1. Warming up with three good things
2. Performing a reverse close reading (starting Chapter 21, then rewinding to Chapter 20) of the Dancing Sambo Doll and its larger, metaphorical significance
3. Enjoying our penultimate Socratic of your high school English career: Invisible Man, Chs. 21-23
4. Wrapping up with kudos, questions, and epiphanies
HW:
1. For Wednesday: Keep looking over Academic Vocabulary: Set 4 (and Sets 1-3).
2. For Thursday: Decide on your paper/project poem and bring it to class (electronically or hard copy). It must be from a different time period than your first semester poem. You will spend all of Thursday performing a metacognitive on it.
3. For Friday: FINISH INVISIBLE MAN FOR YOUR FINAL SOCRATIC SEMINAR! YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS IT!
I wrote a found poem based off chapters 21-23:
ReplyDeleteFound poem:
My personal responsibility-
The numbness,
Of my emotions.
Brother to Brother,
Brother.
If we don’t follow,
They don’t listen.
Meaning:
The narrator has finally realized that he is not, and never has been, a free individual when involved in the Brotherhood organization. He is forced to say what the people want to hear, or what the brotherhood is telling him to say. Because he gets moved around to different sections of the Brotherhood, he doesn’t even get to pick what he is speaking about.
How have you seen a change in the narrators attitude since he discovered the truth about the Brotherhood?
DeleteHe doesn’t seem as interested in much and before he was all about their options and feelings and now he’s kinda just there and doesn’t think much of it he seems very upset but I mean I wouldn’t be? It’s like being friends with someone and trusting in them and telling them everything and then to find out that they are fake
DeleteI wrote my socratic over the same topic. I think that the narrator, after finding out about Clifton, has had this negative attitude towards those around him. I think that the is now trying to stand up for himself for example when he was defending Clifton, "Let the dead rest in peace,' I shouted". He tries but he still has no effect.
DeleteI really like your poem and the idea that the narrator has never been a free individual. At the end of chapter 23 the narrator talks about how having, "A wife, a girl, a friend, who would be willing to talk freely to me" (512) could actually help free him. Why might the women be able to free him while no one else can/will and might women then be a symbol of freedom in the book?
DeleteI think it is more of an internal shift than one that the brotherhood can see. At the end of the chapter when he says, "Thus I would launch my two-pronged attack under the most favorable circumstance." I assumed he was referring to the circumstance of attacking the brotherhood while within the brotherhood. This kind of reminded me of his grandfathers initial advice that he has been a spy in enemy territory his whole life. I think that he now understands his own self worth is determined by what he decides to do, not what the "enemies" make him do.
DeleteI think that the narrator is becoming more insightful and is seeing a more real version of how society is acting. However, I also think that his newly found drive is because of his anger and emotions. Ever since Clifton died, the narrator seems to be acting out more and I think that that event is overlapping with the truth of the brotherhood. Both events seem to be upsetting and in a way I think that both events have cause him a sense of betrayal. I think that it will be interesting to see what the next chapters hold, and how his tension build up gets lashed out.
DeleteI think the narrator has gone from really idealistic to very realistic. He sees the world for what it is now, he sees the black thread and the invisible people. It's like he broke down a facade.
DeleteI think that the narrator has lost an element of naivety and his willingness to be a tool for other people. Despite his desire to be his own person however, I don't think he knows how. You can see him slowly become more cynical however still fall into the same traps he has previously.
DeleteWhat connections does Rhineheart have to circles and allusions to the Battle Royal? These were mostly addressed during the conversation with Hambro.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how the sambo doll could not dance without being manipulated by someone else. Is the narrator the sambo doll that cannot effect change without the Brotherhood?
ReplyDeleteGreat observation! The thread is black, which suggests to me that the white community needs to the black community in order to make the doll dance. In the previous chapter, the white Brotherhood seems to be using the black brotherhood for their numbers and what they perceive as stereotypical aggression. It also reminds me of Liberty Paints and how Brockway and the other black workers are being used to keep our nation's monuments white...the black thread is essential to the wheels of hegemony.
DeleteI also related the Sambo doll to the narrator, because he seems to be pushed around and do what others tell him to do. I think that without the Brotherhood, without someone telling the narrator what to do, he won't be able to be independent.
