Ralf Ellison’s : Invisible Man

Ralf Ellison’s : Invisible Man

Representation of Black people in South America and the Failed American Dream

The conflict between individual and society has remained a fundamental concept in Literature for centuries. The individual is born into a society that had an established and defined social order. African American focuses on the struggle and triumph of blacks, whether it be fiction or nonfiction.

The notion of identify has been a focal point in postcolonial studies, nation’s that have been formally colonizes were required to revisit as well as reconstructed the distorted identify . Most often, African American writers pushed, identify as the central theme for their artistic works and novels. Blacks were the most to safer from this marginalization mainly because of their skin color which is very distinctive and easily spotted in the crowds. As Franz Fanon asserted “ The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behave in accordance with a neurotic orientation”. Black identify, especially at the wake of the 20^th century has been the main, concern. Identity is a dynamic concept. The So-called Afro American identity is embedded primarily in the black experience. In defining blackness , Henry Louis Gates, a theorist of black Literature underpins it’s signifying systems that reside in the black tradition.

Ralph Ellison, the most significant African-American writer to emerge after Richard Wright, published his novel Invisible Man in 1952, the most comprehensive one-volume symbolic treatment of the history of the American Negro in the 20th century.' The work, the only published novel of the author to date, is still considered to be one of the classics of American literature. It is significant that even critics who were unsympathetic to black causes showered encomiums on Ellison's portrayal of a nameless protagonist's search for identity and his attempt to escape from the programming influences of the society in the novel.

Invisible Man is set during the 1920s and 30s, narrated by a nameless African-American protagonist who wishes to be seen and acknowledged in an America governed by white power structures. Opting for these two novels in a discussion of the American Dream allows me to discuss and analyze the Dream across racial and social lines as one novel is set among affluent white Americans and the other narrated by an African-American from the South journeying through the country trying to claim visibility in a society which does not acknowledge him. The narrator in Invisible Man is a black man who lives in South America. As we know, the blacks are not slaves now, but they are still poisoned by the ideology of slavery. In their mind, the white are their lord. They have to serve white men without any hesitation. In the period when he was studying in college, the narrator suffered a lot. He was obedient to the arrangement of the teachers in the school and the rule of whites in whites club. When he began to understand the world and himself step by step, American Racism and apartheid policies of the United States make the boy’s growth alienation. Invisible  Man is a novel woven on the fabric of American culture and it revolves around the relationships between black and white.

Threaded on the first person narrative, it is a story of an unnamed African American Southern protagonist who encounters various attacks, usually for bad reasons. After being humiliated in Battle Royal, he is awarded a scholarship to the university. Invisible Man begins with what appears to be a material and social definition of identity: “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone,” invisible only “because people refuse to see me” (3), but if we go deep into its understanding, the word substance alludes to more than a material. The narrator wants to say that he deserves value and importance and need to be given an identity and recognition. Though Invisible Man is set against the background of a nameless black protagonist’s life, Ellison undertakes the effort to make it a common ground for man. The way things are exposed in invisible Man may be called realistic for its attempts to offer expressions adequate to the experience of people. Ellison uses the technique of image presentation and the idea of the mask. The nightmare and hallucinations of the narrator in the Prologue also has surrealistic touch. The people bump into the narrator and evoke him to his existence and to his reality that he is too black to be seen. Similarly the night of the Harlem riots is full of the mysteries of the order, revealed and unrevealed, as they fall to the lot of the narrator. The evening of the Harlem riots is handled by Ellison with authority and macabre humor.

In my estimation . Ellison describes the undermining forces with such detachment that it is justified that in the processes of mastering his rage, Ellison has also mastered his art. The narrator who goes there full of hope is again expelled from the college in disgrace and is forced to move to New York in search of a job. The narrator is handed over sealed letters of reference from Doctor Bledsoe, President of his former university. The letters are later revealed to contain character defamations. The narrator nonetheless obtains employment with Liberty Paints, a company that creates white paint to be used in the bleaching of national monuments. As the narrator mixes into the paint a little other dope that looks and smells the same, the paint turns gray. As a result he is sent to another department under Luscious Brockway who thinks himself as an indispensable man in the Liberty Paints. The narrator under Brockway is treated shoddily and is held responsible for mistakes he has not committed. Eventually an accident is caused and the narrator is hospitalized where he receives a form of electric shock therapy intended to reproduce the effects of a lobotomy. Although desensitized, he vividly recalls the folklore of his Southern boyhood. He emerges with a new sense of racial pride, while the superficiality of his previous experience is erased. For the first time he is unashamed of his background. He asserts his disdain for servile blacks by dumping a spittoon on a man whom he mistakes for Doctor Bledsoe. While passing through the streets, the narrator happens to see that an elderly couple has been evicted from their home. He, on impulse, delivers an impromptu speech which attracts the attention of the Brotherhood, an organization that works for the welfare of the African American people. The narrator after briefly embracing the Brotherhood’s false ideals discovers that the Brotherhood merely feigns interest in civil rights while actually working to repress African Americans and deny their individuality. The chaos that ensues in the African American community following the frenzied exhortations of a fanatic, develops into a hallucinatory treatment of the Harlem race riots of the 1940s and culminates in the narrator’s final rejection of false identities.

