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Chapter Thirteen. Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914 – 1994). Black novelist. Born in Oklahoma City and educated at Tuskegee Institute. Though his publications have been few, his novel Invisible Man (1952) is one of the most discussed and praised books published in America since World War II.
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Chapter Thirteen • Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914 – 1994)
Black novelist. • Born in Oklahoma City and educated at Tuskegee Institute. • Though his publications have been few, his novel Invisible Man (1952) is one of the most discussed and praised books published in America since World War II.
In his other writings, including the essays published in Shadow and Act (1964), Ellison explored the problem of identity within the context of black culture.
Text study: Invisible Man • 1st person narration • Flashback • Theme: the search for identity and self-realization.
Special features in Invisible Man • It is a highly symbolic and existential novel which deals with a nameless southern Negro who leaves the South to Harlem only to find that he is not seen as a fully individual person but a creation of the eyes which look at him.
He is invisible in that both blacks and whites ignore his individuality and his invisibility is both a plight and a device. • The characters are strongly if simply drawn. • These are carefully developed patterns of imagery: darkness and blindness vs. light and vision.
The novel presents the traditional theme of the search for identity and self-realization. • It is not a racial protest novel, but a novel about the existentialist crisis of modern man.
Ellison intended his black protagonist to symbolize all people in a dehumanized society with their aspirations and frustrations. • The publication of this book indicates that black literature has achieved a higher degree of maturity with the universality of its profound theme and its exquisite style.
Ellison’s themes • Ellison developed racial themes, but he rejected protest fiction because he was more interested in the world of arts. He consciously used the ideas of Emerson in his fiction, such as the great importance they put on the power of the human mind to transcend experience.
He once said that he dreamed of a flexible and swift style, at once facing the brutal experience of modern man and expressing hope, fraternity, and individual self-realization.
Class discussion • Why did grandfather call himself a “traitor” and a “spy” on his deathbed? ( P243, Paragraph 2) • What inner conflicts are expressed in Paragraph 3, P243-244?
Questions to ponder • How are the black people treated in this text? • What are the feelings of the black people living in America? • Do you see any sign of their (the black people) walking out of the shadow of racial discrimination?
