In the Invisible Man, racism and inequality continues to be a large part of this novel and its themes that tie this work of art together. When the unnamed narrator is given a job in the paint factory through his university he realizes it is in a factory to create “optic white paint”. The paint in this novel is known to be the whitest of the white, and able to cover any surface. “Our white is so white you can paint a chunks of coal and you’d have to crack it open with a sledge hammer to prove it wasn’t white clear through.”. This becomes a metaphor for the racial inequality that Blacks face in America during this time. In the factory you have several Black hardworking people working hard to cover these lumps of coal with this paint that buries the darkness that lies underneath so that it may be set forth to the world looking “pure” as ever. This symbolizes how Black people are constantly forced to do all types of manual labor, just for White people to come around and gather all the credit for it. The White House itself shines bright in all of its beauty, yet the public continues to forget that the house that stands for freedom was built by slaves. The forced work of Black people are constantly overlooked by the clean and pure image that White people put out stealing their credit. It projects the dominance and privilege that white people hold over Black people. The power of privilege continues when we are able to realize that though Booker may carry a position of some power in this factory, he is constantly overcome by fear over losing his job.  He carries this fear and turns it into disdain over labor activists. He believes that they should be grateful that the white men in power have allowed them to work in his factory, and that they should not yearn for equality but rather economic success instead. He hides this fear by continuing to brag about his indispensability in the factory to the narrator, which makes his insecurities about his place at the factory and in life in general more evident. These type of toxic mindsets simply fuel the agenda that the privileged White people carry over Blacks. They dangle their jobs over their heads so that they may work in fear of ever losing their jobs, this too scared to ever revolt or work in fair working conditions. The inequalities that are depicted in this chapter create a larger picture over what continues in the politics in real world society with the unequal disparities that occur to the races.

A common theme throughout Invisible Man has obviously been race and racism. However, the book deal with other themes too such as the theme of ambition and disillusionment as well as power and self-interest. This theme is present from chapter one with the battle royal and continues throughout the book. However, I am going to talk about its place in Chapter 21.
In Chapter 21 Clifton is dead. The narrator will never be able to ask him why he was selling his Sambo dolls and therefore, he is deprived of resolution, unable to get closure. Like many things Clifton is now lost to history. When the narrator examines the Sambo doll, he discovers a string, it is hard to see but it is there. Clifton, even after leaving the brotherhood, was always in control of himself and his actions, and there was more to these actions than just acts of racism. The narrator is the one, by choice, to organize Clifton’s funeral. He wants to use the funeral to help Clifton die with e positive legacy and use death of Clifton to energize the community, get them involved in the serious political issue behind Clifton’s death. One thing that did surprise me in the story is the complete non-action of the youth. I feel like youth, like the young men and woman in Clifton’s Youth Brigade, always have a big part in shaping history. We can see that in current history, with protests and marches being orchestrated by elementary and high school kids as well as college age kids. However, sometimes, it can feel like kids’ contributions can be overlooked or belittled in the media. But it just struck me as odd that the Youth Brigade did use their grief to fuel their outrage and use that outrage to plan marches, speeches, peaceful protests, instead they were just stunned by the news. The only person that was politically minded was the Invisible Man. There could be something more to that part that I’m not seeing but it annoyed me. From there the Invisible Man does something that defies what Brother Jack told him, never act as an individual without the okay from the Brotherhood, the narrator throws himself into his work and planning Clifton’s funeral alone, taking power away from Brother Jack simply by defying him. Later, the narrator, who had speech, tried to tell everyone to leave that he had nothing to say but, in the end, becomes powerless and finds himself having to the speech anyway, knowing all the while that Brother Jack would not approve due to the political content. However, he can see when he finishes his speech that his political aim had failed, he was not able to organize the crowd to action, but he was able to rile up and anger the public. As he walks through Harlem feeling the tension, he still wants to put all the energy from the community into a strong political movement. A noble cause if there ever was one, but one wrong move and violence could erupt.

Throughout the novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison creates the illusion that there is indeed some sort of answer, solution, or correct approach to racism in America. The narrator provides the reader with many approaches to race demonstrated by different characters throughout the novel such as those of his grandfather, Bledsoe, Mr. Norton, Brother Jack, Ras– yet as the novel progresses the invisible man is able to uncover flaws within each approach. Right as the narrator seems to be finding his place in the world, it is taken away from him and he is lead astray once again. It seems as though the reader is being prepared to ultimately judge the final approach the narrator himself has found to be truly the most efficient, only to realize that as Ellison puts it, “the end was in the beginning.”

