That One Escalator (Sasha)

        I’m back with yet another Invisible Man blog post. Why have I not written on any other book? Not really sure. But, this is a topic that I’ve been wanting to do a blog post or essay about for a while now, because it was extremely noticeable and interesting for me, but never figured out how to turn into a coherent longer form argument. I’m here to talk about clothes in Invisible Man , and their relation to the characters we see and the story overall. As stated in the documentary we watched, Ellison himself paid very close attention to his clothes, and dressed in a very particular, “Ivy” manner. That Ellison paid careful attention to formal clothing is quite apparent throughout Invisible Man , and Ellison repeatedly uses the narrator’s changes of clothes, as well as the clothes of those around him, to send messages about the character’s state and current role in society.   The first mention of clothing in the novel comes during the Battle R...

To me, in all honesty, Invisible Man still has a strangely and profoundly dreamlike character. Our main character continually tries to establish himself, but is undercut in bizarre and nonsensical ways throughout, while even his attempts to slip away from the world provoke strange responses.   The narrator’s experience with the brotherhood exemplify this pattern extremely clearly. He is promoted to a high office in an organization he does not really understand (nor ever understands or is allowed to understand) and is then repeatedly criticized and shamed for failing to uphold the proper ideals of said organization. Only after one such failure for which he is criticized is he sent to Hambro, to be educated, but we, like with his college experience, see none of this. We learn only that he is successful enough in his education to be given his job back, followed by it being taken away again, and him reassigned to “The Woman Question”. This chapter too, is bizarre. We are...

        In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man , we are presented with several different characters whoa attempt to push our narrator to become a “race leader”. Of these, the most important so far are probably Mary and Mr. Bledsoe. These two characters present similar views, but treat the narrator in radically different ways. Bledsoe is a terrifying force in the narrator’s life, who punishes him repeatedly for harming his interests and what he believes are the interests of “the race”.   Mary, on the other hand, while also a profound force in the narrator’s life, which he describes as such, is infinitely more caring and less hostile. She allows the narrator a place in her home for free, where he is allowed to stay for months on end, without fulfilling his obligations in terms of rent to her. She believes in the narrator, and in every previous person who has stayed in her house. Bledsoe believes in no one except for himself. For him, the narrator, like for ...

       In class this week, we talked extensively about Chapter 1 of Invisible Man as an extended dream sequence, a nightmare that our main character is entirely unaware of, and instead processes as completely normal. I will propose, however, that essentially every chapter has been like this, even the prologue, where we see a seemingly awake and self-conscious character. I think the nature of the dream-like state is different in each of the chapters, but overall each gives off the same feeling of semi-reality.   We begin in the prologue, where our main character, the narrator, describes himself as an invisible man, who no others can see, and explains that he discovered this for himself. Throughout the chapter, however, increasingly bizarre things come to light about the characters position and actions. First, we learn that he has installed 1,369 lightbulbs in his secret apartment, with which he wages war against the local power company, and is plann...

Well, new year and a new English class so from here on out I'll be using this page for African-American Lit blog posts.

    We spent quite a bit of time on the ways in which Song of Solomon is a coming of age novel, and also on the ways in which Milkman, despite his age, continues to act like a child or a teenage boy. I believe that the final scene of the book shows Milkman as he finally comes of age, and, more importantly, is recognized by others as having come of age.       Pilate is one of the first to recognize Milkman as having come of age, when she hits him over the head and throws him into a cellar. Now, this may seem like a bit of a reach, but it makes sense in the end: Pilate has previously spent her time humoring and protecting Milkman, but now Milkman has killed her granddaughter, and so she recognizes him as an adult, capable of adult actions, and hurting others in ways that adults would. Milkman’s previous hostile actions towards Pilate (asking about her navel, stealing a bag he thought was full of gold) were childish ones, which she could forgive and ...

While Rochester spends much of his time accusing or suspecting others of insanity, it is actually he who acts insane throughout the book. While he has clearly lost it completely but he end of Part II, Rochester actually begins to go mad much earlier in the book, perhaps as a result of his severe illness. Rochester’s mistrust of the West Indies develops rapidly into severe paranoia, and possible hallucinations.  Rochester does not quite understand the West Indies, which is understandable for someone who has just arrived there, and does not quite trust them either, which is also understandable for someone who immediately got a fever so bad he was confined for 3 weeks. However, this initial mistrust and understanding opens up an avenue for Rochester to to manifest all of his worst character tendencies, culminating in his state-endorsed kidnapping and false imprisonment of his wife.  Rochester’s mistrust begins to grow increasingly paranoid, believing that people are hid...