Final Blog Post: The Invisible Man

The biggest idea explored in Invisible Man  was the idea of sight and visibility. This is evident throughout the novel, as character’s eyes and sight are heavily referenced. The Founder of the college has “empty eyes,” demonstrating his inability to see how ineffective his teachings were for the advancement of blacks in America. Homer Barbee is blind, like the poet Homer, illustrating his foolish devotion to the Founder’s unsuccessful ideology. Brother Jack is revealed to have a fake eye, falling out just after the narrator states that it was as though Jack could not see him, Jack does not think of the narrator and the people of Harlem as real people, they are invisible to him. There are also references in the Liberty Paint factory, their best paint is called “Optic White.” Optics involve light and seeing, yet the paint conceals blackness as opposed to making it more visible. As Lucius Brockway says, “Our white is so white you can paint a chunka coal and you’d have to crack it open with a sledge hammer to prove it wasn’t white clear through.” The factory covers up the black workers creating the foundation of the paint, just as white American society tries to take away black identity.

The narrator is not literally invisible. Nonetheless, his humanity as a black person goes unseen by society. It seems as though everyone in the story is blind, although it takes the narrator until the end of the book to realize it. One theme of this book is that racism prevents people from recognizing the humanity of other people. Brother Jack and the Brotherhood seem to act in the best interest of blacks, organizing the community, leading rallies and providing jobs. Yet in the end they have no respect for the identity of the real people of Harlem. They are willing to “sacrifice” them because they do not see them as people. This is also evident in Mr Norton’s attitude towards the college and its students like the narrator. To Mr Norton the students are awards, statistics to measure his good deeds and make him feel good about himself. He does not see the narrator for who he is, he does not even recognize the narrator when he sees him a few years later. Mr Norton claims that students such as the narrator are his destiny, his fate, yet this means the narrator cannot claim his own destiny. Mr Norton does not see the free will and humanity of the narrator.

In terms of my methods of close reading, I think it can suffer when the piece I am reading is a novel instead of a short story. Short stories are short, allowing me to keep my focus on analysis. My annotations (which I strongly dislike, only using them in the most important of situations) get lost in the length of the book. In a 560 page book it is much more difficult to flip back and forth between little details. I also tend to get caught up in the story. I love a good, interesting, enthralling book. Sometimes this will lead me away from the analysis I should be carrying out. Nonetheless, in this book I was definitely able to trace symbols and find hidden meanings, probably because there were so many that you were bound to stumble upon some of them. I paid extra attention to those seemingly insignificant, detailed passages, knowing they were included for a good reason. I think Foster has been especially useful to my close reading. I found his book very helpful, and it brought several ideas to my consciousness, such as how to recognize christ figures or vampires, the importance of water, ideas about symbolism, etc. While not all of these were completely applicable and I did not think about them all, I think he had a strong effect on my close reading of Invisible Man. However, as I said before, virtually everything in this book has a deeper meaning, to the point where there is too much to talk about.

I would recommend this book to someone who likes literature and has a lot of time on their hands. I did enjoy the book, although it was more of an interesting book than an exciting one. It was  a masterful work of literature to be sure, the depth and complexity of the book is incredible. However, the writing is confusing, and occasionally even annoying. Ellison uses an extraordinary amount of commas and hazy, unclear stories and pictures. It is definitely a book for taking your time, to the point where I had to write this blog post late because I could not finish the book.

In Progress Blog Post 3: White, White, White

Some of the most symbolic scenes in the book come from the narrator's experiences in the Liberty Paint factory. The fact that the whole deal in the factory is about white set off alarm bells in my head. It is clear the Liberty Paints has a relation to race in American society. The sign the narrator sees outside the  factory says "Keep America Pure With Liberty Paints." First off, the idea of purity has very racial context. That, coupled with the white paint tells me that the paint company is racially symbolic. Mr Brockway's slogan "If its Optic White, its the Right White," similarly draws subconsciously on the idea of white superiority and pureness. The narrator immediately thinks of the slogan if you're white, you're right. This reminded me of when the doctor in the Golden Day says that the narrator "believes that white is right." The superiority of whites is reinforced through brands such as Liberty Paints. Further, the idea of Liberty connotes something Founding Fatheresque. It is as though those sons of liberty intended for white to be right (they probably did, in truth). Yet the suppression of black for white is anything but liberating, instead it puts blacks down and whites up. The paint company is run on the surface by white people, selling their Optic White paint. Yet the paint base comes from one uneducated black man in the basement. He performs much of the skilled operations of the business, unable to be replicated by the educated engineers who come to take his job. Just as the optic white paint will cover the black coal and make it appear as though there was no black in the center, the white outside completely covers the black foundation on the inside of the company, Mr Brockway. Similarly, the brilliant white paint is made from grey foundation and black drips. Ellison is arguing that in order for the white to seem so bright, it must be contrasted with the black. In American society, blacks must be made to appear inferior in order for whites to seem so superior by contrast. The name Optic White ties into the thread throughout the novel of seeing and blindness. Optics imply seeing, which is ironic because the white covers the black, making it unseen. This is another reinforcement of the idea of whites keeping blacks down to enhance their own supposed superiority. This makes me think of the Founder's ideology at the college. There the white donor's, and the school, are trying to whitewash the black students. They become embarrassed of their people and their culture, of those who do not act like white people. Ellison seems to reject the ideology of giving up black identity to get ahead, especially because it is unrealistic in the face of white racism and hostility.