DeleteA lot of times the narrator is using his speeches, or "dance", as a way to get ahead in the hopes of being able to cause a change. I think that the idea of change is what's manipulating him and the Brotherhood is exploiting that to get him to be their puppet. Because, the Sambo doll isn't dancing for itself, it's dancing because of the invisible line that is being controlled by a greater force, like the Brotherhood or going back further, the superintendent at the battle royal who, after being entertained gave him the money to go to college.
DeleteI believe that the narrator has been manipulated by the brotherhood for so long that he is no longer in control if his own thoughts. I don't believe that the narrator is a sambo doll simply because of the way he thinks and acts does not align with the brotherhood every time. But I really like your connection
DeleteI talked about this in my free writing today. I think its really interesting to look at how much control everyone has had over the narrator. He has never been independent. When he was at the school, he was controlled by Bledsoe and when he got to the city he was controlled by the paint workers and now the brotherhood. He is unable to be his own person because he is tied to a black string that everyone pulls.
DeleteI thought about this too during our warmup. I think by saying that the black thread was invisible to the audience, Ellison makes the connection that black=invisible. I started thinking about how we talked about how the people outside of history, or the ones who don't fit the nice, tidy narrative, are the invisible ones. I think that idea relates to the thread because it takes something invisible to make the whole thing work. Maybe just like it takes an invisible (and black) thread to make the doll dance, it takes invisible (and black) people to make the system (either the time period's overall system of oppression or the Brotherhood's smaller system) work. I think he's saying that the invisible people do more to keep corrupt systems in place than their leaders, simply by being passive. However, once the invisible things (like the thread) become visible, the facade falls apart.
DeleteJust before he begins his speech at Tod Clifton's funeral, the narrator sees a peanut vendor "stretch out his arms with his palms turned upward, and suddenly he was covered, head, shoulders and outflank arms, with fluttering, feasting birds" (454). The pigeons also appeared when Clifton was shot. How does Ellison use pigeons symbolically in these two scenes?
ReplyDelete*outflung arms
DeleteOne more pigeon reference to throw in there: The statue of the Founder is always described as splattered with pigeon poop.
DeleteI did not even notice that so this is a complete guess, but what I am thinking is that if pigeons are kind of scavenging birds that are always mooching off others, it is kind of representative of all the people that showed out to Clifton's service not for him, but rather to rally against the police violence. They are latching onto a tragic event to get their point across similar to how a pigeon latches to others for survival.
DeleteI feel like even though pigeons are not the best of birds, Ellison still puts in birds as a possible symbol of freedom. I don't know weather Ellison is trying to say that when Clifton was shot he was finally freed or even that Clifton might have been free before he was shot. Either way I think the birds are there to remind the narrator that he is still in a way caged.
DeleteI'm gravitating to birds as a symbol for freedom. The contrast I am most fascinated by here is that these are pigeons or average city birds that aren't caged like the ones we saw in Mr. Emerson's study. Unlike the birds that were forced into captivity, the pigeons are free yet respond to the gunshots by hiding back in the trees. It's possible that the pigeons are meant to represent the twisted freedom of the city's people. When they came and flocked to the peanut vendor, the narrator was the vendor and the crowd was the flock of pigeons. He opened himself up and was vulnerable while the pigeons were looking for something to find solace. I think pigeons represent the people who appear free but are really just scared conflicted city-goers with no limited freedom.
DeleteI also recognized these frequent pigeon images and have struggled to find the parallels that they create. I can almost see the pigeons symbolically represensting the audience and crowd that the Brotherhood wants to create. People who will eat up anything and riot off drama and mishaps. This in turn gives the Brotherhood the support and numbers they need to make their efforts effective. The section where Clifton is shot says "... as one of the pigeons swing down in the street and up again, leaving a feather floating white in the dazzling backlight of the sun..." I see this as the pigeons leaving this feather as a representation of their involvement in the Brotherhood. This may be a stretch but is just a theory in trying to understand the birds.
