An Unsatisfying Ending

Some are born invisible, some achieve invisibility, and the narrator of Invisible Man has invisibility thrust upon him in a manner that seems really anticlimactic.

I believe the point of the book is to show how the narrator achieves invisibility. We see his journey from impressionable, naive young man to sarcastic, meta-self-aware adult. But what disappoints me is that we never see the fruits of that. The story ends with a sudden fall into the black hole, then a time-skip of what, months? Years? We get a small story of seeing Norton again, and we can infer some things about his later life from his lights contact, his fight with Monopolated Light & Power, and other references in the prologue and epilogue. Other than that, we don't see nearly anything of what he actually does with this knowledge other than write it down (the frame narrative of Invisible Man.)

Howe said something similar to this at the tail end of "Black Boys and Native Sons." He writes, "as Ellison's hero asserts the 'infinite possibilities' he makes no attempt to specify them..." and this is my main complaint about the book. Ellison spends twenty-five chapters detailing this guy's life to tell us how he comes to this conclusion, then doesn't explain the conclusion other than the still-ambiguous "I am an invisible man" and "I can and do think in a meta way about myself" and worse, "I speak for you." 

I don't agree with Howe on other aspects. He has no right to define an African-American novel to his own specifications. He can't just declare that angry black authors are the only ones who are really black, or really "black authors" in a certain sense. In fact, I agree with Ellison on most points involving the definition of an African-American novel. My only hesitation comes when I examine the book simply as a literary work that has an ending that feels like a cop-out.

What do you think? Is there a good justification for Invisible Man's brief ending? How would the book's message change if the "moral" were more clearly defined by the end? (Would that kill the point?) And can anyone find a good rebuttal on this from Ellison, because I totally couldn't.

The "Extras" of /Invisible Man/

For a novel whose entire plot revolves around the idea that "we wear the mask," that nobody truly sees anyone other than themselves, we sure see a lot of one-dimensional characters that serve one symbolic purpose and leave. To an extent, you can't have a book with one personality and one overly complex plotline-- you have to have simpler plots thrown in. I chose to discuss a few black characters (although there are plenty of quirky, one-off white characters too: think Emerson Jr., Norton, or Sybil) Do we see further into these characters' lives with their stories, or just see further proof of how invisible they really are, even to our invisibility-conscious narrator?

 The first is Trueblood. What was up with that?? Yes, he was an example of a bad guy to show to Norton. But why did he get 15 pages to himself to tell a seemingly non-sequitur, kind of squicky story when a more concise example could have sufficed? Perhaps the answer is that it anything shorter couldn't have sufficed, and his long story was a testament to just how badly the narrator screwed up (plus possibly a reason for Norton to be so lightheaded, furthering the plot.) A question nobody asks: Is Trueblood invisible? It's complicated. He occasionally sings at the college, where he is widely disliked for his racial self-caricature. The college hotshots know of the people in the slums ironically next to the college, but choose to be blind to them (and keep the donors blind to them as well.)

Rather than talk about the Vet (who gets plenty of screen-time in critical review) I'll discuss the more one-dimensional characters in the bar scene-- Supercargo, Halley, and Edna. To recap: Supercargo is the big bodyguard-type guy who gets shoved down in defiance of white control over them: "He's the white folks' man!" (84). Halley (and Barrelhouse, in a later scene on p. 489 [and maybe earlier-- can anyone find it?]) is the stereotypical peacekeeping barkeep who just wants everyone to settle down and spend their money on beer instead of fighting. Edna is one of the only named girls at the Golden Day, who calls Norton a "little white baby" and who "ain't never been to no Chicago" (87, 88). They each play a role in that scene; a good barfight would be incomplete without rousing characters on both sides. But the narrator never seems to think critically about their personalities, and never convinces us to do so either. This is, to be fair, early in his ideological shift, when he isn't thinking about invisibility himself.

The last "character as simple symbol" I'll talk about is Brother Clifton. There's no explanation, no understanding of the turmoil that sent him into selling Sambo dolls. He is the trendy youth pastor of Harlem until the narrator leaves and he goes off the deep end. The conclusion to be drawn is that the narrator was the only thing keeping Harlem together, and Clifton is justified to be used as a rallying cry. But he remains one-dimensional and unexplained, even as the narrator is understanding invisibility himself. Really, for all his introspection the narrator never even attempts to delve into the minds of other people. I suppose that's not the point of the book.

Can you think of more characters that have more personality than screen time? Maybe Emma, or Westrum, or the evicted couple (who clearly have a full life which is used by the narrator as a general symbol), or the white guy who drunkenly sings gospel, or the woman who apologizes for him later. There are plenty in the book, all deserving their own explication. What individual and group effect do all these side characters have on the evolution of the narrator?

Bonus not-quite-worth-a-blog-post idea: Isn't it weird that the narrator gets electrocuted twice in his life, both times after significant injury? It seems like a parallel but I don't know of what.

Who's Taking Grandpa's Advice?

