Project Text Essay

Anna Osuna

24 April 2012

Professor Broadous

PAS114 B

Literary Analysis

Yearning for Identity

In the summer of 1952 Ralph Ellison began to write the Invisible Man. The Invisible Man is Ellison’s most recognized novel because it illuminated the truth of the social and racial situation currently affecting African Americans. In the era of the 1940s, slavery had recently been put to an end and the African American race finally gained their rights, or so it was said. In fact blacks were still viewed as second-class citizens and treated with less value then an animal. They were humiliated by whites and taught they had neither existence nor real place in society. Ralph Ellison should not be applauded for explaining the racial and social issues, but that he was able to do it from the perspective of a black man. Ralph Ellison explained to a reporter in an interview,“ too many books by Negro Writers are addressed to a white audience. By doing this authors run the risk of limiting themselves to the audience’s presumption of what a Negro is or should be”(Chester and Howard. 292) The point Ellison is trying to the explain to interviewer and in novel is clear: the danger of under minding oneself rather then seeking ones own identity will never bring change. African American writers and individuals during the time of segregation were scared of announcing to the world what was truly going on beneath the surface of the racial and social struggles. Ellison chose not only to address the oppression brought upon their race but also the oppression African Americans brought among themselves due to fear. This is the problem we see in many of characters through out the novel: for example in Dr. Bledsoe, the grandfather, and the narrator. However, unlike the narrator the grandfather, and Dr. Bledsoe were unable to find their own individuality because they chose to undermine, lie, and aspire to become like the white man opposed to embracing who they truly were. 

            The grandfather of the narrator wanted to keep the peace between the blacks and whites. He did not want to say anything to draw any attention towards himself nor his grandchildren because he feared the white man. The only way thought of surviving in this era was by cooperating with the white race. The mentality of cooperation towards whites was impeded in African Americans since the time of slavery, and is all they could pass on to their youth. For example the narrators grandfather advised to the future generations, “ Son after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a way and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s county ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lions mouth, I want you to overcome em’ with yeses, undermine em’ with grin, agree ‘em to death and destruction…..Learn it to the younguns” (Ellison. 6). What the grandfather depicts through this quote is that he felt as he had fought in the civil war and still obtained no place in society. He further explains that “he put his gun down” representing he was giving up fighting for equality and accepted his reality for what is was. Also telling his son “ live with your head in the lions mouth…undermine em’ with grin” meaning to undermine himself by projecting to the society that the suppression the black race was experiencing was acceptable.

            The Reconstruction was a period in time when blacks were free from slavery and attempted to be integrated into society. Promises to the African American communities of equality were made but never fulfilled. Instead the law of separate but equal was created and defined as “pertaining to a racial policy by which blacks may be segregated if granted equal opportunities and facilities, as for education, transportation, or jobs.” (Separate but Equal). This law was adopted because of the Plessy vs. Freguson case and resulted in segregation and discrimination towards the black race. At this point, black citizens were fed up with fighting and not seeing any progress. For example the narrator says“ about eighty-five years ago they were told that they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand, And they believed it. They exulted it. They stayed in their place, worked hard, and brought up my father to the same” (Ellison. 15-16). Originally “when emancipated blacks pursued equality, they demanded the franchise on the same basis as that exercised by whites” (Civil Rights in America). The African American race soon found out the reconstruction was only a tease of gaining equality. In reality the only way blacks could gain power was undermining their position in society and playing the role of “ignorant black man”, just as the grandfather does in the novel. However in the process the grandfather let his individuality be stolen from him and is a mistake made probably ever person at one point of their life. This type of self-sabotage prevents you from performing and living at your full potential giving people the opportunity to think less of you as an individual.           