DeleteThere was another reference to pigeons that I noticed. During the funeral, an old man begins to play music and it is described as "two black pigeons rising above a skull-white barn to tumble and rise through still blue sky" (452). This reference was interesting to me because of the vivid imagery that it invoked and the dichotomy between white and black it mentions. It seems as if the music is associated with black and good while the color white is associated with evil (skull). I was't totally sure what to think about this but it seemed like another important allusion.
DeleteLike Anna, I was confused as why Ellison chose pigeons, which are "not the best of birds." I did a little bit of research and learned that pigeons and doves are actually different words for the same type of birds--we just generally call white pigeons "doves."
DeleteDuring chapter 23, the narrator discovers that by simply putting on a hat and glasses he can completely change his identity to Rinehart. What is the greater meaning to this disguise?
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me a bit of the "We Wear the Mask" poem we looked at a couple of weeks ago. I think the narrator is finally starting to realize what we've been suspecting for some time now: that all of the characters are playing the same parts. Tatlock = Trueblood = Supercargo = Brockway = the narrator, in some parts. The trick that he's starting to also realize here is that he needs to figure out how to wear the mask but remain conscious that it is, in fact, a mask. So far, he has assumed each new identity fully and without question. He needs to maintain a sense of double-consciousness.
DeleteI think that this scene has a lot to do with the concept of invisibility. Normally putting on glasses and a hat would not conceal your identity but the narrator draws attention the fact that he is virtually unrecognizable. The fact that such a simple disguise can do so much tells me that people normally don't pay attention to him anyway, he is one of the "faceless multitude" that lies outside of history. I believe that this disguise is the start of his invisibility and that he puts so much attention on it to highlight the change he is undergoing
DeleteI think that this correlates with the invisible part of the book. Instead of using others and relying his success on his connections/ the opinions of others, the narrator might be realizing that if he can use multiple identities he may get a new insight/ perspective. I feel like we will see the effects of this "Strategy" in the next chapter. To tie it back to invisibility,I think having so many identities and personalities is what ultimately makes him invisible.
DeleteI find it interesting how he is also mistaken for so many different things in this instance. He is seen as a pimp, a gambler, a reverend, a lover, and a friend. This seems to have something to do with identity which is a concept that the narrator has struggled with throughout the story. It seems that identity almost turns into this complete mess that no one can control, but at the same time is so fluid because it can actually change so easily. I'd say the Rinehart figure deals more with the narrator's identity than how other's perceive him.
DeleteI think it relates to how people choose not to see the things that actually make the invisible people unique, they just group them all together. They see a black man in a hat and sunglasses- three really broad characteristics- and group anyone with those traits into the idea of one person they know. People don't recognize individuality, just like the Brotherhood.
DeleteThe narrator finally sees that he cannot be free within the brotherhood. He is trapped in a loop of just obediently following orders. The illusion that he is free comes from his position of power, as it would seem that he has some form of making choices. It shows that the brotherhood does not actually care for their black members, as they would rather condone a racially motivated murder as it relates to Clifton and the Sambo dolls, than have a eulogy for one of the fallen brothers. This in turn reproduces racism rather than destroys it. The fact that they are accepting a murder of a black person is somewhat pathetic. It shows they care more about their image to the public than what actually needs to be stood up for. This shows the brotherhood is truly blind to what is actually happening in terms of black politics. They see no need for the advancement of black politics, only the advancement of their own organization.
ReplyDeleteI think this relates back to our protagonists very first speech where he confuses the terms "social responsibility" and "social equality" The brotherhood spends so much time formulating a scripted response to anything that they are being responsible but not very equal.
DeleteWhat is the significance of Brother Jack having a glass eye? I thought that it may connect to different masks we have seen or the dichotomy of sight/blindness
ReplyDeleteI actually wrote part of my socratic ticket on this. I believe that it shows the blindness of the organization as a whole. We all knew that the followers of the brotherhood were blind as they seemed to just follow orders without any argument, but this proves that the leaders are blind too. The eye falls out and it shows the current idealogical position of the brotherhood right now, as they are blind to what is actually happening.
DeleteI agree with Braxton (and I, too, am fascinated by this part). I have a few other interpretations I'm playing with too:
Delete(1) This scene might be a Greek allusion. Oedipus gauged out his eyes when he realized the terrible truth (is it possibly Brother Jack starts to see something here that he doesn't want to see?). Also, Odysseus (different Greek myth) has his "dragon battle" with a cyclops, which is a one-eyed monster. Is this the narrator's dragon battle?
