Learn CPR, Bigger
A question haunted me through reading Native Son : What would have happened if Bigger gave Mary CPR as soon as he realized she wasn’t breathing? Would she have come back to life? Or would suffocating her have done too much irreparable damage? I like to believe that this whole situation could have been avoided if only Bigger had received CPR training, which as you can imagine is endlessly frustrating (obsessing over what could have been). The question “What if” became a trend throughout the book. Again and again I read of Bigger’s shenanigans and felt a tugging in my chest as I considered all the ways he could have gotten away by doing x y and z but didn’t. Why didn’t you just clean the furnace, fooool? I thought of all the things I would do differently if put in Bigger’s place, all the mistakes I would avoid doing and all the precautions I would take, though first of all I would probably have to find my way out of this glass house (where are the DOORS???) The reality is, Bigger i...