1. During today's session we started by discussing lingering questions from Invisible Cities and the other readings, which led into a discussion of how American history is used in Invisible Man. The main focus of the session was a careful, thoughtful, detailed, and wide-ranging exploration of the influence of environmental conditions on the formation of individual consciousness (the self). We talked specifically about how the plot structure of Invisible Man shapes the readers perception of events as they unfold -- encouraging the reader to ask, how do these events and circumstances contribute to changes in the protagonist? And what are the larger implications (for the reader, for Americans, for all people) of the Invisible Man's experiences and developing consciousness? We were especially interested in seeing the book as a commentary on different kinds of power, different kinds of understanding.
We deeply considered the symbolic nature of the book. We found it productive to treat the descriptions and events as the book as both real, actual events and as suggestive of "deeper" meanings. To this end we talked about W.E.B. DuBois (double consciousness), Booker T. Washington ("separate as the five fingers") Freud (id, ego, superego), Jung (hero's quest archetype), Hegel (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, and the telos of history), Marx (shedding particulars of race and nation to join proletariat, dictatorship of the proletariat), and David Chappelle in relation to Ellison's choices about characters, descriptions, scenes. We talked about the significance of names. We talked about the literal and figurative meanings of power, of light, of invisibility, of sight, of blueprints, of jazz, of dreams, of food, etc. We tried to connect each element we analyzed to our developing, evolving sense of the meaning of the work as a whole.
If you were not at today's session I would like you to participate in the discussion begun in class by fully exploring how one element in the text -- a motif such as violence, sexuality, dreams, food, oration, music, etc.; a minor character such as the Norton, the vet, Reverend Barbee, Mr. Emerson's son, Brockway, etc.; a scene such as Trueblood's story, the Golden Day episode, the paint factory explosion -- contributes to what Ralph Ellison seems to suggest about the relationship between Invisible Man's environment and his consciousness (his sense of self and sense of his place in the world).
Paste your response -- a one-draft essay -- in the comment box. (If it's long you might need to cut it into two posts.) Before writing your response read what is already in the comment box (if anything) to avoid merely repeating what someone else has already written, though you can expand upon or respond to what someone else has already written so long as you contribute something new. The responses should probably be at least 500 words long. Complete this part-to-whole essay before the next session (August 2).
2. Don't forget to complete the blog comment assignment and the essay assignment from the first session. (These should be done already but you haven't completed these assignments do so now.) Go here for details. (So far you should have completed a quotation response journal for Invisible Cities, a blog post in response to the relationship between Invisible Cities and a supplemental poem or short story, an essay relating a quotation from Invisible Cities to the work as a whole, and a quotation response journal for the first 250 pages of Invisible Man.
3. Complete a quotation response journal (10+ quotations and responses) for chapters 12 through the Epilogue of Invisible Man before the next session (August 2). (Note: I decided not to assign supplementary readings until we finish all of Invisible Man.)
Jacklyn L.
ReplyDeleteMr. Trueblood’s story shows how the white people really view the African Americans and how the white people were so blinded by hate that to be spiteful they only pretended to help the African Americans who were horrid people. Mr. Trueblood raped his daughter and went to the police saying he did it, the police helped him by providing the family with some money and food. Mr. Trueblood raped his daughter yet the police still help him, but when the narrator was being beat senseless the white men just sat there and watched it happen. The story shows the true morals of the white men towards the African Americans. The story showed that these were the things that African Americans became known for and that in reality the white men exploited them. The story shows that the good African Americans were overshadowed by the horrid African Americans because during the early twentieth century that was all the white man wanted to see for the African American race.
It shows that the white men have become corrupt when helping the African American people. The story shows the true motive of the white people is that they only want the horrid African Americans to succeed so that they can always control the African American race. The idea behinds it becomes that the white people need this control over the African American people so that their superiority complex is complete. They also help only the horrid African Americans because these people give the population a bad name and it helps to eliminate anyone wanting to help people. The story helps with the narrator’s point of view of being invisible because for all of the great speeches he has written he is really never recognized by the white community while Mr. Trueblood is. The idea of this story is to allow the narrator to see the true motive motive of the white man by only allowing prominent white men to hear the stories such as Mr. Trueblood’s they will want to help the African American community less. The author realizes this as time ges not only because of Mr. Trueblood’s story, but also because of other stories he heard.
