РефератыИностранный языкThThe Narrator Essay Research Paper The narrator

The Narrator Essay Research Paper The narrator

The Narrator Essay, Research Paper


The narrator’s grandparents were freed slaves who believed they were


separate but equal after the Civil War. His grandfather lived a meek and quiet


life after being freed. However, on his deathbed, he tells the narrator’s father


that the lives of black Americans are a ‘war’ and that he himself feels like a


traitor. He counsels the narrator’s father to undermine the whites with ‘yeses’


and ‘grins.’ He advises his family to ‘agree ‘em to death and destruction.’ His


grandfather’s dying words haunt the narrator. He lives meekly, like his


grandfather. Like him, the narrator receives praise from the white members of


his town, but feels troubled that his grandfather branded such meekness as


treachery.


On his graduation day, he delivers a speech preaching humility and


submission as the key to the advancement of black Americans. The speech is


such a success that the town arranges to have him deliver it at a gathering of


the community’s leading white citizens. He arrives and is told to take part in


the ‘battle royal’ that figures as part of the evening’s entertainment. The


narrator and some of his classmates don boxing gloves and enter the ring. A


naked, blond, white woman with an American flag painted on her stomach


parades about as the white men demand that they look at her.


Afterwards, the white men blindfold the youths and order them to


viciously pummel one another. The narrator is defeated in the last round. After


they remove the blindfolds, the contestants are led to a rug covered with coins


and a few crumpled bills. They lunge for the money, only to discover that the


rug is electrified. The white men attempt to force the victims to fall face


forward onto the rug during the mad scramble.


While the narrator gives his speech, they all laugh and ignore him as he


quotes verbatim large sections of Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Exposition


Address.” In the midst of the amused, drunken requests that he repeat the


phrase ’social responsibility,’ the narrator accidentally says ’social equality.’


The white men angrily demand that he explain himself. He states that he made


a mistake. He finishes to uproarious applause. They award him a calfskin


briefcase. He is told to cherish it as a ‘badge of office’ because one day ‘it will


be filled with important papers that will shape the destiny’ of his people. He is


overjoyed to find a scholarship to the state college for black youth inside. He


does not even care when later he discovers that the gold coins from the


electrified rug are worthless brass tokens.


That night he has a dream of going to a circus with his grandfather who


refuses to laugh at the clowns. He instructs the narrator to open the briefcase.


Inside, the narrator finds an official envelope with a state seal. He opens it


only to find another envelope that contains another envelope. The last one


contains an engraved document reading: “To Whom It May Concern, Keep


This Nigger-Boy Running.” The narrator awakes with his grandfather’s


laughter ringing in his ears.


Analysis


The narrator’s grandfather intensifies the theme of ambiguity. He


confesses that he feels as though his meekness in the face of the South’s


enduring racist structure makes him a traitor. It is unclear whom he feels he


has betrayed: himself, his family, or his race. All his life, he had espoused faith


in the Jim Crow structure of equality with segregation, but on his deathbed he


rejects this faith. He advises his family to have two identities as a form of


self-protection. On the outside they should embody the stereotypical ‘good


slaves,’ behaving just as their former white masters wish, but they should


never fully believe in this identity. On the inside, they should retain their


bitterness and resentment against the imposed false identity. By following the


grandfather’s model, they can refuse to accept second-class status internally,


protect their own self-respect, and avoid betraying themselves.


The theme of subterfuge through masks will become increasingly


important later in the novel. A mask becomes a form of defense against the


aggressive and hostile onslaughts of others against the individual’s


self-concept. The grandfather’s advice can also indicate a form of resistance.


He tells his family to play the role of the ‘good slaves’ so well that it almost


becomes a parody. Excessive obedience to Southern whites’ expectations can


become disobedience. The grandfather wants his family to exploit to their


advantage the rift between how others perceive them and how they perceive


themselves.


The narrator believes that blind obedience will win him respect and


praise. The white men offer him success on one hand for obedience, but on


the other hand they use obedience to degrade him with the barbaric battle


royal. The boys are expected to accept blindness by wearing the blindfolds in


return for the dubious reward of false coins on an electrified rug. The white


men wear false masks of goodwill that barely conceal their real, racist


motives. They remain blind to their own brutish, drunken behavior by forcing


the boys to conform to the racial stereotype of the black man as a violent,


savage, over-sexed beast. The narrator has not yet learned to see behind the


surfaces of things. He believes that surface appearances are true only to


discover later that his ’sight’ failed him. The coins are false and the


innocuous-looking rug is electrified.


The narrator’s speech contains long quotations from Booker T.


Washington’s “Atlanta Exposition Address,” but he doesn’t actually name


Washington directly. Washington’s program for the advancement of black


Americans emphasized industrial education. He believed blacks should avoid


clamoring for political and civil rights and instead should put their energy


toward achieving economic success. The narrator’s grandfather lived by that


ideology only to recognize that it contained major limitations. Washington


hoped for racial equality through the assumption of the role of ‘the model


black citizen:’ “Work hard, but don’t draw attention to yourself by demanding


political and civil rights.” His philosophy could only go so far. The successful


black businessman was as vulnerable to racial prejudice as the poor,


uneducated sharecropper. He mistakenly believed economic success would


lead to freedom.


The narrator slips and says ’social equality’ while delivering his address.


