A New Man Living in Harlem

While walking on the street, the narrator witnesses a commotion; a black couple is being evicted from their apartment. The narrator feels terrible at the sight of the old woman hysterical over her Bible. From the time the narrator is fighting the battle royal scene to the riot, the narrator begins to transition into a new man who takes pride in his heritage.

The narrator’s determination of embracing his heritage rather than rejecting his black culture is shown when he is eating yams along the street. The narrator is ashamed when the waiter asks him if he wants to order the “special” (178). He questions himself, “Could everyone see that I was southern?” (178) and rejects the dish. While eating yams, “[he] walked along, munching the yam, just as suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of freedom” (264). Eating yams in public indicates he has overcome his shame as being identified as a southern black, which marks an important turning point in his quest for identity.

Harlem in the 1920's with a peaceful protest.

Experiencing the eviction of the black couple alters the narrator’s perception of Harlem and raises his awareness of his social responsibility to the black community. No longer containing his frustration, the narrator speaks, “Black men! Brothers! Black Brothers! That’s not the way. We’re law-abiding” (275) when a white threatened to shoot. The narrator then becomes an activist dealing with equality within the black community. He prevents a violent riot from occurring by encouraging the blacks to “follow a leader and organize” (276).

Living in Harlem is nothing like the narrator imagines. He first views Harlem as a city of dreams, where black policemen can direct traffic and black girls can work at a store. Now, he just sees Harlem as another dismal, impoverished black neighborhood with differences within the communities.

Harlem today with many legendary locales attracting tourists such as the Apollo Theater, 

The End

“The end was in the beginning.” These words prove true as the roller-coaster-ride of a novel wraps up in its last chapters. From the very start, the narrator yearning for the white man's’ attention and approval was essentially what lead to his demise. His younger and naive self wanted so badly to be a part of the white world. He was stuck always looking in but never being a part of it. He was the top of his class but not good enough to have his speech listened to. He was a committed student, but not valuable enough to keep after just one “mistake”. He moved to the North to be equal, but still found himself lacking in every sense of the word equality. Although for the black society’s standards at the time, the narrator was very successful and doing well for himself. However, that wasn’t enough for him. He wasn’t content in his world. In his younger years, all he wanted was to be part of the white world. Part of their world. Always so close, but not quite there.

As odd as it may sound, he’s stuck on the outside a lot like the Disney princess, Ariel in The Little Mermaid. In her famous song Part of Your World she sings, “I want to be where the people are,” and “Wish I could be, part of that world,”. She sings about the fact that she should be happy yet she still wants to be on land so desperately, much like the adolescent narrator. His wanting to be more ends up leaving him exactly where he started- no High School diploma and going no where. The end was in the beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Keal_UfT6o

The Sambo Doll

In Invisible Man, Clifton is selling a Sambo doll to a crowd in Harlem after he disappears from the Brotherhood. The small doll is a racist representation of African-Americans, complete with big lips and dark skin. It is described as moving “up and down in an...infuriatingly sensuous motion” (431). As funny and harmless the doll may seem, this doll is one example of the oversexualiatization of black bodies, blindness to racism in popular culture, and societal indifference to commercial racism. Sambo is not just a doll. His “boneless bouncing” is not amusing (432). Sambo represents the oversexualization of black bodies because of his suggestive, revolting movements. The doll is gyrating its body, moving in an overly sexual way, representing how society perceives black people: as sexual creatures.

It is unsurprising to see what the narrator thinks after he sees the doll. His initial reaction is not to be angry with the racist doll, but to laugh. He says he “struggled between the desire to join in the laughter and to leap upon it with both feet” (432). It truly is difficult to be frustrated by something society wants all citizens, including blacks, to think of as funny.

The Sambo doll is a slightly less revolting version of the life of Saartjie Baartman. Also known as Sarah, she was sold into the circus during the 19th century because of her medical condition called steatopygia. Her large buttocks, breasts, and genitalia were put on display for Europeans to gawk at. Sarah was forced to fall to prostitution to support herself after she escaped. Although Sambo is not a living man, he still represents the scrutiny and ridicule many blacks receive because society looks at them as sexual beings, not as humans.

Blog 4

The narrator attends a meeting with the members of the Brotherhood. The narrator thinks the Brotherhood cares about his actions. The only actions that concern the Brotherhood are those that pertain to benefiting and serving the group. The narrator mentions “my personal responsibility” (463) and Brother Jack questions what he just heard, “Did I hear him correctly?” (463). It upsets The Brotherhood when they realize the narrator’s interest is himself. Fearful of the narrator’s power, Brother Jack reminds the narrator, “you were not hired to think” (469) and to “let us handle the theory and the business of strategy” (470). The narrator deals with a repeated conflict of serving other people. He allows the other people to control him. He often fails to realize the true intentions organizations and people have. The narrator worked for the Brotherhood only to discover it is just another organization that will manipulate him into doing what they want.

