Ending of Invisible Man vs the ending of Native Son
If we are interpreting Invisible Man as a response to Native Son, the ending of Invisible Man can be seen as giving forth a sort of alternative to the way that Native Son explained racism.
At the end of Native Son, Max has a huge speech about how society led to Bigger's crimes. In my opinion, he is saying that yes, Bigger is an unlikable character who has done terrible things, but the reason why he is this way is because of society's institutionalized racism. Therefore we should be upset with society, and not Bigger. Bigger is not to blame.
A key point in Max's argument that stuck out to me, was the idea of making Bigger some sort of unhuman human. What I mean is that while Max could have argued that Bigger was a person who made a mistake, and all people make mistakes; he instead spoke of Bigger as a metaphorical person.
His message was: we should fight back against racism because it creates these awful people.
Contrast this with the ending of Invisible Man. In class, we discussed what the final question, "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" meant. I think that this could be interpreted as a direct response to the ending/message of Native Son.
By inferring that the reader, who is presumably white, is alike to the black narrator, I think that Ellison is appealing to the human in us. Throughout the novel, Ellison makes a point of humanizing his characters that could have simply been left as archetypes. For example, Bledsoe, who could have been left as an archetypical villain, instead has a backstory, that makes us almost feel bad for him. The narrator, like these characters, makes mistakes but learns from them.
His message was: we should fight back against racism because we are all human and that's unfair.
Which I think is a better one. :)
At the end of Native Son, Max has a huge speech about how society led to Bigger's crimes. In my opinion, he is saying that yes, Bigger is an unlikable character who has done terrible things, but the reason why he is this way is because of society's institutionalized racism. Therefore we should be upset with society, and not Bigger. Bigger is not to blame.
A key point in Max's argument that stuck out to me, was the idea of making Bigger some sort of unhuman human. What I mean is that while Max could have argued that Bigger was a person who made a mistake, and all people make mistakes; he instead spoke of Bigger as a metaphorical person.
His message was: we should fight back against racism because it creates these awful people.
Contrast this with the ending of Invisible Man. In class, we discussed what the final question, "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" meant. I think that this could be interpreted as a direct response to the ending/message of Native Son.
By inferring that the reader, who is presumably white, is alike to the black narrator, I think that Ellison is appealing to the human in us. Throughout the novel, Ellison makes a point of humanizing his characters that could have simply been left as archetypes. For example, Bledsoe, who could have been left as an archetypical villain, instead has a backstory, that makes us almost feel bad for him. The narrator, like these characters, makes mistakes but learns from them.
His message was: we should fight back against racism because we are all human and that's unfair.
Which I think is a better one. :)
I agree that the Invisible Man ending is better, as it left me in a better state of mind than when Bigger was executed at the end of Native Son. I also agree that this is because of the Narrator's humanization. We see the result of dramatic growth on the narrator through his display of emotional maturity and enhancement in the epilogue, which gives me a sense of closure in a way.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good way to look at the endings of the two books, and really much of the whole of the books. As you say, in Native Son, Bigger Thomas is portrayed entirely as the product of society, and the communists who analyze only structural issues are proven correct by the omniscient narrator. In Invisible Man, instead, the narrator comes to reject a similar cast of characters in the Brotherhood, and tries instead to find himself a place at least partially outside of a society that cannot see him.
ReplyDeleteI think you’re right about Invisible Man being Ellison’s response to Wright. Even when looking at the goal of the characters we can see direct contradictions. For Bigger Thomas, he wants to escape society as a whole, but is completely unable to do so. For the narrator in Invisible Man, he wants to feel like a part of society and be accepted by everyone around him but ends up learning how to live outside of society by the end. What’s really interesting is that both characters are trying to escape something that is controlling them, but the narrator is the only one who actually ends up succeeding in doing so.
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