Tag Archives: race

A Novel Ripe With Easter Eggs

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Ellison scatters numerous objects and symbols throughout Invisible Man that may seem nonessential at first glance. A pair of dark-lensed glasses, a briefcase, or even a slip of paper are not mere objects in this novel, but instead, symbols of great yet implicit importance. The text does have its fair share of dramatic and overbearing moments, but nonetheless, Ellison is an author who does not take lightly the impactful things that one can convey through subtle writing. He successfully carries out a concept commonly known to writers, that when writing about something unjust or somber, one should write about the “forlorn teddybear” instead of the obvious bombing and gore that comes with war. In a way, the Invisible Man is caught in his own war with society and himself. In order to convey these inner and outer struggles, Ellison plants various objects throughout his novel like a trail of bigoted hints. Or as pop culture calls it, “Easter Eggs”.

The novels unnamed narrator is struck with anger and disgust when he lays eyes on a cast iron bank in the form of a “very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro” (319). The object sits plainly in the home of Mary Rambo, an African-American herself, noticed for the first time by the Invisible Man. The caricatured bank is a piece of “early American” and can be fed coins into its “grinning mouth”. The discriminatory nature of this item is blatant, so one cannot blame the narrator for destroying it in a fit of anger. But there is more to this item than a sense of prejudice, Ellison includes this bank in the novel to evoke larger meanings. The grinning nature of the bank can be connected to the words of the narrator’s grandfather, specifically, “I want you to overcome ’em with yeses, undermine ’em with grins, agree ’em to death…” (16). What is this object but another symbol of a conforming African, discriminated against yet agreeing with the dominant group for his own sake, just as his grandfather preached? The item can even be connected back to Trueblood, who towards the beginning of the novel, is continuously rewarded for the animalistic act of having sex with his daughter. He is paid good money for being the primitive and unintelligent caricature that white people expected African males to be. In response, the narrator states, “You no-good bastard! You get a hundred-dollar bill!” (69). Like the cast iron bank, Trueblood disgusts the Invisible Man, and both items are of his contempt.

The items and symbols utilized by Ellison are not only “Easter Eggs” but tools used to uphold the narrator as a sort of “Running Man”. In The Running Man As Metaphor In Ellison’s Invisible Man, Phyllis R. Klotman states, “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the culmination of the Running Man metaphor, the electric “umbilical cord” that connects the running men past to those of the present” (277). This idea is frequently expressed through the briefcase that the Invisible Man is given at the early start of the novel. The “gleaming calfskin brief case” gifted to him initially contains an academic scholarship and goes on to be the shell that encloses all sorts of objects from the remnants of the cast iron bank to a dead man’s doll. Most notable are two slips of paper that are eventually burned by the end of the book, one that holds his “new name” and the other a menacing threat.The briefcase is a part of him, a calfskin limb, something that holds meaning and leads him to revelation. The item treads on the heels of the protagonist as some sort of constant reminder of his mistakes and his experiences. Even more implicit and impactful is the narrators’ decision to burn the contents of his briefcase at the end of the novel in order to lessen the darkness and produce light. Ellison states, “I started with my high-school diploma, applying one precious match with a feeling of remote irony, even smiling…” (567). The irony is hinted at, but the significance in the Invisible Man burning his own high-school diploma after literally being trapped underground has various levels of deep meaning to it. It could’ve been an old scrap of ordinary paper, but Ellison’s decision to make it something academic and personal is no mistake.

The Invisible Man is not only invisible, but is a figure who is running from himself and the cultural expectations thrust upon him by his grandfather, those he admires, and the deceitful brotherhood. The history and contents of his briefcase, as well as his reaction to the cast iron bank are examples that not only point to his inner turmoil but showcase how every significant story is made up of a string of implicit meanings.

Reflections

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In his essay Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson describes how humans have lost contact with nature and the importance of reconnecting with it in order to better understand themselves. Throughout the piece, he draws on transcendentalist ideology to prove his point, emphasizing the divine aspects of nature that “few adult persons” can see. Furthermore, he stresses the failure of science to identify a “theory of nature” and says that past attempts to do so have only resulted in further division and hatred amongst the human population. The crux of his argument is the idea that by immersing himself in nature, he is able to transcend  “mean egotism”, shedding societal values, preconceived notions, desires, identity, gender, race, nationality, and class in order to become one with nature. He takes the form of a “transparent eye-ball” and is able to see and understand all without being seen. He is above racial, religious, and other man-made distinctions.

Whereas Emerson is empowered by sight when he becomes a “transparent eye-ball”, many African American writers from this period and afterward seem to be burdened by sight — both in the ways that they are seen by other (especially white) people and in the ways they have started to view themselves as a result. They are seen as “object[s]” (Fanon, 257), as savages (Fanon, 261), as intellectually inferior (DuBois), or as pitiable (Hurston). Many of them describe the weight of having to exist on two or three different planes, of existing both as their true selves and as a black person in a racist society. Despite differences in the ways they describe and think about this issue, discrimination does contribute to the sense that they are being held back from reaching their fullest potential. In Fanon’s words “I am a master and I am advised to adopt the humility of the cripple (265), or, as Hurston sarcastically puts it, “It is thrilling to think–to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.” (Hurston) Moreover, they are hurt by the internalization of these messages by themselves and by other black people. Fanon describes being rejected by other black people as they make efforts to assimilate or even become white, not wanting their efforts to be tainted by him. Even Hurston, who claims to “have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored” admits to feeling the effects of discrimination and of being seen as a race before being seen as an individual.

