Blog Post 11/12/15
When Ellison places the
Invisible Man in a delusional state after lighting and smoking the reefer “some
jokers” (8) gave to him, he ends up envisioning the different levels of hell. To
give insight that this is part an imagined journey, Ellison makes the
structural choice of italicizing the back-and-forth dialogue and events. He
uses a simile to compare the shrieks of the beautiful woman the Invisible Man
sees and the pleading that came from his mother as she was naked, slaveowners bidding
on her body. Once the invisible man reaches the shrieks, he sees the woman who
begins singing an unusual chant. We learn that she loved her master. How could one love their slaveowner? After years and years of rape, abuse, and suffering,
how could one still tend to forgive and fall in love with such a cruel person?
The woman goes on to explain herself and we discover that she thanks him for
the children he gave her. The woman did love her slave-master for the
conception of her children but begged more for the freedom of her new family. Since
the master didn’t let them free, the woman killed him. Would the woman and her
children have found their freedom without their hate for the master, or
was the woman showing love in peacefully killing the master? After
dreaming about her freedom for so long and finally escaping the master’s puppet
strings, the woman doesn’t remember what freedom is anymore. Ellison takes an
outlook on slavery that many do not think about. In order to teach us of the
unconditional love mothers have for their children and the sacrifice that
American African slaves were forced to endure, Ellison includes the scene with
the frantic woman.
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