What else I hope the narrator in Invisible man finds...
As he states in the prologue, the point of this story is to show the reader how the narrator came to terms with “being invisible”, and essentially finding his identity. However, I also would argue and hope that there is something else that the narrator finds along his journey, self-reliance.
The idea of self-reliance has already been brought up before in the narrative, most poignantly when he is asked by Norton if he has “studied Emerson yet” way at the beginning of the book. The narrator responds with, “nawsuh”. We talked in class about the implications of Ellison writing about Emerson, and whether or not the narrator has “learned Ellison” yet.
Mr. Mitchell brought up how Ellison wrote a book entitled, “Self-Reliance”, and how perhaps, Ellison subliminally means that Norton is asking about whether or not the narrator has learned self-reliance or not.
One trope that has continued throughout the entire story is how the narrator is always being helped by somebody. He never is alone, or not being guided in some way towards someplace.
In fact, one of the most disappointing parts for me while reading chapters 13-15 was how the “white guy/ white people come and save the narrator for the 4th time” trope came into play yet again.
It seems as though the narrator cannot do anything by himself, or achieve anything without the help or assistance of someone.
While part of this could be paralleling the racist society in which it is basically impossible for black people to get ahead, and another part could be signaling to the audience that the narrator needs to try and do things by himself for once.
Almost halfway through the book, it doesn’t seem like the narrator has learned self-reliance, and I hope that in the upcoming chapters we begin to see the narrator do things by himself for himself, as well as discover his identity more. Because honestly at this point I am tired of him falling into his same routine of getting backstabbed by people who are supposed to be helping him.
The idea of self-reliance has already been brought up before in the narrative, most poignantly when he is asked by Norton if he has “studied Emerson yet” way at the beginning of the book. The narrator responds with, “nawsuh”. We talked in class about the implications of Ellison writing about Emerson, and whether or not the narrator has “learned Ellison” yet.
Mr. Mitchell brought up how Ellison wrote a book entitled, “Self-Reliance”, and how perhaps, Ellison subliminally means that Norton is asking about whether or not the narrator has learned self-reliance or not.
One trope that has continued throughout the entire story is how the narrator is always being helped by somebody. He never is alone, or not being guided in some way towards someplace.
In fact, one of the most disappointing parts for me while reading chapters 13-15 was how the “white guy/ white people come and save the narrator for the 4th time” trope came into play yet again.
It seems as though the narrator cannot do anything by himself, or achieve anything without the help or assistance of someone.
While part of this could be paralleling the racist society in which it is basically impossible for black people to get ahead, and another part could be signaling to the audience that the narrator needs to try and do things by himself for once.
Almost halfway through the book, it doesn’t seem like the narrator has learned self-reliance, and I hope that in the upcoming chapters we begin to see the narrator do things by himself for himself, as well as discover his identity more. Because honestly at this point I am tired of him falling into his same routine of getting backstabbed by people who are supposed to be helping him.
It's interesting that I didn't notice this idea of self-reliance until you pointed it out. The prevalence of white people making decisions for the narrator is huge in almost every major decision throughout the book. After the factory incident however, I think that the narrator gains self reliance as he makes his own decisions from there on out, disregarding the decisions that others would have made in his place. It was his choice to make the speech, and the calamities following that decision wouldn't have existed without him speaking. It was his choice to take the job with Brother Jack, and I think that is the turning point in the story.
ReplyDeleteI think this book is like watching a character completely change his mentality on life. At first, he was way to trusting, kind of making every decision or response in the book based around the people around him. If you remember his trip with Norton, he seems uncomfortable with any decision that he had to make that was about himself and didn't want to do really anything. He was in sense the invisible man, trying to just follow around driving Norton but nothing else. But as the book develops I think this trait of him is breaking off. This self-reliance is definitely something that I believe the character starts to develop on. Hatred is a deep emotion and his hatred of Bledsoe, to the point where he wants to kill Bledsoe, is a step in the right direction. Even after the fight scene, it seems like he is starting to making a lot of decisions for himself, such as deciding to do the speech. I believe we are seeing a new man being made.
ReplyDeleteOne way to approach this question might be to remember the Prologue: does the narrator *there* seem to have achieved "self-reliance"? Are we on our way toward a conclusion of total self-awareness and coherent identity? Even the Prologue is full of contradictions (or paradox, as Ellison prefers): he is "self-reliant" but alone, disconnected from any sense of community; he exists, but no one knows he's there, so he's "invisible" even as he is conscious of his invisibility. He seems to rely entirely on himself (for, like, his lightbulb project), but even there he gets advice from a tinker friend of his. There's an inherent paradox in invisibility as an "identity" (rather than the absence of one). You're right to be suspicious of the optimistic new turn with the Brotherhood, but there's still the overarching mystery of how the guy from chapter 1 becomes the guy in the Prologue. We're closer, but not there yet.
ReplyDeleteI never actually thought about this, but in retrospect you are 100 percent right. I definitely see the pattern of the narrator's dependence on others to move his life forward. However, we should remain optimistic, because the narrator in the prologue seems to have developed complete self-reliance. We can almost, in my opinion, think of Invisible Man as a journey towards self-reliance and the events of the book are what eventually lead to him to his position of independence.
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