In chapter 23, the narrator is wondering the streets and uses glasses and a hat as a disguise. After putting the glasses away, he remarks that his “pocket was getting overloaded” (489). He describes that the pocket was being filled with the “leg chain and Clifton’s doll” (489). This line stuck out to me because all three of these objects carry such deep emotional significance. I interpreted them to represent three different levels of freedom (and racism) that he has experienced. However, the pocket serves to conceal them from others. These objects are a physical and emotional burden just like the bank earlier in the book.
The first thing he received while at the brotherhood was the ankle chain from Tarp. This represents maximum physical racial repression that he endured with a weight chained to his leg. The narrator has not experienced something this brutal, but his emotional connection--including a sense of protection--to what it represents is evident (did I use the em dash correctly?). There is clearly no free represented here. The second item is the doll that Clifton was selling before he got shot. This dolls, as discussed in class, carries many metaphors including a parallel to his work in the brotherhood as being controlled by invisible strings. This character demonstrates a little more freedom, and even appears to dance. However its brutal racism is still blatant. The most recent item to be added to his picket are the glasses that he is using as a disguise on the street. These glasses go beyond disguise, however; the narrator begins to realize that they provide to him the power of invisibility. He immediately is recognized as a man who is succeeding at being invisible. This invisibility, not yet clearly defined by the narrator, is very hard to pin down, but the role of theses glasses give the reader some indication in this chapter. The invisibility gained by donning the glasses is far beyond that represented by the other objects. The narrator carries all of these parts of him everywhere he goes and he is starting to become “overloaded” (489).
I really like how you connect these three items of the Narrator's, and describe them as different "levels" of the limited forms of "freedom" the Narrator has experienced in his life. He carries them with him everywhere because they are emotionally valuable to them, and because they serve as constant reminders of the illusions he has been under in the past. The leg chain reminds him of his past-- of slavery, and his time in college under Bledsoe, who had his own chain link-- and the dancing doll reminds him of his time in the Brotherhood. Following this line of thinking, I wonder if his glasses/ invisibility symbolize true freedom, or if they are part of yet another illusion the Narrator is under that he must overcome. Is invisibility really freedom? Especially since this "freedom" the Narrator possesses is because everyone believes him to be Rinehart.
ReplyDeleteThis idea of "is he really free" by taking his grandfather's advice and undermining the system with "yessuhs" (symbolized by the glasses)--by being invisible is challenged in the scene with Sybil. Here, he is now (well, he thinks) disillusioned with the Brotherhood and is seducing Sybil for the purpose of undermining them. However, like when he was with the other white woman, or when he saw the dancing Sambo that Clifton was selling, he is once again made into this Sambo, this black brute, for the sake of white people. Even though he is supposedly undermining the Brotherhood, it seems as though nothing has changed, he has lost his dignity by becoming this savage for Sybil. This reminds me a lot of Bledsoe, and the question of his power and freedom. On one hand, he has a lot of influence, but he is constantly having to put on this mask. There are benefits to invisibility, but it is a dangerous thing to keep up.
DeleteI think that the glasses symbolize more freedom than the chain link or the doll because they allow him to transform himself into another person, which can be a powerful trick to have up his sleeve. He can make other people see him as either himself or as Rinehart and that is a freedom. However, there is a limit to that freedom because he still has no control over how people treat him as either identity, which is something that applies to everyone in the real world. You can try to influence how people treat you, which is what the narrator does by pretending to be Rinehart, but you can't completely control it and how their actions affect you.
ReplyDeleteThere's a typically Ellisonian paradox in the dark glasses--they magically conceal his identity, making him effectively "invisible" (or *differently* invisible than he'd already been?) to his pursuers, but they also shade and blur his own vision. So somehow his invisibility is connected to his own figurative blindness.
ReplyDelete(And yes, an exquisite deployment of the em-dash! Well done, sir.)
I think that what he carries represents part of the history of African Americans in America. The chain link represents their oppression during the time of slavery. The doll represents white society's image of them during reconstruction, after slavery. And finally, the glasses represent the fake personalities they must take in order to survive in the mid1900s society.
ReplyDeleteNice post! One thing I think is interesting about the glasses/ how he feels when he's in the glasses is that after that moment, he promises himself that he will no longer be invisible to himself. I definitely see how our narrator is invisible to others -- and even able to take on other roles -- but what does invisibility to the self look like? I think everyone is invisible to them self in some ways, so this chapter got me thinking about self awareness, and how that's important in our narrator's life.
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