The story also raises the awareness to the morals of people in general. The book centers around the idea of the African Americans living in the early twentieth century and what their lives were like. However the book also has an underlining motif of choosing what is right and what is wrong or more so the morals of person. Mr. Trueblood’s story helps the reader to see that though the reader might feel that what the narrator is doing is not moral, there is a moral code to follow. Mr. Trueblood is the representation of a man who has forgotten his morals. The reason the story is a key element in this book though is it not only exploits his morals, but the morals of the whole white community. Since the narrator knows the true morals of the white community in the south he is hesitant to join the brotherhood because deep down he is scared they will make him out to be like Mr. Trueblood. In the end though he is in a sense like Mr. Trueblood because both of their realities had been changed to deal with their new situations. Mr. Trueblood’s reality was changed so that he believed he did nothing wrong and after the narrator realizes he caused the riot in Harlem his reality changed so that he could blame it on he brotherhood. The realities changing allowed for their morals to remain in place.
Jacklyn L.
ReplyDeleteThe story also helps to teach the narrator about the world that he is living in. The story in a sense exposes the lies that the narrator has been exposed to the last couple years of his life. It shows that for the most part the white community only helps the
African American community so that they can keep them separated and not have to deal with him. The story also teaches him to be distrustful of the white community on a subconscious level. This is why he is so distrustful of the son of one the bosses he was to see because the story showed that the white man only wanted to keep the African Americans away and that they really did not want to help them. In sense to the story helped the narrator become his own person. He saw the truth in that the white community did not want much to do with him and that he could help and not be under their thumbs trying to please them. He learned to get away from what he was taught to become his own Mr. Trueblood where he was the father to Harlem sticking up for their rights at first unknowingly and Harlem became in a sense his daughter.
Mr. Trueblood’s story is essential for the reader to understand the many layers of the book. It allows for the reader to see the that the white community only help the African Americans who will make their race look bad and allow for the white community to keep them under their control. The story also helps to bring the motif a person’s morals or what is right and wrong into the view of the author. Then one of the most important jobs of the story is that it teaches the narrator to be his own person and to get out from beneath the white community’s thumb. The story becomes part of the narrator as he becomes the voice or father of Harlem and Harlem becomes his daughter such as Mr. Trueblood’s story was about. The story shows how spiteful the white community are because they only help the African Americans who will not succeed because they want the African American community under their thumbs.
Kelly B.
ReplyDeleteThe novel, Invisible Man, would not have been as interesting and intriguing as it had been without the amount of violence it portrayed. From the beginning scene of merciless boxing, to the ending chapters where a police man shoots a black man dead because he was selling dolls to make a living. In a white man’s mind, beating the inferior shows who gets to control the people and who has to obey. In the case of Ras the Exhorte, he wants to change that frame of mind and rebel against the society run by the white supremacy. The only problem that he faces is that he wants to use violent methods to overthrow them, which only leads to more deaths and violent uprising between the races. However, capturing actions like this from the blacks gave more fuel to the white men’s fire to prove how awful the race is and how they could never handle being in power. Like in Mr. Truebloods case, where he raped his daughter and went to the police saying he was responsible for the action, and the police simply giving his family a reward of food and money. The white men rest their case on the bad actions of the black men, not the non-violent actions they do more often than not.
The narrator of the book seems to find himself caught in between a guy who is just trying to fit into the society and show the whites what a black man is capable of doing, and a guy who wants to start riots and rebel and produce as much violent acts as he can. It’s a constant struggle between his surrounding influences, and what his conscience is telling him. Every once and a while people hop on the band wagon just because everyone else they know is doing it. Seriously, who wants to be that one odd ball out? What the narrator finds is that the people who he surrounds himself with will start to rub off on him and create a whole new man. So violence is what will allow him to join the brotherhood? So be it. However, that wagon can only take that person so far, and when they realize it isn’t what they want to be doing, it’s too late and they have wasted too much time. When the narrator figures out that the so called compassionate Brother Jack was really just using him rather than working with him, he knows that he must leave and finish his journey on becoming visible to the world for being a good and respectable black man.