For these authors, empowerment then is found not in seeing, but in learning to unsee themselves in the narrative that has been forced upon them as black Americans. For DuBois and Fanon, that means discussing the limitations that have been systematically placed on black people and actively working to counteract them. For Hurston, it means shedding race entirely and refusing what she perceives to be sympathy over the slavery that her ancestors endured. However, for all of them, it means persevering, being successful, and proving racist Americans wrong through their success.

Emerson’s ability to become a “translucent eyeball”, despite his insistence that doing so extinguishes such distinctions as “master [and] servant”, is an ability largely and unwittingly based in his own privilege. It’s not that these types of experiences are inherently exclusive, but that it is easier for Emerson to shed his identity and ignore the tensions surrounding race relations in the United States as a person who is not only exempt from racial discrimination but benefits from it. Whereas Emerson and Hurston (in different ways) seem ready to move past the issue of race in the United States, for many people, such as Fanon and Dubois, examining race is key to achieving the type of understanding that Emerson seems to be seeking.

Black Dreams Through White Tinted Glasses 

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The fight for true freedom for black Americans, as seen in W.E.B. Du Bois’s collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, runs as deep as the “bois,” or the forest. Du Bois’s essay, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” shows that the milestones that African Americans believed would end prejudice and make them successful were based on the rights and lives of white American men. The Souls of Black Folk argues that black Americans will achieve the most success by combining their freedom from bonds, political power, and education. The essay limits itself by drawing on this point and not focusing on strategies that black Americans can take to be successful in ways that the white male race never has, and to enrich the country with what their community has to offer.  

Du Bois argues in his essay that African Americans error of ways is ultimately their ignorance, because they believed all prejudice faced only came from one source. In their stride for a better life, they sought to achieve the same standing as white men, and looked no further than that. Du Bois writes: 

the American Negro… thought… slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies… sorrow, the root of all prejudice… the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land… As the time flew, however, he began to grasp…The idea of liberty… Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes enfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power that had done all this (5-6)? 

African Americans based their idea of happiness on the rights that were not afforded to them, but afforded to white men. African Americans were let down by a lack of equality and happiness after emancipation. Post emancipation, they engulfed themselves in the idea of liberty – a right which only white men had at the time. Black Americans became enticed by the power that white men had with the vote, so pursed liberation, thinking that would fix their problems. However, as Du Bois writes, this right, nor emancipation, gave black Americans the gratification and truly free lives they deserved.  

De Bois implies that African Americans continued to think that the pursuit of happiness and the end of prejudice meant matching their lives and privileges to those of white men. After 1876, De Bois writes that, “a new vision began gradually to replace the dream of political power… the ideal of ‘book-learning’; the curiosity… to know… the power of the cabalistic letters of the white man” (6). Black Americans yearned for education, but they only defined “education” by how white men were educated and what they knew. 

Perhaps a greater issue that impedes African Americans from succeeding in this country is that from the dream of emancipation African Americans have only reached for what white men have and stopped there. While Du Bois’s essay has the power to make any black person or other minority in America feel inspired, he provides no course of action for them to follow his thesis, which argues, “Work, culture, liberty,—all these we need… together… all striving toward…fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro…in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack” (8). But how can African Americans provide a unique contribution to their country when their idea of success and freedom is what the privileged race has already accomplished? What are the African American community’s “traits and talents,” and how does one share them with the world?  

Du Bois does not answer these questions in his essay. Andi Sauer writes in his blog post, “Emerson Calls, Du Bois Answers,” about the racial veil mentioned in the essay that blocked Du Bois throughout his life. Sauer states, “It is most clear in his writings that Du Bois is not able to gain full access to the world around him, and the freedoms it offers, from beyond this veil.” It’s possible that this racial veil is not just a physical impediment, but also obscures Du Bois and other black persons in America from the freedom to imagine how the black community can have an impact of the world and see past the goal of becoming white in their accomplishments and rights. Du Bois cannot answer these questions because he himself is veiled from their answers.  

“Of Our Spiritual Strivings” indirectly comments that African Americans have always tied their dream of true freedom, equality, and happiness to how white American men live; Du Bois does not tell his reader how the community can overcome this impediment and combine their privileges to benefit themselves and the country. Du Bois lays a foreground for ending prejudice that will never be actualized if it is impossible to remove the racial veil and years of prejudice which blocks him and others from seeing the distinct impact that African Americans can make. To follow Du Bois’s plan to reach equality one must remove the veil. To remove the veil one must end the inequality that causes the racial veil to exist. It’s unclear how the country can ever racially progress when the steps to equality form a circle instead of a straight line.