We all remember the scene at the end of the Battle Royal where the narrator is giving is speech, and after having to repeat the same phrase over and over again he finally slips up and says social equality instead of social responsibility. The reaction is a generally angry one, but one man speaks directly to him, "We mean to do right by you, but you've got to know your place at all times" (Ellison 31). Throughout this chapter, all of these men at the Battle Royal have appeared as stereotypical racists of the Jim Crowe south, so I put that little dialogue way back in my mind. Surely, I thought, the narrator's reaction to the whole night is much more important than one man's reaction. And so I believed this until I read Chapter 22.
In Chapter 22, the narrator arrives back at his Harlem district office, to find the committee member waiting for him. Early on in the interrogation of the narrator he describes his use of personal responsibility. Brother Jack quickly retorts "His personal responsibility...Did I hear him correctly?...This is astounding, where did you get it?" (Ellison 463). Brother Jack is not happy at the initiative of one of district chiefs, instead he completely turns on the narrator. He begins mockingly calling him the "great tactician" and from that point forward, with the help of the rest of the committee he attempts to put the narrator in his place. He orders him to go be indoctrinated by Hambro again, who makes it clear that they have decided to abandon Harlem, or as he puts it "your members will have to be sacrificed" (Ellison 501). This kind of move could only come from someone as powerful as Jack, so it is just one more way he tries to put the narrator back in his place.
Social equality and personal responsibility may appear to be totally opposing ideas, but the Brotherhood fears individuality, much like the racist Southerners fear organized masses. To the Brotherhood, one person openly saying he is following his own ideas and not propagating the ideas of the committee, is the ultimate fear, especially by a popular Black figure. Taken in this context, Jack's reaction is much the same as the Southern racist. The one place that the narrator thought he could get to the top of, the Brotherhood, is just a Northern manifestation of the culture he fled. Now not only do we see firm evidence of something we have suspected all along, but the narrator finally realizes it too. For the first time in his life he understands his current situation, not his past, so he can fight back at the group that has lied to him all along.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Keep America Duped with Liberty Paints
When the Narrator goes to the paint factory, I didn't expect much to happen. But right when he gets there, with the slogans and the manner in which Mr. MacDuffy treats him, we know he's in for something. Then the narrator gets to Kimbro. Kimbro is a busy man, so busy that he, "won't have time to stop and explain everything." (Ellison 199). He doesn't explain to the Narrator what he is doing, just that he has to do it, and that he has to do it quickly. The task the Narrator is assigned is to put ten drops of dope into white paint and stir it until it disappears. Unfortunately for the Narrator, he refills the dropper with the wrong dope, and messes up the product, though Kimbro doesn't catch it the second time.
The metaphors in this scene are quite striking. Liberty Paint's signature color, Optic White, is supposed to be the whitest white in the world. Now, something is wrong with it, so to fix it, they must put in a black substance to return it to its natural shine. But not the wrong black stuff, like what the Narrator accidently does, because then the black stuff will partially overpower the optic white, and you'll be left with an ugly grey. That black stuff the Narrator took was in fact concentrated remover. I took this as saying, without people like the Narrator (at this point in his life), the whites couldn't be so much in control, but if people like the Vet were to be publicized it would totally mess up society. He would strip away all the infrastructure built up to keep the status qua the same, the whites on top, with the whites choosing which black people can escape share cropping. The only problem is that to most whites, those two types of people appear the same, so much like with the dope, the whites are fearful of whomever they choose to support, because they don't know which one will help cement their place, and which group will remove their hold on power.
The whites don't want that grey tinge, but they also can't see it when it's there. When Kimbro comes back to check on the Narrator, he only discovers the mistake by, "Smearing his finger over one of the samples. 'This stuff's still wet!'" (Ellison 203). Yet when he returns a second time, "Holding it close to his face, he ran his fingers over the surface and squinted at the texture. 'That's more like it,' he said. 'That's the way it oughta be.'" (Ellison 205). The Narrator still notices the grey tinge that transcends the optic white, though Kimbro doesn't see it, or maybe doesn't want to see it. If that grey is there, he loses money and maybe even his job. On a broader scale, though people like Dr. Bledsoe exist, that are visible in the world of whites, maybe there are more that aren't spoken of, because the whites are afraid to admit that more black people are near their level, and in turn they aren't the only ones in control. Or maybe, this is just another reference to invisibility, the black people in power are invisible to whites, there is a part of their mind that just can't or won't allow them to see that grey tinge in society, that they fear so much.
The metaphors in this scene are quite striking. Liberty Paint's signature color, Optic White, is supposed to be the whitest white in the world. Now, something is wrong with it, so to fix it, they must put in a black substance to return it to its natural shine. But not the wrong black stuff, like what the Narrator accidently does, because then the black stuff will partially overpower the optic white, and you'll be left with an ugly grey. That black stuff the Narrator took was in fact concentrated remover. I took this as saying, without people like the Narrator (at this point in his life), the whites couldn't be so much in control, but if people like the Vet were to be publicized it would totally mess up society. He would strip away all the infrastructure built up to keep the status qua the same, the whites on top, with the whites choosing which black people can escape share cropping. The only problem is that to most whites, those two types of people appear the same, so much like with the dope, the whites are fearful of whomever they choose to support, because they don't know which one will help cement their place, and which group will remove their hold on power.
The whites don't want that grey tinge, but they also can't see it when it's there. When Kimbro comes back to check on the Narrator, he only discovers the mistake by, "Smearing his finger over one of the samples. 'This stuff's still wet!'" (Ellison 203). Yet when he returns a second time, "Holding it close to his face, he ran his fingers over the surface and squinted at the texture. 'That's more like it,' he said. 'That's the way it oughta be.'" (Ellison 205). The Narrator still notices the grey tinge that transcends the optic white, though Kimbro doesn't see it, or maybe doesn't want to see it. If that grey is there, he loses money and maybe even his job. On a broader scale, though people like Dr. Bledsoe exist, that are visible in the world of whites, maybe there are more that aren't spoken of, because the whites are afraid to admit that more black people are near their level, and in turn they aren't the only ones in control. Or maybe, this is just another reference to invisibility, the black people in power are invisible to whites, there is a part of their mind that just can't or won't allow them to see that grey tinge in society, that they fear so much.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Is Invisible Man like Shakespeare?
Looking back on the opening few chapters of Invisible Man I now see a similarity to Shakespeare's works. Since Elizabethan times, most works of fiction don't include a prologue that explains the plot of the work. In the prologue of Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison doesn't exactly explain what happens to the narrator, in fact he never even tells us the narrator's name. But, the images and descriptions found in the prologue stuck in my mind as I was reading the first few chapters, and I imagine will continue to until I finish the book. In this essence I find it similar to Shakespeare. His prologues also stick in a reader's mind (or listener), and serve as a kind of foreshadowing for the rest of the work. Though Shakespeare didn't write the protagonist of his play as the speaker of the prologue, while Ellison did, they both serve to create a frame narrative, a story within a story. In a Shakespearean play, the prologue usually serves as a warning to the audience of what happens to the characters, with the chorus knowing are characters. Likewise, the speaker of the prologue knows that the subsequent people are characters, understandably so because he is the author of the inner story. I'm not sure yet if the narrator is cautioning the reader about the experience of the character in his book, but I bet by the end of the book it will be clear whether he was cautioning us or not; who knows, maybe the similarities to Shakespeare will grow.
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