Violence isn’t always about physical abuse, but also metal abuse as well. In the Chapter where the narrator brings Mr. Norton to the Golden Day bar, Mr. Norton gets a dose of metal abuse. In Mr. Norton’s mind he thinks that he is creating his destiny at his college, by allowing blacks to attend the school. Yet while he is in the bar, the “vet” tells him different. “The vet exploded with laughter. ‘The campus, what a destiny!’”. It was a shock to hear from someone who wasn’t a kiss up to tell him that his ideas were foolish and unrealistic, and it made him angry. In the society that the inferiors have created, they have no need to show respect to someone outside their civilization. Plus, what better time than now to show that the black race can live well on their own and have their own ideas and opinions. Not to mention, putting a little mental instability into the white man’s world can lead the black men into control over them.
It’s very important in this book to see that there are many layers to this book; to peel them back one by one by motifs definitely helps to see what Ralph Ellison was intending to depict. The way that one story intertwines with another story in the narrators life is by a common theme that he seems to revolve his life around. Violence in my mind was a very big part of the 1920’s history; people weren’t seen by sitting back and saying, “pretty please with a cherry on top?” They had to take action to be seen and heard, and unfortunately the only way was through violent protests.
Tom Martin
ReplyDeleteThe hierarchy of society is a major recurring motif in Ralph Ellison’s’ “Invisible Man”. Throughout much of the novel, the narrator has struggled with discovering his true identity, the core theme of the novel, by revealing his sense of self and where he fits in the world. From his early days of humiliation in the South, to his days of escalating racial tensions during his college experiences and in Harlem, to his activity in the shady Brotherhood, the narrator has constantly seem his identity as being an “invisible man”. He believes that society is capable of seeing him for who he is but simply do not and choose to view him as nothing more than what he is expected to be than a black man in times of racial adversity.
While in the South, the narrator was known as a gifted speaker, however, this fact would not improve his protection from racist white men in the racially oppressive South.
His humiliation of being pitted in a fight against other black men and his mysterious scholarship opportunity seemed to say that he was meant to be nothing more than a second class citizen. He was meant to be treated unequally just based on the color of his skin. The South however has always been known for dark activities concerning the treatment of black American citizens throughout the course of the country’s history. However, does that make it right? Of course not. The narrator at first was simply led to believe that this is how it was meant to be, this is how society is supposed to run. But what he didn’t understand initially is that anyone can change the system, anyone can change the course of things. Things are meant to be changed. However, the power of higher people in his society made him fear speaking out against his oppressors. He could only do so much, and because of this, his identity remained invisible, what he was expected to be and nothing more.
During his experiences in college and his early days in Harlem, the narrator quickly learns that the amount of violence due to racial tensions involved within the working class is of immense proportions. Working in the factory and dealing with his oppressors makes the narrator realize how there is so much more to an “invisible identity” than people simply refusing to see him for who he is. It’s about understanding where people come from. Just because the narrator and the other workers were both black does not mean they had similar identities. Their views on society’s interpretation of them were completely different.
Most importantly, in the Brotherhood, the narrator understood exactly how his identity had become shaped by the demands of his society. In the Brotherhood, the narrator was constantly trying to get up and above the social ladder, he wanted power, he wanted a name for himself. However, the Brotherhood itself was shaped much like the outside society it existed in. A society based on a hierarchal structure, where who you are and what you are is what sets you above the others, giving you an advantage. The narrator here may have developed an identity for himself, one that others would use to perceive him, yet his involvement in the Brotherhood only contributed to his overall personal identity, his sense of self, in a small way. His personal identity was more so based on how he himself wanted to be viewed in society and how he saw himself as a human being.