Throughout the novel, Ellison uses symbolism that focuses on blindness. The narrator fails to notice Brother Jack has a glass eye until “something seemed to erupt out of his face” (474). All the other people “aren’t even surprised” (474), but the narrator is. Brother Jack has vision in only one eye because of his sacrifice for the Brotherhood (something he takes pride in). All Brother Jack can see is what the Brotherhood wants him to see. His glass eye symbolizes the blindness the Brotherhood requires of its members. Now, the narrator understands that being in the Brotherhood equates with blindly following white men. The Brotherhood will not allow society to see or hear the narrator’s ideas.  

Joseph Ucci: 12/4

Joseph Ucci

Blog Post 12/4/15

Once the narrator returns back to the bar in Harlem where he thought he would be welcomed greatly, his thoughts are soon reversed. The brotherhood wasn't so brotherly anymore. The brothers that once listened to the narrator’s speeches there no longer wanted to be associated with him. They attacked the narrator with harsh words like, "I hear he got the white fever and left..." (pg 425) Realizing something had been altered, the narrator wonders what possibly could have pushed these men out of such a bonding brotherhood. Barrelhouse begins to explain how the organization diverged away from local problems in Harlem to bigger problems nationwide. The men didn't feel like the brotherhood was returning effort back into the Harlem community. "But the minute y'all stopped, they started throwing folks on the street."(pg 426) Once the narrator visits his old office, the place that offered many with new jobs, he reached a vacant building. The brothers that once inhabited the building fled and it showed the narrator that the brotherhood truly did crash and burn.

The narrator becomes offended when he arrives at the brotherhood headquarters and sees that there was a strategy meeting occurring. Brother Jack told him that he would give him a call when one was to take place, but the narrator was never contacted. He realized that the men didn’t want him there.  He wondered why the men would purposely exclude him. Did they not care for his opinion anymore? Did they not look at the narrator as one of themselves anymore? His new life under the “white fever” (pg 425) labeled the narrator as a man to avoid—a traitor in their eyes.

Blog Post #3

The narrator is taking Norton to see the countryside around the campus. As he is doing that, they see the old slave quarters, and the narrator begins to regret driving him out that way. He regrets it because Jim Trueblood lives out there, and Trueblood is looked at in hatred and disgust throughout the campus for impregnating his own daughter. After they talk with Trueblood and he explains what happened that he ended up impregnating his daughter, the narrator takes Norton to a near by tavern that also serves black people, because he fears that Norton will die of shock. At the tavern, a couple black war veterans carry Norton inside since he has fallen unconscious. As Norton regains consciousness, a brawl breaks out and Norton becomes unconscious again. A veteran takes Norton upstairs to where the prostitutes stay. This veteran claims to be a doctor and a graduate of the college. The veteran says that Norton only sees the narrator as a mark on his scorecard of achievement instead of a man, and the narrator sees Norton as a god. 

This veteran's analysis of Norton and the narrator, seems true in my opinion. Norton doesn't respect the narrator as a man, but instead respects the deeds and favors he does for him. The relationship between the two could be compared to Amir and Hassan's relationship in the beginning of "The Kite Runner". Although Hassan sees them as friends, Amir only used Hassan whenever he wasn't busy doing something else. In other words, only respecting Hassan for the stiff he did for him. The narrator seeing Norton as a god, is also like how Hassan saw Amir. Hassan was ready to do anything for Amir in the blink of an eye. Although the narrator might not know it, he would probably do the same for Norton, because he wants to get to the same social status as him.

 

Dr. Bledsoe had a meeting with the narrator, where he was informed that he must act a certain way with powerful white leaders. He must put aside his culture and his own personality to be the well mannered suck up that he is taught to be. It seems that this era is the transition period between segregation and full natural rights for black people. A point where the law forces these schools and businesses to accept them, but the people there won't. Therefore these big leaders and high up white men want the black people to conform to the most respectful and inhumane personalities. Making them almost like servants, and labeling it as the only way to be respectful, meanwhile the white men are doing awful things and facing no consequence for them. The double standards of this time period once again represents the racism present amongst even the higher up of white men. The "separate but equal" laws seem to still be In action all those years later due to the white men's inability to change. I'm sure this theme will continue to be displayed up until the point where our narrator realizes that it's either conform or live on his own, invisible