother nags him all the time. She won’t leave Bigger alone about the job, no matter how many times he says he’s going to take it. She’s a deeply religious woman and believes she’...

Peggy is the Daltons’ bustling Irish housekeeper. She clearly believes part of her job is to instruct Bigger and remind him to fulfill his duties. She believes that the Daltons have been great be...

Buddy is Bigger’s loyal little brother, who wants to be just like Bigger.

Bigger’s little sister, Vera, lives with the same kind of fear and shame that Bigger suffers. Though Vera’s behavior frequently annoys Bigger, when he hears that his little sister had t...

Buckley, the State’s Attorney, uses devious tactics to gain a confession from Bigger. Despite the fact that Bigger pleads guilty, Buckley calls all individuals connected with the case in any way...

Hired by Mr. Dalton to investigate his daughter’s disappearance, Britten is prejudiced against both black people and Communists. Initially suspicious of Jan Erlone, he quickly believes that Jan a...