Still going...
Delete(2) The narrator is developing a sense of double-consciousness here. He sees himself through one eye, but he's also starting to see how white people view him. He has to find a way to exist in this double vision.
From wikipedia: Double consciousness is a term describing the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society. It was coined by W. E. B. Du Bois with reference to African American "double consciousness," including his own, and published in the autoethnographic work, The Souls of Black Folk[1]. The term originally referred to the psychological challenge of "always looking at one's self through the eyes" of a racist white society, and "measuring oneself by the means of a nation that looked back in contempt". The term also referred to Du Bois' experiences of reconciling his African heritage with an upbringing in a European-dominated society.
DeleteGlass eyes are in themselves a facade, only there for appearances and to hide the gap that would otherwise scare away others. I think that when the glass eye falls out it's sort of like the illusion of the Brotherhood to the narrator is exposed and he can see the dark socket that lies within.
DeleteI think the eye could also symbolize how Brother Jack pretends that he sees the narrator and other black people for who they truly are and values them, but in reality, he cannot see the narrator. He is only using the theory of the narrator to advance their ideology, not actually looking at what he or the other people want. Kind of like idealism vs. realism, with how he doesn't see what things are truly like for the Harlem chapter of the Brotherhood.
DeleteAlmost relating to the allusion with mythology, I remembered many mythological references to difference one eyed characters. I think it might be a stretch to consider, but in Norse mythology, Odin gives up his eye to the guardian of a well (like the glass of water the narrator refers to as a well) in the pursuit of knowledge. This symbolizes how no sacrifice is to great to follow ones goal. Since Norse mythology isn't usually referenced in literature, I thought it was likely a difficult argument to make, but it's just a thought.
DeleteAfter the narrator disguises himself, he just so happens to become this Rinehart character, and everyone who crossed paths with him thought he was Rinehart. Is there a deeper meaning behind these false accusations, and if so what could it mean?
ReplyDeleteI was also baffled as to why sunglasses and a hat make him look like Rinehart. I believe that the costume that he puts on is finally a sense of finding his identity because he can see life through the eyes of someone else. The fact that he is not himself and he now becomes Rinehart, lets him see the extent to which people like Norton and Jack have manipulated him.
DeleteOne of the most interesting thing that I found during these chapters is the fact that Brother Jack's eye was not real. This is one of the first instances in which sight is actually connected to invisibility. I took the fact that he only has one functional eye to mean that he is only capable to see things one way. The absence of his eye is indicative of how he can only see things in one perspective, his perspective. How did you interpret his missing eye?
ReplyDeleteI also did part of my socratic ticket on this, I agree with you that the lack of an eye suggests that he cannot see what is happening in the community clearly or from more than one perspective, however, I also think that there was another aspect to it. I noticed that when his eye fell out, his character seemed to completely change and he became more aggressive and different than we have seen him. I think that the eye constitutes a mask that hides who he truly is from the narrator. What was interesting to me was how the narrator wanted him to put the eye back in as if he wanted no abnormalities and wanted jack to stay the same
DeleteI hadn't thought about the missing eye as a symbol of limited perspective, but I really like that idea. To add on to that, in the same scene the narrator concludes, "So that is the meaning of discipline, I thought, sacrifice... yes, and blindness; he doesn't see me. He doesn't even see me." The missing eye could represent both sacrifice and blindness. I wonder if becoming disciplined limits perspective, allowing people like Brother Jack to render the narrator "invisible."
DeleteThe Brotherhood often disagrees with any form speech and press that is not thoroughly thought out and scientifically presented to the audience. Why, then, does Brother Jack act so indirect and fickle when addressing the problem of Clifton's funeral?
ReplyDeleteI think it might have to do with emotion in some way. I think what makes the narrators speeches so intriguing is because they are filled with passion and emotion which a lot of the time cannot be planned for. Speaking powerfully just comes very natural to the narrator and he isn't scared to speak out loud what some people might be thinking in their heads. He also isn't afraid to question or demand the audience like he did at the funeral. I think the brotherhood and specifically Jack fear his power and talents not only because they are trying to simply use the narrator, but also because they lack the ability that he has.
