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.

Blog Post #3 on Invisible Man

In Chapter 5 of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man the narrator, along with other students, goes to a chapel, where the visitor was waiting. During the service, Reverend Barbee speaks. He talks about the founder comparing him to Moses and says he “showed them the way.” Right away relating the founder to an important religious figure and liberator, making it seem like the Founder saved the black community. When Barbee tells a story about an attempt on the founder’s life, there is religious imagery which harkens back the conversion of Saul into Paul. Barbee makes the founder into a figure that was also meant to help all black people out of bondage. Finally, when talking about the mourning for the Founder, Barbee holds the Founder as a godlike figure, and even white men paid respects to the Founder, showing that they respected him. The Founder’s successor Bledsoe was also painted as a perfect figure as Barbee transfers the founder’s legacy onto him. They are both seen as figures to be idolized.

After Barbee trips, the narrator realizes he is blind. Barbee’s blindness could symbolize that Barbee is blind to how the Founder and Bledsoe really are. Or the blindness could be something that Barbee hides behind while creating an illusion, with his words, for everyone to get lost in. The blindness, also, is yet another thing that connects him to a real, famous poet of the same name, Homer.

As the narrator is leaving the chapel, we can see he fell for the illusion that Barbee painted for him, as he believes that some like Bledsoe, who has no flaws, will show him not mercy.

Blog Post #1 on How It Feels to Be Colored Me

People think of race as something that you are born with, something that is always there but Hurston starts her story by saying that she “became colored” therefore flipping this notion on its head, Hurston was not “colored” until people made her feel that way.

As a kid, Hurston was mostly protected from racism since she lived in a town where everyone was the same race as her. However, white tourists would pass through and treat her differently from the black residents. For example, giving her change when performed while the black residents would reward her with affection. Showing her the differences between an audience and a community. Still, here she was Zora, just Zora.
However, when she leaves her hometown, she starts to face racism as she started her “colored life”. But, while people try to group her with African-Americans she tries to push herself away from that group by embracing her female, blackness and believing that the world is still open to her. She doesn’t want to try and be a different race and she believes that she can succeeded.
Towards the end, she becomes one of two things, “Cosmic Zora” she isn’t colored, she is who Zora wants to be seen as. However, she mostly becomes the brown paper bag, ordinary and filled with ordinary items

At the end when she writes about herself as a brown paper bags, she also brings up other bags. The three colors of these other bags are white, red, and yellow and while those are bright colors, they are also colors that are usually associated with other races: white is associated with Caucasians, red (although it is offensive) is associated with Native Americans, and yellow is associated with Asians. Then she mentions that if the contents were emptied out and then the bag were refilled, it wouldn’t make much of a difference because though we are different colors, under that color we are the same.

In the first chapter, with the battle, it symbolizes how the white men, specifically high society white men kept the black men in a state of darkness and fear (and the white men enjoyed it too). The boys they made fight had their vision obstructed by a white blindfold, the narrator mentions how he never experienced darkness like the before and how it scared him.

In the second chapter we meet Mr. Norton, who is a trustee of the college the narrator attends and Jim Trueblood, who’s incest was shamed by the black community, but the white community was surprisingly supportive after the incest. However, in the dream Trueblood mentions being a dark tunnel “. . . it’s hot and dark in there. I goes up a dark tunnel” Then, when he wakes up he sees the reality is worse than his dream.

In the third chapter Norton gets compared a lot to animals, the narrator mentions Norton’s “amazingly animal-like teeth” which are usually hidden inside his mouth. Then when they are with the vet doctor, the women who are watching compared his organs to animal organs. They make Norton out to be very animalistic, kind of like how he described the white men watching his fight in chapter one.