The narrator's grandfather's "curse" in Invisible Man permeates the book. It represents the shift in the narrator's personality, the "look under the surface" motif, and something to compare every character's mindset to. Here it is, in its entirety.

"Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you but our life is a war and i have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you tell they vomit or bust wide open. ...Learn it to the younguns"(page 16).

Most of the time the narrator has referenced this so far, he's confused. "he had spoken of his meekness as a dangerous activity" (16). He has doubts about it as a kid-- "When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks" (17). He really does want to do the right thing, but either option of the "right thing" seemed bad. So the narrator is complicated, and I'm sure character development will kick in and we'll understand better what his opinion is going to end up being. What I want to look at is how the other side characters (specifically Bledsoe and the Vet) in Invisible Man follow Grandpa's advice, and what that says.

Bledsoe is a weird one. If true rebellion is to "overcome 'em with yeses," Bledsoe's a firebrand. "I's big and black and I say 'Yes, suh" as loudly as any burrhead when it's convenient, but I'm still the king down here," he says. Isn't that, in stronger terms, what Grandpa was talking about? Say "yes" when it's convenient to gain power with white people, but believe what you believe. But Bledsoe is an antagonistic character-- why does he follow Grandpa's advice better than the narrator? Perhaps he's the example of Grandpa's advice gone too far, or the dangers of taking Grandpa's advice without humor. I think humor is a crucial difference between Grandpa's rhetoric and Bledsoe's-- Bled vents with anger and impugnment instead of laughing it off.

The vet, in comparison, doesn't follow Grandpa's advice at all! He's an influential guy on our narrator, but not once does he try to overcome anybody with yeses nor put his head anywhere near a lion's mouth. He's tried that, and it's not worth it. Those are the "fundamentals which I should never have forgotten": that black people in the south are forced to follow Grandpa's advice if they want to do anything with their lives. He chooses to not do anything with his life, and be his own person.

Maybe that's the answer: Ellison isn't saying that Grandpa's advice is 100% what everyone should always do. It depends on what you want, power or happiness. The advice leads to power, as Bledsoe attests to. It may or may not lead to happiness. That's the conclusion I hope the narrator arrives at as well.

I'm A Mary

...and I don't know how to feel about it.

On the one hand, Marys are good! Better than Mr. Daltons, or especially Brittens or Buckleys, right? (That is, better to be a radical who wants equality than to 1) give to the black community nominally and/or hypocritically or 2) actively be racist, discriminatory, and against black "progress" (Invisible Man has made me rethink the meaning of that word))

However, being a Mary, at least to a Bigger, is clearly not the safest course of action. Her willingness to sit in the front seat as an equal, or ask him about his life, or let him carry her like a drunken, potentially incriminating ragdoll, all have the opposite of their intended effect. Mary makes Bigger uncomfortable in a deep sense, and her defiance of societal norms is not refreshing to him but a jarring what the hell are you doing sort of social limbo. It's that exact unidentifiable hate that makes Bigger come to terms a little easier with her death, and also go from "accidental death" to "murder" as fast as he does.

Some of my Mary-like impulses (from, among other things, growing up a privileged, white liberal woman in a moderately wealthy family) made me frustrated with Bigger as a character. "He can't see the good in anybody!" I wrote furiously in my notes. "I hate that about him!" The naturalist point of the novel is that I shouldn't hate Bigger for that-- I should hate the circumstances that brought that hate about: the institutionalized racism in housing, jobs, movies, and all the other things Bigger has been affected and afflicted by his whole life. Mary (and Marys like her) are just cut off from those things and just don't see them. As Bigger says, they're "blind."

I have a complicated relationship with Mary. I believe that in general, she's a good person. I imagine she gets along quite well with white people speaking the way she does, and with certain African-Americans willing to entertain her nonsense long enough to see that she really is trying to be nice. She's sort of like Effie Trinket, if you've ever read The Hunger Games. (That's the prissy, airheaded representative from the rich, dominating Capitol whose job is to lead the two main characters to a televised battle to the death.) She's insufferable at first, but given enough time to understand the gravity of the situation that she's never had to face, she becomes a little more sympathetic a few books into the series.

The obvious next step is thinking about how not to be a Mary, if/since being a Mary is that undesirable. (There's a perpetuation here that Leslie informed me of: In my worry to not be a Mary I'm becoming...more of a Mary. Sigh.) Since I've never dealt with Marys as a black person, I might look at the analogy of Effie. In the Hunger Games, there's really no good way you'd want anyone to treat you when they're leading you to the slaughter. Sympathy seems forced and stark optimism is just repulsive. Ignorance would be alienating, but at least you would know what to do with her.

I really have no good way to resolve this question. Partly it's not my question to answer, and partly everyone likes to be treated differently. Maybe someone would enjoy being around Mary. Maybe the narrator from Invisible Man (as he is in the first few chapters) might admire her. It's the difference between the Booker T Washingtons and the DuBoises of the world, the MLKS and the Malcolm X's: Is a white person's respect worth having? Is collaboration the key, or separatism?

I would love to be refuted in the comments. This is an issue I am far from authoritative on, and I would hate to be a Mary.

