Lillian Smith’s character Henry in Strange Fruit and Richard Wright’s character Bigger Thomas in Native Son are painted as grotesque representations of black male stereotypes. The similarities that the authors create between Henry and Bigger, including the stereotypical nature of their physical appearance and the hostile environment that surrounds them, force them to be seen as a threat to the white communities. Both authors illustrate how the white characters dehumanize the men through humiliation and caricatured description as a way to reduce the perceived threat of the men to their white communities.
In Strange Fruit, Lillian Smith places her focal black, male character, Henry, in dehumanizing process, which temporarily and superficially decreases the perceived threat he poses to the white community. In the scene where Henry is being hunted for the murder of Tracy Dean, the process of dressing Henry in women’s clothing and putting white makeup on his face to camouflage him until he can be ‘safely’ hidden in jail is particularly grotesque because he is humiliated as his appearance becomes distorted. Even if Henry is not aware of his humiliation, Laura Dean recognizes how the process dehumanizes him, “And with the shade drawn and the door locked they had dressed him in her mother’s gingham housedress… and had made him powder his tear-smeared face until it was white... All the feeling she had had was when she saw Henry’s miserable reddened eyes peering out of all that white powder. And suddenly she had not known whether her body would surrender to sobs or wild laughter, though it did neither” (Smith 324). Laura’s conflicted emotions concisely explain Henry’s humiliation and how he is no longer a threat, but he is something that can either be mocked or pitied by whites. Henry’s superficial donning of a white, female identity, is particularly striking because it is the opposite of his identity as a black male. But Henry’s humiliation is temporary. Under the makeup and dress he is still a black male and he is still a threat. Because the white public cannot quash Henry’s blackness he remains a threat and therefore must be eliminated.
Similarly, Richard Wright uses the reporter’s depictions of Bigger after the inquest to illustrate how Bigger is a threat to the white community but can be conquered because of his primal nature. The reporter exaggerates Bigger’s physical characteristics, calling him “exceedingly black,” and stating, “his lower jaw protrudes, reminding one of a jungle beast” (Wright 280). The reporter goes on to describe Bigger in primal and animalistic terms, “he seems a beast utterly untouched by the softening influences of modern civilization. In speech and manner he lacks the charm of the average, harmless, genial, grinning southern darky so loved by the American people” (Wright 280). Wright’s use of these reports demonstrates the exaggerated threat felt by the white community toward black men. However, the threat of Bigger is null because he is seen as less than human. He is even seen as more closely resembling a wild animal than a human; and animals can be tamed, captured and killed by humans. Bigger ceases to be a threat because he can be conquered and eliminated from the white community. Wright deliberately writes Bigger’s crime as a sensational story because it makes the hunting of Bigger into sport for the upper and middle classes of urban whites. Through this analogy of viewing Bigger as a wild, rogue animal, his death is not only justified, it is also celebrated.
Lillian Smith and Richard Wright convey that very presence of black male bodies is a threat to the power of the white community. But, through the process of dehumanization and humiliation whites create space between their communities and the black male. The black male becomes something that can be dealt with. Smith and Wright illustrate the process of eliminating the threat of the black male; the first step is dehumanization, which justifies the second step—killing.
