Native Son's most important theme is blindness because the characters' blindness plays a big part in the main events. Bigger is blind to the way white people live their lives, which ultimately shows his fear because white people always treated him like property. He is also blind to the fact that not all white people believe in treating black people poorly.
Bigger ends up killing Mary Dalton out of his own fear based on his blindness to Mary's intentions. Mary intimidated Bigger because not only was he in a new atmosphere but he was surrounded by whites controlling his every move. But because she treated him like a human, he was thrown off and didn't know how to react. Mary represents blindness on the count of her boldness towards Bigger. Questioning him, and trying to get to know him shown through Bigger's fear because he never interacted with whites before. Therefore leading up to his murderous actions.
-"The guarded feeling of freedom he had while listening to her was tangled with the hard fact that she was white and rich, a part of the world of people who told him what he could and couldn't do."
Because Bigger felt intimidated by what Mary was saying to him and how she treated him, he was unsure of how to behave. He was almost afraid which was shown through his anger. nobody, and a white girl at that, spoke to him like Mary had ever in his life.
-"He stared at her in a long silence; it was the first time he had ever looked directly at her, and he was able to do so only because he was angry."