This is a New Blog

Translation: Rebirth of Assorted Bloggery III, featuring African-American Lit. And something about this dude named Mothra.
May this semester be filled with complicated discussions and extrapolous blog posts.

Libra Is A Conspiracy Theory

Libra is one big conspiracy theory. Yes, it's based in facts. But so are other theories. Yes, it's well-written. But so are (some) other theories. What makes Delillo more able to compose a narrative than Nicholas Branch? How can we trust a guy who's telling us we can't trust any narrative, especially one given to you by someone in power (aka, an author)?

I've struggled with this throughout Libra. We're told that 1) the Warren commission is widely distrusted, and 2) There's a strong possibility that fake evidence was planted by who-knows-who. If the Historic Diary wasn't written by Lee, why does Delillo depict him writing it? If Lee's mother later says (effectively) "What if he was replaced by someone else in Russia" why don't we laugh at her, because we were reading the book and we know he wasn't replaced? Libra occupies that space in between History and fiction that we've been talking about all semester, but it leads to some plot holes and cognitive dissonance in the story. We're told that we can't be sure of a narrative, yet we're fed a narrative (with filled-in characters like Win and Raymo) that is plausible, but no more proven than any other.

Since I want to make this a nice wrap-up blog, I'll connect this idea to a few other books we've read. What makes any of them any better than a series of tame, slightly-less-important conspiracy theories?

Slaughterhouse-Five: Sci-fi is taking a big conspiracy theory (there's this dude who can travel in time) and applying it to a reasonably familiar setting (WWII). Within that world, everything makes sense. But I somehow can't imagine someone getting a cult following about a poor, confused, undocumented guy who maybe traveled in time. Part of what makes Libra so interesting is that it's about mostly real people (and stand-ins for real people).

Ragtime: The little "bubbles in time" and slots where something could have concievably happened? Those are where conspiracy theories are born. Maybe Houdini crashed his car once. Not a very juicy conspiracy, but a plausible one. But some things (like the two Harries in identically named, but different prisons) are totally fudging the details without telling the reader, making it not even a fictionalized history but a close-to-history. Is there anything in Libra that's actually contrary to facts, not just made up? Let me know in the comments, because I can't think of any.

As others have said, this has been a fun class, if a lot of work. I'm excited to see where my meta, #postmodern reading ability will take me next.

Annal History: Why Libra proves it's hard to pull off

Remember way back at the beginning of the semester, when we talked about Postmodern history? We thought about the different ways to display it: incomplete annals, complete omniscient annals, large-scale narratives implying smaller themes, "textbook" "unbiased" storytelling, and drawing connections that might not have been there (as Doctorow did in Ragtime.) At this point we could add a few more ways to tell History As Fiction™: Mumbo Jumbo told history by making up stuff based off of real events in order to paint a picture of history showing the themes he wanted to highlight. Slaughterhouse Five threw in elements of science fiction to illustrate the effects of WWII, and made a whole alien race that challenged the typical narrative of war stories (and, well, human life in general.) Kindred told history as an engaging, plot-driven story while keeping everything "historically true" in the world of the book. And now we find Libra telling two stories of different types and 'fictionalities.'


Style-wise, the location-based Lee story in Libra is closer to the Kindred or Ragtime way of doing things. The people in the story are almost all real (more so than in Ragtime), and the stories and motivations of the real characters are fictionalized because they weren't recorded. However, as noted in class, the Lee storyline is based more on facts than the FBI storyline, which concerns real events but many fictionalized people (perhaps like Kindred or Slaugherhouse Five).


But I want to focus on annal history: In an Annal such as the Annals of Saint Gall ("Charles fought against the Saxons," etc) we're given very little information. A more complete "list of events" might include births, deaths, and marriages, but even that is leaving out details. Historians would love to have that record, but it wouldn't create a narrative for the town (which is, debatably, the point of history.) So then you ask your deity of choice for an annal describing the feuds of the town, such as "Geoffrey beat up Paul for kicking Duke Gottfried's elderly cat." That gives a reason, but is not the whole story. I did a blog post on this messy topic a while ago, but the basic gist is you can't describe one event in history without connecting it to a thousand other previous events-- related to the Butterfly effect.


Part of the reason Nicholas Branch (and everyone who has tried to unravel the JFK assassination mystery) has trouble is that there is too much information. Hundreds of pages of documents (read: a detailed, researched annal of the locations, descriptions, thoughts, actions, and backstories of all the people in Dallas that day) don't help if you have a) no way to synthesize them and b) possibly not all the information. This, of course, is straight out of that postmodern history discussion: An omnipotent-annal history could work, but practically is impossible; the proliferation of conspiracy theories prove that more information doesn't necessarily mean a more definite answer, especially when theories suggest that information was falsely planted.


TL;DR The Warren Report and other clouds of information surrounding the JFK assassination are a bunch of facts (assuming they're true, not planted, somehow don't contradict). With all the conspiracy theories surrounding the "facts," it doesn't make a good case for "more information = more accuracy."