The narrator himself decides that what is best for him after being led in various directions was to temporarily hibernate. Although he acknowledges that living in hibernation is not an efficient approach to life and there is a time when he will emerge, he has proven his ability to finally lead his own path. While it may have seemed that Ellison was attempting to lead his reader down a particular path, it becomes evident that he hopes for the reader to find the courage within themself to create their own, as the invisible man learns to do.

While Ellison has the reader believing that he will lead the reader down the correct path, he actually shows the reader through the telling of the invisible man’s own experiences why one should not expect another to guide them. Rather than following a path that may be deemed socially admirable or appear to be favorable, Ellison hopes to encourage the reader to rid themselves of societal expectations and limitations in order to discover themselves as individuals. He wishes to demonstrate that only then will one be able to lead their own path.

Although it becomes apparent that Ellison advocates for diversity and individuality which develop apart from society, he does not deny how challenging it is to neglect societal expectations. The majority of the novel showcases the narrator’s struggles and actually emphasize how challenging it can be, but the reader is always aware that the narrator will end up in a relatively good state because of its retrospective narrative. By utilizing this technique, Ellison emphasizes the importance of the process that is essential to discovering oneself and assures the reader that it is attainable regardless of its many diversions.  

Sandra Batres

Blog #4

Running Blindfolded

   The biggest critique in Ellison’s Invisible Man is perhaps how various institutions within society can blind and strip an individual from his identity and put him at odds with his best interest. This is especially the case for black men and women in American society. Minority groups are often used as political pawns, mere numbers filling in the “moral” and legal diverse representation of a college, political party or work environment. Because of this, Ellison addresses a deeply integrated systematic blindness throughout his novel. This blindness from the side of those oppressed comes in the form of hope and for those oppressing reveals itself to be racism. From the oppressors’ side this blindness is not the act of being unaware of skin color but rather being so aware of it that stereotypes and biases prevail, keeping those most likely to suffer from such stereotypes in a box—unable to be other than the color of their skin.  Ellison’s novel portrays the disillusionment of a young black man as he encounters institutions and organizations promising a better future. The narrator comes to realize his blindness that seems to keep him in competition with his people, running in place and reaffirming his invisibility.

This blindness in the novel takes its shape by the act of keeping the narrator going wherever those doing the blindfolding want him to go. Blindness manifests itself in the form of hope for the narrator—it becomes a wheel. On this invisible wheel, the narrator runs in place— he hopes his speech will make a difference, he hopes to please Mr. Norton, he hopes to make Bledsoe happy, he hopes to go back to college; he hopes to make Harlem a better place through the Brotherhood. This blind hope is attached to a dream, a dream of advancement for himself and his people, however, this advancement always seems to be tethered to a direct competition with members of his race. Ellison uses the metaphor of the Battle Royal scene over and over again in different forms throughout the novel to highlight this competition. Bledsoe protecting his power even if it means the hanging of his race, Lucius Brockway protecting his job and Brother Wrestrum becoming angered by the narrator’s interview and growing importance within the Brotherhood, are examples of this competition. There is also Ras the Exhorter’s extreme hatred for white people, putting him at odds with the narrator, the Harlem riot that has people burn their own homes and destroy their own communities in protest and the narrator himself who seems at times competing with others, believing himself superior to other black men because of his education. However, all these men are cogs in the machine, they blindly protect the status quo while working against each other and thus not achieving greater social change. It can be argued that the need for economic security has made them individualists, looking out for themselves, however social change is found in unity and their individualist mentalities separate them further while making them active agents of their people’s dispossession.

