Author, date, and pertinent background information
Three main characters (and one-three sentence description of each using precise adjectives)
Two minor characters (and one-three sentence description of each using precise adjectives)
Kacey:
Two major settings (and one-three sentence description of each using precise adjectives)
One paragraph plot outline—be sure to note breaks, shifts or transitions.
Two symbols, references, or motifs:
Jennifer:
Two or three sentences on style and effect of style on the novel’s meaning:
One or two sentences on dominant philosophy, themes, or ideas:
Summary of some discussions your group had about the novel:
Cameron:
5-10 unanswered questions from our class discussions (ambiguity, irony, open questions)
Four short quotations typical/important for the work:
Overall themes and mini-outlines for possible prompts. Have at least two. ( See overall questions handout for sample open response questions.)
Invisible Man:
Jennifer:
The element of style that remains the most evident throughout the novel is Ellison’s use of description. This use of description is so dramatically heavy that it plays off of the satirical nature of the novel that comes from the over the top depiction of the differences between the North and South and the narrator as an invisible man.
Heavy themes within the Invisible Man include the search for identity and the lack of identity within the black community in this time period. As depicted with the Sambo doll, blacks were only puppets to the white man’s direction.
The majority of our discussions focused around what series of events must happen in order for the narrator to end up as ‘crazy’ as he appears to be at the start of the novel. By beginning the novel with the end, audiences are drawn into the events of the novel with the dramatic irony of knowing more than the narrator. This makes it clear that whether the narrator’s life seems to be going well or poorly, we know it does not matter because, in the end, he will never be able to get ahead (thus representing how life for all blacks was in this time period: never able to get ahead).
Kacey
1. The two distict settings of the novel were the north and the south. Each place that the main character visited within each broader place helped characterize the north and the south. The eloquence of the college and the town hall meeting were both disguises for the remaining hostility toward the african race. In the north, the main character visits a variety of places, ranging from a boy's home, a paint factory, and a wealthy woman's apartment, however each present a liberal apporach toward racial equality while in reality each place continues to segregate itself.
2. The novel begins with the narrator as a successful high school student, valedictorian of his class, a guest of the town hall meeting. However when he is ushered in, he is suprised at the behavior of the town's elite members treat him like an animal and mock him. This is an important moment because this is the first time that the narrator realizes that he is still under the control of the white man because he depends on their approval in order to attend college. The narrator attends an all balck university which still succumbs to the white man's control as well. One of the more important events each year for the university is when the founder comes down from New York City and because the narrator was such a revered and hard working student he was granted to opportunity to drive the founder while he was there. The narrator took the founder on a ride that revealed the poverty and depression that still has a place in the lifestyle of freed blacks, resulting in the expulsion of the narrator from the university. He was sent to New York City with letters, which the narrator thought asked to give the narrator job opportunites, however they did quite the opposite. From here, the depressed narrator works at a paint factory and is taken in by a neighborhood mother after leaving the boy's home. One night when the narrator was wandering through the streets he saw a couple being evicted which inspired him to make a emotional speech and rally other supporters. Soon after he was chased down by Brother Jack, who offered him a position in a secret society. This is a major shift because itgives the narrator a purpose and shapes his view on life--which the brotherhood controls. When the narrator befriends another member, but finds out that his friend quit, he questions the brotherhood's intentions. After being assaulted by his own men, the narrator resorts to a disguese, where he is mistaken as "Reinhart" by many different people--rom a lover to a reverend. The novel concludes with a riot and the narrator's decision to live underground and steal light from a white run power company.
3. Light and rebellion are motifs throughout the novel--which illustrate the narrator's own strength against the white man's control.
Kate:
Background Info: Published in 1952, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man details the story of a young African American man, specifically his journey through America's divided North and South, and his search for identity in racist societies. Ellison explores and questions the differences between North and South America; Booker T. Washington's theory that hard work achieves economic success and racial equality; and several other racial and educational ideas present during America's 1930's.
Major Characters: The novel's narrator, the "Invisible Man," relives his experiences from life as a student in a Southern, African American university, to life as a "racial equality" advocate and public speaker in the North. Despite Invisible Man being the narrator and protagonist of the novel, he remains very ambiguous and undefined--especially in being nameless. He constantly searches for his identity and his place in a racist, stereotypical America where he feels very few people acutally "see" him. Brother Jack, Invisible Man's employer and leader of the Brotherhood, epitomizes this racist society. Immediatley, upon the narrator's joining the Brotherhood, Brother Jack provides Invisible Man with another name, revealing that he does not want the narrator for his true self and further prohibits his search for identity. With one glass eye, Brother Jack represents the blind, self-involved underlying intentions of the Brotherhood--they use the narrator as a tool for their advancement and never truly care about the black community. Ras the Exhorter represents extreme nationalist movements, like the Black Panthers, who used any means necessary to be heard, including violence. The narrator refers to Ras as "The Destroyer," which further symbolizes the destructive, contradictory results of using violence to achieve equality. Throughout Ras's dialogue it becomes apparent that he himself is racist as he wants nothing to do with whites; his speeches may unite the black community, but ulitimately maintains the divide between black and white America.
