Bigger hates Gus, who is holding out on Bigger’s plan to commit a robbery, because Gus’s fear reflects his own. He fears Gus because if Gus agrees to commit the robbery, Bigger “would be compelled to go through with” it.
Native Son – 2
Native Son – 4
After Bigger picks a fight with his running mates, so he can ruin the plan he’d initiated to rob a white man, he’s unconsciously aware of the fact that he feared the prospect of committing the robbery. But he can’t acknowledge this fear. Wright writes, “his courage to live depended upon how successfully his fear was hidden from his consciousness.”
Native Son – 14
Bigger is proud of the agency he feels behind his invisibility. He boasts to his girlfriend, Bessie, that people won’t suspect him of his crime, saying “They won’t think we did [it]. They don’t think we got guts enough to do it. They think niggers is too scared…”