As I observed, throughout the novel, there is a substantial use of symbolism. The nude dancer’s motions which arouse both desire and guilt; Mr. Norton, the white philanthropist and trustee’s views about his daughter; the iron bank that the narrator carries: young Emerson’s museum like office with the description of an iron pot, an ancient bell, a set of ankle-irons and links of chain and others: Todd Clifton’s Sambo Doll and all such vivid descriptions reflect the true picture of American history and reality. Ellison’s technique echoes the agony of the human experience. Invisible Man has a kaleidoscopic vision of myriad number of themes ranging from search for identity, alienation, betrayal, struggle, racial issues, protest, violence, reality and others. All varied themes encompassed in a single novel need great artistic handling and Ellison has successfully shown it in his monumental piece.

The treatment by the whites is paradoxical. They are ordered to watch the dancer and when they do so they are shouted at. If they do not stare at the blonde, again they are shouted at. Whatever they do, they are termed wrong. The whites behave like animals at their peak. The narrator describes the scene of this horrid experience, and it was as if these whites were not human beings, but beasts who leered at the blonde wildly: I noticed a certain merchant who followed her hungrily; his lips loose and drooling. He was a large man who wore diamonds studs in a shirtfront which swelled with the ample paunch underneath, and each time the blonde swayed her undulating hips he ran his hand through the thin hair of his bald head and, with his arms upheld, his posture clumsy like that of an intoxicated panda, wound his belly in a slow and obscene grind (20).Almost all the whites acted beastly and „they ran laughing and howling after her‟ like the hungry wolves wanting the meat. The narrator also observes the blonde’s response to their behavior through her expressions, “above her red, fixed-smiling lips, I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys… her legs flung wildly as she spun” (20). The girl is objectified as sex pleasure and not as a human being. Her fully bruised red lips symbolize her anger and disgust towards the men; while the fixed smile indicates her static nature bearing a false happiness.

In Invisible Man, Ellison employs a "jazz" style in which an improvisation of rhetorical forms is played against a central theme. Letters, speeches, sermons, songs, nursery rhymes, and dreams are used throughout the novel, and the novel's style adjusts itself to match the changing consciousness and circumstances of the protagonist. In the early chapters, Ellison employs a direct, didactic style similar to that of the social realist protest novels of the 1930's and 1940's. In the middle portions of the novel, after the narrator moves to New York City, Ellison's prose becomes more expressionistic, reflecting the narrator's introspection. In the last section of the novel, as the narrator moves toward the apocalyptic race riot in Harlem with which the novel concludes, the prose becomes surreal, emphasizing the darkly comic absurdities of the African Americans existence. All sections of the book are enriched by Ellison's versatile use of symbols that focus attention on his major themes while underscoring the ambiguous nature of experience.

The production of identity in the context of Invisible Man is directly linked to the black Invisible Man takes a detour in identifying the location of culture in it’s relation to what underlines as the stories of Subjectivity melting the narrative history. In confronting the history of Subjectivity and violence, the protagonist of Invisible Man explores his identity in the oral tradition of the Afro-American community and in black music. This process culminates in moving backdoor and re identifying identity.

The work of Ralph Ellison represents a middle ground between the ontological essentialism of Afrocentric and the anti essentialism of diaspora as hybridity. Many African American writers have been to the notion of hybridity . Another ironic treatment is given to Dr. Bledsoe, the ruthless President of the narrator’s college. The narrator’s experience begins after he gets a scholarship to the college. He wishes to become a good leader. He tries to identify with and mould himself on the role of Dr. Bledsoe. The narrator wonders as to what makes Bledsoe such a powerful and prestigious person in both the societies, white and African American: To us he was more than just a president of a college. He was a leader, a “statesman” who carried out our problems to those above us, even unto the   White House; and in days past he had conducted the President himself about the campus. He was our leader and our magic, who kept the endowment high, the funds for scholarships plentiful and publicity moving through the channels of the press. He was our coal-black daddy of whom we were afraid.)”.The novel is a battle between the external and internal conflict. As external society imposes racial prejudices and stereotypes on the narrator. He tries to follow society's standard and expectation of his role as a black man. On the internal level, the narrator seems to recognize it with his individual identity, which he also struggles to define.