The hierarchy in the narrator’s society is what mostly shaped his sense of identity as seen through these differing moments of his life. Here we can see how the demands and structure of the outside society combined with his own personal sense of self, developed his current personal identity. Identity is a mixture of how you view yourself mixed with how others perceive you. In the end, the narrator had developed his own identity based on these pillars. Yet in reality, the narrator alone is the one completely aware of his true sense of self. Therefore, the structure of power in the society truly helped develop the overall theme of the novel, the search for personal identity, the sense of self.
Mental and physical violence is thoroughly evident throughout the narrator’s life all the way from his childhood to New York. From the beginning of the book violence was a prominent obstacle that the narrator was often forced to encounter. From winning a boxing match for money to arguing with the dean of his college. The narrator finds himself in the midst of violence between blacks, white and himself.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator finds himself held back by the color of his skin in other ways than physical violence. Right from the beginning you are brought into an environment where whites and blacks are clashing physically. In order for the narrator to further himself in his life he must pursue mental and physical pain through the fight. Blindfolded from the crowd he appears to himself invisible and scared. He knows in order to survive the only way is to fight for what he wants.
Dr. Bledsoe’s roll in his expulsion sets the narrator up for who he becomes. The older he became the more prominent he found himself into trouble. From the incident in the Golden day to his encounter with Mr. Emerson’s son, the narrator finds himself having to fight in order to be noticed. Ellison message of invisibility is highly evident in the violence that the narrator encounters. He often is found fighting a winless war. Dr. Bledsoe’s rash decision on the expulsion to Harlem showed perfectly the authors message. No matter how hard you fight in a battle if you are invisible no one can ever see you. In the book there is always a constant battle going on. Jim Trueblood is caught up deep into turmoil. He is constantly in the battle with race and his sins. It can be argued in the story that in order to propel yourself in any manner you have to be noticed by someone greater than you. The narrator feels this connection with Mr. Norton but is kicked out of school too early to discuss with him. His invisibility took him from his school to the slums of Harlem. Every character in the story is just trying to make a name for themselves. Dr. Bledsoe wants to be looked at as an authority figure by kicking out the narrator out of his home. It can be seen throughout the story that the black race is in a constant battle with each other to be noticed. They view the white race as a larger authority figure. In order to move up in their world they feel they have to have the approval of the white man. The engineer in the paint factory finds himself uneducated in a world of constant battle. He knows that he is constantly fighting to keep his job. Ellison is putting you into the life of invisibility to see the fight from another stand point. Most people in the world have an advantage in the fight with their money and college degrees. However, many people in the world aren’t at the same social status as everyone else. The other stresses the point that there is no such thing as a world without violence. Society cannot exist without competition and competition is mental or physical violence.
The invisible man encounters with violence lead to him to his fate. Throughout the story the narrator finds his life changing swiftly with each violent scene. The Golden Day incident impacts the narrator incredibly through its violence. With the vets attack on there attendant the narrator finds himself deeper into a hole. The physical violence between the vets and attendant symbolizes how order is not possible without stability. Throughout the story stability or equilibrium is never reached causing more and more violence. With this it is possible to conduct that without violence disorder is not possible. With disorder in life your fate is taken from your reach, a theme that the narrator encounters more often then none.
Trueblood’s story is extremely powerful. It is awful; it is horrible that such a thing could happen within a family. The family may still live together, but they can never live how they used to after such an experience occurred. When I reflect back on Invisible Man, even now my mind somewhat associates the book to that one story. I know that the story itself does not represent the book on its own, however it was the most potent part of the book, the part that I retain more vividly than any other section.
ReplyDeleteOne detail I notice about this story is how the narrator reacts to it. The narrator, he does not care too much about the story. Perhaps he is not affected by it because he has heard it before. Or maybe he does not react because he is numb to these types of occurrences. (Personally I believe the first potential reason holds true. The part about interacting with Trueblood that shocks the narrator the most is that he receives a hundred-dollar bill from Norton while the narrator later is expelled.
