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 – 4
Invisible Man: 8
The protagonist and Mr. Norton visit a brothel that the patients from a mental institution are allowed to visit. The unruly patients are supervised by an attendant named Supercargo who kicks them down the stairs of the building when they rush to attack him. Supercargo can be associated with Freud’s concept of the “superego,” the aspect of human consciousness that regulates the behavior of the unruly unconscious mind, keeping those primal thoughts suppressed.
Invisible Man: 9
At the brothel, a patient of the mental institution tells the protagonist to watch as he attacks Supercargo, then he says “Sometimes I get so afraid of him I feel that he’s inside my head.” This lends credence to the idea that Supercargo represents the Freudian concept of the superego. After this, the patients repeatedly knock Supercargo unconscious, then revive him “only to kick him unconscious again.”