It can be assumed that, Ellison himself, like the protagonist of his novel, remains whole and optimistic v, a man calm in the face of human dilemma. A central metaphor in the novel concerns the blindness of the Invisible man to his many experiences for he must come to terms and understand the culmination and summary of the experiences narrated in the novel. Theban goes through the process of initiation only to prepare himself for reinventing his identity as a black man having learnt his lessons about black cultural life. The identity , the Invisible man discovers is camouflage in invisible that tells as about his World, his complex feelings. The novel narrates life experience, while the prologue and epilogue give us his conclusions and philosophy.

Invisible man’s desire for leadership and money that prompt him to join the Brotherhood and accept the identity offered by them. He leaves it when the invisibility of the blacks to the members of the Brotherhood, and their resultant lack of interest in the welfare of the blacks become evident to him. Invisible man's awareness of the reality behind the African nationalism of Rac and his dislike of its violence, compel him to reject it wholly. He learns how blacks like he and Rac are manipulate  by the powers. In order to escape from Rac's men , once Invisible Man wears a mask which exposes before him the possibilities of Rinchartism. He learns that Rinchartism multiple identities can help him to manipulate the surface, by escaping to the different identities on different occasion. In this way, Ellison’s hero finds all the available ideologies in sufficient to solve the identity problem of the bluesman. In spite of his dim awareness of the practical power and wisdom of black folk tradition , symbolic and by his grandfather , True blood , vet and Mary, he becomes fit enough to embrace it only towards the end of his initial experience in life. As a literary artist, he celebrates the value of his black heritage at the end by writing about it. So Invisible man has been called an extended blues performance. Ellison writes “The narrator of Invisible Man sings his own Blue in telling his tale and but singing the Blue he discovers the meaning of his reality. It is a take that tells of the growth of an Invisible consciousness and the growth of perception”. Through the blues performance of writing about his life, he tries to involve a pattern out of his chaotic experiences. The putting of his story of Invisibility down in black and white , is in other words , his attempt to find why he is 'black and blue '. In the whole , he reflects on his past, becomes conscious of his Invisibility to others. As to himself , and gains the realization ' I am what I am'.

As an Invisible black man the values that might appear that might appear obvious to these, to the protagonist seems to be focusing. His desire to be fit and strong is primarily an individualistic impulse. He recounts nearly killing a man, who saw him only as the phantom nigger, a vision of a racist mind-set. But learning that he is Invisible gives him a  kind of Power over these who do no see him. This understanding gives him an Identity, others probably do not have with this identity, he can defeat his soul sickness and assert that life is to be lived. Thus the narrator not only begins to write it down. As a writer and a sensitive critic, he is aware that there is an area where 'a man’s feeling are more rational than his mind”.

Ellison gave foreshadowing hints to give readers a sense of what would happen to his characters. The narratives first job in New York was to create liberty paintd. But in order to make the pure white country in this time period, but it needed the black toner to make it functional. The narrator’s “manhole” his present time home, I’d underground and fixed with several light bulbs. He spends a majority of his time listening to Louis Armstrong, deciphering the meaning of his songs. This is where he lives after Ras riot breaks out , in the beginning and ending of the novel. His “manhole” is not actually a hole bit abandoned notes basement . What is more interesting for the Invisible man is that , it trying to bridge the cultural gap, he also comes face to face with the problem of the generation gap with his father and grandfather .

His dilemma arises from misunderstanding a seasoned advice offered by his grandfather

“ Son often  I am gone!  I want you to keep up the good fight…. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome with yesses , undermine with grins, agree to death and destruction”.

This the part of the grandfather's deathbed speech. These words relate to the novel because the protagonist dealt with many people that didn’t particularly like him or think highly of him. Unlike the protagonist’s father, whose sight is linear and fixed, the grandfather possesses a mobile, multidimensional insight. He does not see the choice before him in terms of absolute life or death, suffering  of bliss. For he has some how managed to reconcile being with 'not being'. Indeed of a clear cut situation in which life is either war or peace , he has been able to live in peace even while fighting with his own battle. Invisible Man foregrounds the theorizing of diaspora as a problem of politics and identity. In order to make this point clear, it is useful to distinguish two interpretations of diaspora , as a conceptual tool or referential term denoting a specific group of people.

Analysis of who belongs to the African American diaspora cannot ignore race, but must investigate processes of identity formation , analyzing forms of realized classification and subordinations as through such system to formulate and revaluate their own sense of the self. In Identity of the Invisible Man is formed and transformed in relation to other identity constructions.