It is no wonder that the Brotherhood was initially an attractive prospect to the narrator. It was not only a dream of equality but also one of unity. There is no doubt that Ellison takes a shot at capitalism and its dog eat dog characteristics in his novel. The hope of progress keeps the narrator on a treadmill of sorts, running in place—going absolutely nowhere. This invisible treadmill that he is chained to has a greater meaning historically. Capitalism has often been associated with a treadmill, and the individual, especially one who has no wealthy ancestors and whose people have been historically oppressed, can’t help but feel like a cog in the vast machinery. Perhaps Ellison’s portrayal of the narrator being swayed to believe in the Brotherhood’s efforts was meant to underline capitalism’s direct conflict with democracy, this being that under a Capitalist economic system much of the wealth disproportionately goes to a small number of individuals—thus giving them significant political, environmental and economic power.  Communism is an attractive solution to these contradicting socioeconomic and political systems. In theory, communism aims to have public ownership of the means of production and the narrator wants his people to have the capitalist boot, which replaced the master’s boot, removed from their struggling backs. Bledsoe is the representation of a traitor to his people but also an individualistic capitalist. The men that have wealth in the novel have power. Those at the bottom, fight to keep their livelihoods, fight each other, betray each other (Brother Wrestrum) and burn down their own possessions. So while democracy aims to give a voice to everyone, capitalism works so that only those with the most money have vocal and political power. In this sense, capitalism can work to make individuals at the bottom voiceless, invisible and people killing each other in the belief of survival.

The narrator saw a sense of true equality in the Brotherhood, just like he saw a chance of success in college, however he quickly learns that these institutions and organizations don’t care about him or the people. These institutions don’t see him, the individual, but see a figure, an obedient representative and a mouth piece. College sought to make a puppet out of him, capitalistic society and systematic racism sought to make a competitor out of him and the Brotherhood, sought to make him a second Booker T. Washington. These institutions only want to maintain power or attain power for themselves, and just as Brother Jack stated, “we do not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile notions of the man on the street. Our job is not to ask them what they think but to tell them” (473). However, in the end Ellison brings back the idea of personal responsibility and social responsibility. While this is very much an individualistic notion it is also a democratic and necessary one for a man that has been nothing but a resource to most. Despite the narrator’s disenfranchised notion of the world, he feels that even an invisible man has an obligation to go back into society, to be a person, a citizen and an individual not only a representation of his race. This is also necessary because even the voiceless and unheard should continue making noise and continue finding ways to fight. They need to remove their blindfolds and proceed towards change, however in order to remove that blindfold, they will most likely need to be deceived and betrayed first.

The narrator’s grandfather is a constant presence in Invisible Man because of some advice he gave on his deathbed. He tells the invisible man, “Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open” (16). These are the words to which the narrator returns over and over again, at first questioning whether or not his grandfather truly lived by this doctrine and then applying his own behavior to it, finding himself again and again agreeing and going along with whatever authority he finds himself subject to no matter the circumstances.

In the Brotherhood, the narrator has no trouble conforming at first. He seems to truly believe in the Brotherhood’s mission, and so when he is sent downtown to work on women’s rights, for example, he decides not to question it but to trust that he is still doing valuable work. Of course, he eventually discovers the truth about the Brotherhood, and he sees his role in their organization for what it really was. “[…] I no hero, but short and dark with only a certain eloquence and a bottomless capacity for being a fool to mark me from the rest; saw them, recognized them at last as those whom I had failed” (559).

So, the narrator failed the people of Harlem, and he likely failed his grandfather too. Throughout the novel, the invisible man finds many people to whom to look up. Bledsoe and Mr. Norton, his bosses at the paint factory, and of course the leaders of the Brotherhood all have a hand in shaping the narrator’s behavior. But as we discover throughout the course of the novel, none of them have his best interests at heart. Perhaps his grandfather was the only one who really did, and yet he was also the one the invisible man regards as the least credible. At the end of the novel, the narrator goes back to really examine what his grandfather might have meant. “Could he have meant—hell, he must have meant the principle, that we were to affirm the principle on which the country was built and not the men, or at least not the men who did the violence” (574). The principle, the narrator thinks, is greater and better than the men.

This is likely true about the Brotherhood. Their purported principles, like the ones America was built on, sounded great. On the surface, they fought for equality and they fought for peace. But their words and the narrator’s speeches were not enough to mean the organization was really working for the betterment of society. If the narrator had looked at his grandfather’s words more closely earlier in the novel, maybe he would have been able to agree them to death and destruction. The success of their purported ideals would surely have meant their death and destruction, because the black community would have been uplifted and given an equal platform on which to oppose the Brotherhood. The narrator can’t figure out whether or not his own death is tied to theirs. But their destruction might be worth the risk.