Dr. Bledsoe is the black president at the university the narrator attends. In the beginning of the novel the narrator is enchanted with Dr. Bledsoe “ he was an example of everything he hoped to be: Influential with wealthy men all over the country; consulted in matters concerning the race; a leader of his people; the possessor of not one, but two Cadillac’s, a good salary and a soft good looking and creamy complexioned wife” (Ellison. 100). Dr. Bledsoe was the narrator’s ideal role model, until he realized Dr. Bledsoe was a coward and seeking only his self-interest. Dr. Bledsoe is a key example of how undermining the white society was actually letting down the black community. Dr. Bledsoe viewed himself as an authority figure not equal to the rich white but a “holder” of power over the black race. For example “ The white folks tell everybody what to think, except men like me. I will tell them; that’s my life, telling white folk how to think about the things I know about the things I know about. Shocks you, doesn’t it? Well, that’s the way it is. It’s a nasty deal and I don’t always like myself, But you listen 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.141). Dr. Bledsoe addressed this to the narrator when he was being expelled from school for taking Mr. Norton to the Golden Day. Mr. Norton was one of the founders of the black university the narrator attended. The reason he got expelled from school was because Dr. Bledsoe believed “ we take these white folks where we want them to go, we show them what we want them to see”(Ellison.102). The Golden Day was a bar in the slave quarter section of the school and when taken into the bar Mr. Norton and the narrator encountered black veterans and prostitutes. Dr. Bledsoe was ashamed of this part of the school and crestfallen to be African American.  Most importantly he was ashamed to acknowledge that the veterans in the bar were just as much a part of him as he was of them. Dr. Bledsoe should have never apologized to Mr. Norton for what he had saw at the Golden Day because apologizing showed he was shameful of where he came from. For a minute the narrator even believed white people needed to help “us poor, ignorant, people out of the mire and darkness” (Ellison. 99). Mr. Norton needed to see the reality and the result slavery had among the African American race.

Nevertheless, Dr. Bledsoe believed “the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie” (Ellison.139). This mentality he retained was wrong. Sabotaging the white race and lying to them only covered up the feelings of invisibility they internalized, it did not fix them. For example Dr. Bledsoe says “ the only ones I even pretend to please are big white folks, and even those I control more then they control me. This is a power set-up, son, and I’m at the controls. You think about that. When you buck against me, your bucking against power, rich white folk’s power-which means government power” (Ellison. 142) This quote illustrated Dr. Bledsoe as a hypocrite because he claimed he wanted to uplift the race but then says he would hang every negro if meant keeping his power. These two statements contradict each other because you cannot help someone if you are resentful of them. The audiences uncovers he is a fake and only cares about keeping the race and himself as “the ignorant black man”.  Dr. Bledsoe was only fooling himself when he thought he had control over the white men because even regardless of his high authority for example the narrator says” they could laugh at him but they couldn’t ignore him’ (Ellison.101) Exposing that even with his high standing position, and trying desperately to be white, he would never gain respect.

            The narrator played a major role of realizing the way to gain power was not through undermining the white race but was accepting yourself for who you are. In the epilogue he gains his sense of individuality by saying “ 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 the invisible man” (Ellison.575). Unlike his grandfather and Dr. Bledsoe he realized in order to overcome racism was to acknowledge yourself as an individual rather then fitting the expectations whites had of blacks. Richard Nixon once said “ any fellow who tries to tell me that you can do these things by force (desegregation) is just plain nuts” (Education and Civil Rights) Richard Nixon was only being truthful because after so much trauma afflicted to the black race, how could Americans expect desegregation to fix the mental strain we currently see in African Americans to this day? The United States might have put segregation to an end but the healing process of African Americans and minorities who experienced these events will take centuries to fix just as it was created.

            Overall, Ralph Ellison expressed a an interesting thought when being interviewed, “ if the negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him, he’s lost the battle before he takes the field. I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer long for acceptance-but it must be acceptance on his own terms”(Chester and Howard. 292). Ellison touches once again the theme of the novel; the danger of undermining oneself rather then seeking ones own identity. In his response he points out by trying to please others you have already lost because you should live for yourself. This problem is not only felt by the African American race but homosexuals, lesbians, Hispanic, Asians, Whites, Europeans, and almost everybody in the world. Society cannot blame the African Americans for undermining themselves because at the time they felt as that is all they could do. The help of authors like Ralph Ellison, activist, and the of course the people: blacks and minorities have earned civil rights and hopefully learn to embrace oneself for who they are.

Work Cited

Chester, Alfred and Vilma Howard. “An Interview with Ralph Ellison”. International Library of negro life and history. Lindsay Patterson. New York: Publishers Company, 1970. Print.

“Civil Rights in America: Racial Voting Rights”. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior National Historic Landmarks Program. 2012. 24 April 2012. Web.

“ Education and Civil Rights”. History Learning Site. 2012. 24 April 2012. Web.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Random House, 1952. Print.

“Separate but Equal” Dictionary.com. 2012. 24 April 2012. Web.