Week 9 - Ralph Ellison\'s Invisible Man PDF

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Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man...

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Week 9 – Invisible Man 

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“Already he’s learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He’s invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man!” – chapter 3 Emerson, Norton, or Jack from the Brotherhood: all trying to tell him who he is Jack & Brotherhood claim to be a gang of liberators but they’re really a group of oppressors “They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used.” Chapter 23 His experiences help him discover who he actually is

 We decided to focus on the women in the novel, specifically the stereotypes of women that are addressed.  We started by highlighting the problems of “double invisibility” felt by some of the women in the novel in being both black and female – this touches upon DuBois’s idea of a “double consciousness” as well, where you’re always looking at one's self through the eyes of others.  Bell Hooks “no other group in America has so had their identity socialised out of existence as have black women”  Women represented as one of two extremes, for example, the women are either portrayed as a –[ Madonna or whore], mother or seductress – this shows up at several points within the novel such as the offering of milk or wine, this imagery associated with the female characters involved specifically [LET ANEEL TALK]  Mary – “heavy composed figure” “big dark woman” – irony as this is contrasted with her own invisibility.  maternal, takes him in – she serves as a nurturing yet powerless presence.  Mary urges the narrator to embrace his past, to learn from it and draw upon it as it is a necessity in order to function in such a society – she almost tries to teach him that he can turn his invisibility into power  Plays as a community networker – she’s constructed on the assumption that women who are not sexually promiscuous naturally function as the emotional and spiritual cogs of a society  Mary’s language changes from an initial concern to a form of controlling and demanding nature – “From mother to smother”.  The narrator then feels that he has to get away from this and Mary’s presence is erased from the novel – this is arguably when her character is most effective as she reappears only in the consciousness of the narrator and he states that “Mary reminded me constantly that something was expected of me” page 252  “I realised that I couldn’t return to Mary’s, or to any part of my old life… I had been as invisible to Mary as I had been to the Brotherhood” (last page)  Mary holds her own as an important character within the text, she gains invisibility as well as the freedom that goes along with it because society does not value her

 Sibyl – wants to have sex with him, more specifically, wants to be raped by him. Reinforces male dominance within society and how the fantasy of it all becomes a form of reality.  Sibyl acting like this – absence of husband leads to her own invisibility, ideal victim  Racism always to do with patriarchy

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Hypervisibility key Battle Royale – blindfold fallen – links to DuBois’ idea of a veil over Black people’s eyes – blindfold dropped = veil dropped? School – need them to feel privileged for what they have and to idolise their founders for giving them this opportunity. Overwhelming lesson learnt at school – has to suck up to white people, act in a way that they would approve, have to tell them what they want to hear and make it feel like it’s what they want in order to make them feel in control Speech (page 111) school – words without sense, no meaning to convey, links back to the morals of the school, link back to grandad’s say yes Speech about social responsibility – accidentally says social equality as mouth is full of blood and the room is not happy. Cannot make the speech about what he wants to make it about Puckatee Washington – movement for black education, teaching black people manual labour and equality, against black people campaigning for political rights. Becomes premiere leader DuBois argues with Puckatee Washington – middle class reformist figure, becomes a Marxist and joins communist party Page 193 – paint used on campus as well. “It’s the purest white that can be found” Black paint is still there, makes most of the substance yet only a bit of white overpowers – also smell the same When narrator creates the paint and it turns out black, he is holding onto his identity whereas when the other man makes it, he is whitewashing what is natural Foundation of America built on black slavery – on the surface appears white. Being taken to Washington, a state that is corrupt Purity being built on black labour – significance of the factory Grey paint – sees it’s fine – as long as it isn’t black it seems fine – points back to optic (what/how things are seen) Page 44-45 idealised segregation on what is black or white, but this is questioned when the narrator queries if he’s black enough or not. Blacks and Whites always present in each other’s lives, no telling what is what because they come from the same family lines Ellison getting to grips with what it is like living in someone else’s reality Shadow and Act – what people think when they think of blackness, white Americans cannot think of sex, death etc. without projecting an image of a black man into their mind Material objects with racial meaning (link to memory) – leg chain from brother tarp, the briefcase full of memories – won from battle royale, objects overdetermined, give him more meaning than they should. Resists yams because they stereotype him. These objects remind him of his past – like what Mary tells him to do

Key episodes of invisibility:  Battle Royale – black boys fight each other, have to watch dancing white woman (feeling of shame, erection, want to fight the woman), forced to fight yet blindfolded – no vision and almost invisible to each other, not allowed a sense of community and identity with each other, no one listening to speech  Trueblood- ashamed, tried to get Mr Norton to leave twice, black man raped someone – tries to stray from this typical view  Chapter 11 - hospital, dual invisibility, asking him stereotypical questions of black history  Riot – in brotherhood, all of his work is undone  Disguises, mistaken identity...