This Bildungsroman style novel , the tone changed from dark pessimistic notion to the optimistic notion. The narrator is motivated to meet expectations of a certain social group. This is a struggle because it opposed social norms surrounding his race. After being expelled from the college.   Southern whites: In this novel, Southern Whites were assume to be racist , discriminant and completely against of racial equality. On the other hand in this novel, northern whites were assumed to be advocated of racial equality . Willing to help blacks form the south and not racist for discrimination. The treatment of women are given in a secondary position. ………

“They have tried to dispossessed us of our manhood and womanhood and of our childhood.

You heard the sister's statistics on our infant mortality rate. Don’t you know you are pouch to be uncommonly born ? Why ? they ever tried to dispossess us of our dislike if being dispossessed.”

As it seems to me that Power is held by the white during this novel. The narrator realizes this through out the novel and understands that he does not have any power because of his race.” I am Invisible understand simply. The white folk everywhere what to think”.   Since the Invisible Man exist in an inauthentic state, he is unable to recognize and understand bring living in an authentic state. While driving for Mr. Norton , he accidentally comes to the area of the slave quarter where they meet him Trueblood , a share cropper. Who has committed incest with is daughter in a state. Trueblood remains true to himself while other black look at himself while other black look at him with contempt. He reveals both the courage to be and the desire for being with others. When his wife keeps him our of house and the Preacher considers him most wicked. He tales Mr. Norton “ I ant nobody but myself …”.

When the narrator takes Mr Norton to the Golden Day to get him some  whisky as humbucker sick after listening to Trueblood's  story of incest because he is guilty of his own feeling towards his daughter.

From the historical point of view, this racial injustice was more common and had a brutal shape in the Southern parts of America, where even after emancipation , Negroes were stil lynched. Langton Hughes, the most acclaimed poet of  America has written a poem called 'The South in which he gives the account of the tribulation of Black people in South America

“ The Sunny faced South,

Beast strong

Idiot, brained

The child minded South.

“The South”

                                            (Langston Hughes)

From my perspective, Ellison‟s nameless narrator is prodded by the junk man to acknowledge his roots as a Southern Negro and though he has been trained to look down his nose at the country people and their culture, he has nevertheless intimations that there is something rich and valuable in their expression. The combination of blues and folk speech appears in several other sequences where the same point is made. The Jim True blood episode, which is one of the best drawn scenes, moves along similar line. Trueblood literally meaning true to one’s blood is a stereotype of African American “blood” as beastly. He has nothing but the blues, who being a good tenor singer was brought up along with members of a county to sing

what the officials called „their primitive spirituals‟. But Trueblood’s crime of incest, linked through his dream with transgressions of racial as well as family taboo, threatens to undermine his family, and to spread chaos at the root of the community.

Ellison's  handling of the situation reveals how well he can utilize the materials of folk tradition to expose the full range of their ideological and technical meaning. To begin with, it gives him a chance to undercut the conventional image of the Negro folk character whose major reference for most readers is the kindly Uncle Remus. Ellison inherits this artistic implication of folklore from writers such as Eliot and Joyce: I use folklore in my work not because I am a Negro, but because writers like Eliot and Joyce made me conscious of the literary value of my folk inheritance. My cultural background, like that of most Americans is dual. (my middle name, sadly enough, is Waldo). The narrator refers to inner eyes to comment on their thoughts on race. Since the narrator is a black-skinned man, he feels he is overlooked. People just see through him and neglect him as he is an African American. He complains that the Whites are also blind to spiritual truths. The narrator expresses his desire of listening to Armstrong’s music like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing

“What Did I Do to be so Black and Blue”- all at the same time…. Perhaps I like Louis because he’s made poetry out of being invisible. I think it must be because he’s unaware that he is invisible. And my own grasp of invisibility aids me understand his music. (8) The narrator, after listening to the song, feels that the words fit his life where he had encountered various problems when he was not given the self respect and value he deserved. He feels as if he did nothing exist at a Throughout the novel the stress is on words, incidents and characters that suggest the clarity, distortion, obstruction or absence of the double vision of African American .

Conclusion -

In this blog, I have discussed the Ellison’s representation of Black people in South America ,with the intention of highlighting the failings of the Dream and the damaging ideology associated with it. I have analyzed the Ralph Ellison’s protagonist who has shown that he desires to be acknowledged in a society defined by racist structures which restrict him. n the essay, I have argued that how  Invisible Man’s protagonist being born in South America wakes up from his disillusion in time to reflect on the failing American Dream. I have also mainly focused on Southern part of America where the black people had to suffer more as compared to white people I have argued that the narrative style of the novel influences the perception which the protagonist has of the Dream and of his own identity: the Invisible Man narrates the American Dream from his own perspective, the experiences of the protagonists portray the often-valorized American Dream and its influence on American society in a very negative light. Thus W.H. Hudson the greatest critic has emphasized this novel in his book History of English Literature.