In Progress Blog Post 2: The Founder

I think the idea of the Founder is fascinating. Our first encounter with the Founder is the narrator’s description of his statue on the University’s campus. There is a great statue of him, a renowned leader, pulling a veil off of a slave. The narrator describes him as “the cold father symbol.” The founder himself had “empty eyes” in his statue, and is a “cold Father symbol” (36).  It makes the narrator wonder, “whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly into place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient binding” (36). This is an odd introduction to a character that has supposedly made such great strides to help black people. So off-putting is this description that, until it was explicitly stated, I actually thought the founder was white. The devotion of his followers is practically religious. Homer Barbee’s speech to the founders and the students is very religious in nature. It is like a story from the bible, as he makes out the Founder to be a messiah who overcome great adversity to lead his people. Nonetheless, we do not even know his name. He is so sacred and important, yet he is cold, blind and nameless. Ellison critiques the Founder’s methodology for black advancement. This is clear from the idea that the Founder might be lowering the veil over the slave instead of lifting it. He also suggests that his followers are blind, personified by Homer Barbee who is literally blind. The followers are blind for believing that their meek, subservient attitude will lead them to progress. Mr Norton tells the narrator “He was my friend, and I believed in his vision. So much so, that sometimes I dont know whether it was his vision or mine” (39). To me this means that the Founder’s ideas were not in the interests of blacks,  but from the vision of whites, to lower the veil further over the slave’s eyes. Barbee’s speech contrasts starkly with Dr Bledsoe’s talk with the narrator. Dr Bledsoe is selfish in his power, yet Barbee praises Dr Bledsoe highly. He says”His is a form of greatness worthy of your imitation. I say to you, pattern yourselves after him. Aspire, each of you, to some day follow in his footsteps“ (131). And the narrator repeatedly says that Dr Bledsoe seems to have it all, while still acting subservient to the white folks. He even goes as far as saying that he envisions himself as Dr Bledsoe’s assistant, eventually taking over. Yet we learn in the meeting that Bledsoe merely wears a mask, dealing with the white people to build up his own deceptive yet very real power. It makes me wonder whether the Founder himself was not just playing for his own gain...

In Progress Blog Post 1: This Book is Kind of Cool...

I may be only three chapters into Ralph Ellison’s novel “the Invisible Man,” but it is already having a powerful emotional effect on me. It did not start out this way. To be quite honest, the prologue mostly confused me. I was unsure how to take the narrator’s statements. Is he actually invisible? Does he actually live in a hole in the ground, with 1,369 lights? My confusion was further compounded by the narrators odd reefer dream. It seemed, like most literary dreams, to be representative of something, but through the haze of the both the odd writing style and my mom’s old copy of the book from when she was in college, I could not make head or tail of it. Nonetheless, the story settled down in my mind in the first chapter. Here was a recognizable narrative. I followed the story of the narrator’s speech and battle royale with revulsion, but also page-turning eagerness. It was engrossing, and grossing at the same time.. Although I am accustomed to looking back at the conduct of whites in America with dread and disgust, this was especially emotionally moving. The subversiveness and racism of the whites is evident to the reader, yet the narrator seems to believe that he is getting ahead in the world. I had the urge to scream at the narrator for not recognizing the prejudice around him. I can already see Ellison critiquing the Booker T Washington ideal for racial progress. For his humility and subservience the narrator receives ridicule from the white community that he tries to, for lack of a better term, suck up to. In chapters 2 and 3 the hazy storytelling was more evident again, but again there was a compelling narrative keeping me at rapt attention. When the sharecropper Trueblood Jim tells his story of having sex with his daughter I was genuinely fascinated. It was told almost eloquently by this poor, uneducated man. I also saw the critique by Ellison in the narrator’s, and the school’s attitude towards Jim compared to the whites. The black community shuns the poor blacks, seeing them as an embarrassment, instead of trying to move their entire race forward. Here there was a dream as well that played a key part in the story, and I still do not understand it. I should be clear here - I will come back to these things troubling me that I still do not understand. However, I am a person who prefers to keep reading, mostly because I love a good story, but also because it helps me to gather more facts. When I am further along in the book and have a better grasp of the world in which the narrator lives I will return.