I lose sympathy for the narrator in this section. The narrator unintentionally reveals that his want of money dominates his feeling of compassion. Instead of trying to understand Trueblood or at least care about his story, he is jealous of him receiving money while he—the narrator—receives nothing.
Ralph Ellison expresses here that the narrator will suck up to a white man to get what he wants. When someone else achieves his goal without even trying, he is undeniably jealous. Some people take what they can get, or try to twist the odds to make it easier to achieve what they want. The narrator does not hide his disgust for Trueblood—an old, broke farmer who has committed an atrocious crime—beating him—a brilliant scholarship student—receiving what he wanted.
The narrator believes that he is better than Trueblood. No he does not say that, but his emotions imply that when Trueblood receives cash instead of him. However the narrator expresses feelings of panic and worry about Mr. Norton. “If anything happened to him Dr. Bledsoe would blame me.” (Ellison 69-70) The narrator takes care of Mr. Norton because otherwise he will suffer and inwardly wishes for a scholarship from Mr. Norton since he has the money. The narrator places Mr. Norton above himself. In the narrator’s eyes he sees himself as better than Jim Trueblood on the social ladder but lower than Mr. Norton based on money, power, and importance to the school he attends.
During this pit stop on the tour-drive for Mr. Norton, the narrator becomes increasingly uncomfortable at Trueblood’s farm. He dislikes the environment he has brought Mr. Norton to because he subconsciously realizes he is putting himself in a bad situation. The narrator’s ego may be inflated enough to think he is better than Tureblood; but he is smart enough to realize that in the eyes of the school Mr. Norton is a valuable, important person while the narrator is just another dispensable student.
Invisible Man is a novel written to show that no matter how far along we get towards social equality there will always be times when one race, gender, religion or another group will try to put others down to get to the top. In the case of the Invisible Man he starts out by living in the Deep South where racism still plays a major part in society. To live the best life he can down there it is recommended by Dr. Bledsoe and his own grandfather that he learn to agree to everything the whites say and when necessary one should lie to please them. The Invisible Man finds it absurd that when trying to impress the whites to gain respect for his own race that he should lie. When trying to prove your honorability to lie would be foolish, so when the Invisible Man gets sent to the north he thinks that there are finally new possibilities in life and that maybe he can live it in his own polite way while making a name for himself.
ReplyDeleteJust by moving to the north the Invisible Man has taken a huge step forward to what he thinks is social equality. Since this has come so easily for him he can now start by making a name for himself in society. He no longer has to lie and agree with what everyone else says and because of this he is able to start coming up with his own opinions and ideas. This is how he gets picked up by the Brotherhood, a group of individuals who make speeches for equality and for the rights of all the people in and around Harlem. The Invisible Man cannot believe his luck and once he makes his first speech he knows that it will be no time before he can make something of himself and before everyone will know his name. Finally he will know who he is and he can be proud because he was able to prove that the advice he learned in the south was wrong. It is after his speech though when his luck changes and he realizes that maybe everything that he thought was going on for him was actually a hoax. In reality the Brotherhood never wanted him to speak of his own opinions, but only of the scientific ideas of the Brotherhood. He was only being used to exploit himself so the Brotherhood would look good for having a prominent black speaker. What I get from this is that the only way he would have been able to succeed in the Brotherhood would have been by agreeing with the Brotherhood on what he should speak of in his speeches and by lying to the public by preaching things he doesn’t believe in.
How then would the Invisible Man ever be able to make a name for himself when all he was supposed to do was fit in with the crowd? Agreeing with what everyone else thinks wouldn’t make him stand out to the public but would only leave him as ordinary as everyone else. Especially being a black man, even in the north, would give him an extreme disadvantage at ever getting to be a prominent figure in society. It seems that he should have taken the advice of his elders and maybe his life would have ended up a little sweeter, maybe he would have ended up with a few acquaintances and maybe would have been able to hold down a couple of jobs, but as life would have it he became an invisible man, maybe someone he was meant to be since the very beginning.