DeleteIn retrospect, I think the Brotherhood has always been concerned about the narrator gaining too much power. They claim it's because they believe in "the collective," and whatnot, but really, they're using the black contingency as their pawns, so they need to keep them tightly controlled.
DeleteI thought he acted this way because it shows that he doesn't actually care for the advancement of the black race rather just the advancement of the organization. If he had actually cared about their "goals" they would be focusing on the police violence not the dolls. This goes back to social responsibility vs. social equality.
DeleteI thought the concept of Rinehart was interesting. To me it definitely seemed to be about more than just this one random man that the narrator happens to look like. I think Rinehart represents the idea of embodying multiple personalities that can be conveyed at different times to achieve different goals. Now, the narrator wants to use these "Rinehart methods" to do what his grandfather told him to do and put up a submissive facade within the Brotherhood, while never truly buying into his character, eventually dismantling the organization. But the part I was confused on was what the author was suggesting about who falls into the "Rinehart" category. Do you think the author means that everyone, or at least all the "invisible" people, has these multiple personalities and conflicting motives? Or just the smart people who know how to use that method to their advantage? And has the narrator already used these Rinehart methods in any way without realizing it?
ReplyDeleteRinehart reminds me of some of the characters seen when the narrator first goes to Harlem. He's very out there and seems a bit off but also free. I think that Rinehart gives him a way to be free because he stops thinking about the future and changing things like he always is and relaxes, giving in to the freer dialect while he's in his disguise.
DeleteI think the society around someone puts that person into the "Rinehart" group. While our narrator choose the clothes, he was grouped as a "Rinehart" by the people around him. I think Rinehart stood for an oversimplification of a group of people to a stereotype. He functions the same as a Sambo but isn't as derogatory. The people at the Brotherhood don't use Rinehart to describe the population of Harlem but definitely make assumptions about the nature of all of these people that don't take into account any more than assumptions of the people.
DeleteI think to become part of the Rinehart is to be aware of the mass grouping that happens and use it to your advantage as I suspect our narrator intends to.
In realizing that one idea can stand for many people, I think Rinehart taught our narrator that many people can stand for one idea by the contrapositive.
I love all these connections and they are all very sensible. I do think that the author was claiming tht everyone has these multiple personalities, however there has to be awarenenss of these different disguises to make them useful. I think that all through the narrators transition between South and North he has been using these Rinehart methods. I recognize this because he often compares his new world with his old self and the way he used to act.
DeleteDuring the warm-up, we focused on the Sambo doll and it's two faces. Ironically I focused my Socratic ticket on this as well, and I found a huge correlation between the "two faces" of the doll and the "two faces" of the Brotherhood. The faces of the doll were grinning, no matter what was happening, like how the Brotherhood kept the narrator wrapped up in their lies the whole time, because they were "grinning" as well. Why did the author have to use two faces on a doll to help symbolize this hidden persona of the Brotherhood?
ReplyDeleteI think, too, the narrator is only starting to see the two faces of everybody...even himself. He needs to find a way to grin at the white community, but also grin back at himself.
DeleteOne more thing came to mind. Jack loses his eye, and so we see him become physically blinded. I have tried to focus on blindness throughout the novel because it seems that the Brotherhood members blindly follow the ideology of the Brotherhood, but cannot be independent. It brings me back to the narrators speech when he could not see the audience, which I related to being blind. It seemed that he was blindly speaking to a blind followers of the Brotherhood.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 22, many of the committee members verbally assault the narrator and accuse him of taking "personal responsibility" in regards to the Clifton issue. This scene where the narrator is being analyzed and assaulted reminded me of the time he was at the "doctors" and was put through shock therapy. After excruciating pain and a decent amount of time at the "hospital" he was in essence re-birthed. Could this interrogation of the narrator have "re-birthed" him as well? And if so do you think he's finally learned how to free himself despite his circumstances?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think the narrator keeps taking out Tarps's leg chain during these chapters?
ReplyDeleteWould the character Rinehart fall inside or outside of history?
ReplyDelete