Minor Characters: Tod Clifton, a member of the Brotherhood, exudes the presence of a successful African American; the narrator cannot help but notice Clifton's charasmatic qualities. However, the character undergoes a transformation when he leaves the Brotherhood (representing the inevitable defeat that the group's African American's experienced due to the hypocritical control of white leaders like Brother Jack) and stereotypically sells Sambo slave dolls on the street--dolls that epitomize the obedience of slaves. Ironically, the selling of these slave dolls leads to his death due to his lack of obedience. Dr. Bledsoe exemplifies a successful African American who holds a high amount of power as the Southern college's president. Still, Dr. Bledsoe controls only the African Americans below him, himself being ruled by the white founders of the college. His selfish motives convey his self-interest in remaining the college's black authority figure, rather than in his students' needs--he cares so much about satisfying the rich white founders and keeping his job that he acts and speaks racistly, as though he is better than the black community and not a member of it.
Cameron:
1. What is the overall message coming from the novel? Who is the audience Ellison is speaking to? Should the novel be read literally or allegorically? What is Ellison saying about a person's identity? Why does Ellison tell everything that is going to happen in the prologue?
2. “I’s big and black and I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I’m still the king down here. . . . The only ones I even pretend to please are big white folk, and even those I control more than they control me. . . . That’s my life, telling white folk how to think about the things I know about. . . . It’s a nasty deal and I don’t always like it myself. . . . But I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.” (Ellison 140) “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.” (Ellison 217) “. . . the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro . . . stared up at me from the floor, his face an enormous grin, his single large black hand held palm up before his chest. It was a bank, a piece of early Americana, the kind of bank which, if a coin is placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth.” (Ellison 318) “And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.” (Ellison 580)
Kate:
Kacey:
Jennifer:
Cameron:
Invisible Man:
Jennifer:
Kacey
1. The two distict settings of the novel were the north and the south. Each place that the main character visited within each broader place helped characterize the north and the south. The eloquence of the college and the town hall meeting were both disguises for the remaining hostility toward the african race. In the north, the main character visits a variety of places, ranging from a boy's home, a paint factory, and a wealthy woman's apartment, however each present a liberal apporach toward racial equality while in reality each place continues to segregate itself.
2. The novel begins with the narrator as a successful high school student, valedictorian of his class, a guest of the town hall meeting. However when he is ushered in, he is suprised at the behavior of the town's elite members treat him like an animal and mock him. This is an important moment because this is the first time that the narrator realizes that he is still under the control of the white man because he depends on their approval in order to attend college. The narrator attends an all balck university which still succumbs to the white man's control as well. One of the more important events each year for the university is when the founder comes down from New York City and because the narrator was such a revered and hard working student he was granted to opportunity to drive the founder while he was there. The narrator took the founder on a ride that revealed the poverty and depression that still has a place in the lifestyle of freed blacks, resulting in the expulsion of the narrator from the university. He was sent to New York City with letters, which the narrator thought asked to give the narrator job opportunites, however they did quite the opposite. From here, the depressed narrator works at a paint factory and is taken in by a neighborhood mother after leaving the boy's home. One night when the narrator was wandering through the streets he saw a couple being evicted which inspired him to make a emotional speech and rally other supporters. Soon after he was chased down by Brother Jack, who offered him a position in a secret society. This is a major shift because itgives the narrator a purpose and shapes his view on life--which the brotherhood controls. When the narrator befriends another member, but finds out that his friend quit, he questions the brotherhood's intentions. After being assaulted by his own men, the narrator resorts to a disguese, where he is mistaken as "Reinhart" by many different people--rom a lover to a reverend. The novel concludes with a riot and the narrator's decision to live underground and steal light from a white run power company.
3. Light and rebellion are motifs throughout the novel--which illustrate the narrator's own strength against the white man's control.
Kate:
Cameron:
- 1. What is the overall message coming from the novel? Who is the audience Ellison is speaking to? Should the novel be read literally or allegorically? What is Ellison saying about a person's identity? Why does Ellison tell everything that is going to happen in the prologue?
- 2. “I’s big and black and I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I’m still the king down here. . . . The only ones I even pretend to please are big white folk, and even those I control more than they control me. . . . That’s my life, telling white folk how to think about the things I know about. . . . It’s a nasty deal and I don’t always like it myself. . . . But I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.” (Ellison 140) “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.” (Ellison 217) “. . . the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro . . . stared up at me from the floor, his face an enormous grin, his single large black hand held palm up before his chest. It was a bank, a piece of early Americana, the kind of bank which, if a coin is placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth.” (Ellison 318) “And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.” (Ellison 580)
- 3. Themes: Racism, Identity, and Blindness
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