Communist pamphlets

The Communist pamphlets Jan Erlone gives Bigger Thomas change from printed political material into a calculated prop in Bigger’s effort to hide his responsibility for Mary Dalton’s death. He plans to use them to cast suspicion on Jan and explain his own contact with the Daltons, then hides them in a drawer; when Britten finds the packet, that planned defense instead gives the investigator a new way to pressure him.

Contents and Physical Appearance

The pamphlets carry titles including Race Prejudice on Trial, The Negro Question in the United States, and Black and White Unite and Fight. Bigger initially judges those titles not especially dangerous. His attention shifts when he finds a picture of a hammer and a curving knife above a line identifying the Communist Party of the United States as the publisher. The printed attribution, rather than the titles alone, supplies the political suspicion he hopes others will attach to the packet.

Another pamphlet bears a pen-and-ink image of a white hand clasping a black hand in solidarity. It recalls for Bigger the moment when Jan stood on the car’s running board and shook his hand, a gesture Bigger remembers with hate and shame. The image thus connects the pamphlets to a personal encounter that Bigger experienced as threatening, even as he later tries to make that encounter useful to his story.

Bigger’s Plan for the Pamphlets

On Sunday morning, while searching his clothes after waking in fear of the murder and concealment, Bigger finds the pamphlets Jan had given him. He considers throwing them away along with other incriminating objects, but stops when he sees a possible use for them. He decides to preserve the packet as supposed evidence that Jan had pressed political reading on him, and plans to say he had not opened the pamphlets and took them only because Jan insisted.

Bigger also constructs a broader explanation around the packet. He intends to say that he feared Communists, did not want to ride or eat with Jan and Mary, and did so only because accompanying them was part of his job. He remembers that it was the first time he had sat at a table with white people. The pamphlets therefore serve not as an expression of his political convictions but as material support for a story designed to portray him as reluctant, intimidated, and acted upon by Jan and Mary.

Bigger carries the pamphlets to the Dalton family residence and places them neatly in a corner of his dresser drawer. The careful arrangement is part of the performance: he wants the packet to be available if questioned, but does not want anyone to think he has read it. After feeding the furnace, he remembers the pamphlets and runs upstairs to make sure they are in place, treating their concealment and presentation as part of the same plan.

Discovery and Consequences

Britten later pulls the small packet from Bigger’s dresser drawer and holds it up during his questioning. He accuses Bigger of lying and calls him a Communist, turning the papers into an instrument of interrogation. Bigger denies being a Communist and says that Jan gave him the pamphlets and that Jan and Mary told him to read them. The explanation echoes the excuse Bigger had privately prepared, but Britten’s discovery means the packet is no longer merely an item Bigger can produce on his own terms.

After Britten leaves, Bigger sees that his room has been searched and the clothes are mussed and tumbled. He thinks through how Jan’s account could affect his own: if Jan denies being with Mary, or lies about their drinking and her visit, Bigger believes those inconsistencies could make Jan look guilty and strengthen suspicion against him. The pamphlets are one element in this wider effort to frame Jan, and their discovery sharpens Bigger’s resolve to proceed with the false kidnapping plan after Jan has given his account.

Narrative Function

The packet’s meaning shifts with its handling. In Bigger’s pocket it is an unwanted trace of his contact with Jan; in the dresser drawer he stages it as evidence that might excuse his presence and redirect blame; in Britten’s hands it becomes a basis for accusation. Its printed images and political label give the physical object a force beyond Bigger’s private intentions: the same pages he hopes will help control the investigation instead furnish Britten with another means to challenge his account.