In "Invisible Man" a group a black men were blindfolded and forced to fight against eachother. This competition was put together by a group of upper class white men that saw it as a simple act of entertainment, when in actuality they were turning the black men against one and other. The blindfolding is metaphorical. In the book the men were literally blindfolded but the blind folding could in a sense be that white men are trying to keep black men for seeing what they truly are. And instead of standing together as one, the black men then fight and argue amongst themselves instead of with the bigger conflict; their lack of social equality.
During these times, those of color we're looked down upon and thought of as a separate society then that of the people. Instead of the fighting eachother, the men should have came together and thought about their current situation. Why should they fight like wild dogs for payment as if their lives have no meaning?
The part of the novel that scares me the most is the fact that when the narrator attempted to compensate with the other fighter, his opponent denied. And instead wanted to continue to fight. Regardless of who won, the two were both going to be paid, but the conflicting fighter would rather have fought. This scares me because it shows how racism can in a way can pit blacks against each other. When they should be in actuality standing together as one and fighting the bigger problem, racism.
This same act of pitting black men against eachother in fights in the 1930s correlates with that of a scene in the move Django Unchained. In the scene of the movie, slave owners put their strongest slaves to the test in which they would fight to the death. A depiction of this is shown as white men cheered and placed bets on who will win treating them as game. The same kind of occurrence happened within "Invisible Man" as the men would forces to fight one another as a battle royale. This shows that the same basis beliefs can be universal no matter what time period it could be. Django Unchained taking place during slavery in the 1800s and Invisible Man taking place within the 1930s.
I love how you connected the "battle royale" to the movie Django Unchained. As I read this scene, I couldn't help but think of the way the white slaveowners in Django Unchained forced their slaves to brutally fight each other. The white men in both Invisible Man and Django Unchained dehumanize the black men by pushing them to fight their own people, their own allies in the great war of racism and inequality. It is sickening to see the mercilessness exhibited by the black boys as they fight each other for money, unlike the guilt that compels D'Artagnan of Django Unchained to end his role in the Mandingo fighting by running away. Unlike the black boys in Invisible Man, D'Artagnan is a slave and has nothing to fight for. The black boys, however, strive to prove their worth in a white-dominated society, so they go past any limits to survive and succeed. This is a really great connection!
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