Whereas the white men conceded some ‘benevolence’ to the narrator when


he embodied the ‘model black citizen,’ they show their true faces when he


slips. This turn reveals the limitations of Washington’s philosophy. The


narrator’s blind obedience to the ‘good slave’ role does not ‘free’ him from


racism. The moment he exhibits something like an individual opinion, the white


men demand that he return to the ‘good slave’ role. Retracting the verbal slip,


he does so, and they reward him with the briefcase and the scholarship. They


allow him to pursue social advancement, but only on their terms. They want


him to speak in such a way that affirms their belief in their natural superiority.


He is told to consider the briefcase a ‘badge of office.’ Ironically this ‘office’ is


that of the ‘good slave’ that they have forced him to play. The briefcase will


appear several times throughout the novel as a reminder of the bitter irony of


this speech.


The narrator has yet to tell the difference between espousing an


ideology and playing a role. His dream hints at his vague awareness of the real


meaning behind the incident. The scholarship is a gift with ambiguous


significance. On the surface it appears to symbolize the white men’s


benevolent generosity, but underneath it symbolizes their control over his


identity.


>


Invisible Man – Chapters 2-3


Summary


The narrator is fascinated by his recollection of the bronze statue of the


college Founder. He describes the statue as a ‘cold Father symbol’ with


‘empty eyes.’ At the end of his junior year, the narrator is assigned the task of


driving around Mr. Norton, one of the college’s white millionaire founders. He


innocently drives Norton beyond the campus to an area of ramshackle cabins


nearby. The cabins are left over slave quarters now inhabited by poor black


sharecroppers. Norton is intrigued by them, and the narrator immediately


regrets having driven him to this area since Jim Trueblood lives in one of them.


The college regards Trueblood with hatred and distrust because he has


committed incest with his now-pregnant daughter. Norton reacts with horror


when the narrator reveals this information, but he insists on speaking with


Trueblood.


Trueblood explains that he committed incest because he had a strange


dream, and he woke up while having sex with his daughter. Norton listens


with a morbid, voyeuristic fascination. Trueblood expresses wonder at the


fact that white people have showered him with more money and help than


ever before after he has broken the unspeakable taboo of incest. Norton,


shocked at the story, hands Trueblood a hundred dollar bill to buy toys for his


children. He gets back into the car in a daze and requests some whiskey to


calm his nerves.


The narrator, fearing that Norton might die from shock, drives to the


nearest tavern, the Golden Day, which also happens to be a brothel. When he


arrives, a group of mentally-disturbed war veterans are on leave for the


afternoon at the Golden Day. The proprietor refuses to sell take-out whiskey.


Some of the veterans help carry Norton inside as he has fallen unconscious.


Once they pour some whiskey down his throat, he begins to regain


consciousness. The attendant in charge of the veterans shouts down to ask


what the ruckus is about and a brawl ensues. Norton falls unconscious again,


and the narrator and one of the veterans carry him upstairs near the


prostitutes.


This particular veteran claims to be a doctor and a graduate of the


college. After Norton awakes, the veteran mocks his interest in the narrator


and the college. He claims that Norton must view the narrator as a mark on


his scorecard of achievement, not as a man; and similarly, the narrator must


not relate to Norton as a man either, but as a God or a ‘great white father.’ He


calls the narrator an automaton stricken with a blindness that makes him do


Norton’s bidding. He claims that the narrator’s blindness is Norton’s chief


asset. Norton becomes angry and demands that the narrator take him back to


the college. During the ride back, Norton remains completely silent.


Analysis


The theme of blindness continues with the description of the statue of


the Founder of the college. The statue does not really depict an individual, but


a ‘father symbol.’ It may appear that the Founder has made his mark on


history, but we never even learn his name. His individuality and his humanity


are lost. Only a cold, nameless bronze statue remains. The Founder’s


anonymity echoes the absence of Booker T. Washington’s name in the


narrator’s graduation speech after the battle royal even though the narrator


quotes verbatim large sections of his “Atlanta Exposition Address.”


Washington exercised an enormous political influence over race


relations, but even his name disappears from the history the narrator tells in his


speech. The Founder and Washington become doubles. Both men set out to


design a program for the advancement of black Americans. Both fought for


the right to higher education for black Americans and both are fervently


worshipped by their followers as ‘great visionaries.’ And sadly, both have


become invisible men since not even a record of their names exists in the


novel. The novel also reveals that they are stricken with blindness:


Washington’s program partook of the mistaken illusion that economic


advancement would equal ‘freedom’; while the Founder’s statue shows


‘empty’ eyes.


Just as the dubious rewards of the battle royal incite the narrator and


his classmates to turn on one another, the rewards of social advancement


offered by the college incite the students and faculty to turn their backs on one


of the least-empowered group of American blacks: the poor sharecropper. In


an attempt to conform to the role of the ‘model black citizen’ expected of


them by white trustees, they disown Trueblood for his incestuous act. Perhaps


this dividing influence echoes the grandfather’s statement that blindly


conforming to the ‘good slave’ role equals an act of treachery. Norton’s


character complicates the relationship between the black American


beneficiary of the wealthy, white benefactor’s generosity. His interest in the


college lies less in his genuine desire to improve the difficulties of black


Americans than in his own self-interest. He tells the narrator that he became


involved in the college because, “I felt . . . that your people were somehow


closely connected with my destiny.” He tells the narrator, “You are my fate.”


Norton remains most concerned with his own self-image; he doesn’t even


concede to the narrator the right to claim his fate as his own–instead, their


fates become one.


Norton feels most proud of his work with the college because it has


allowed him to be involved in ‘organizing human life.’ Rather than the students


being his fate, he is, in fact, the organizer of their common fate. He represents


the power of invisibility because despite his absence and distance, his power


allows him to become intimately involved in the lives of thousands of black


students who have never even seen him. There is a chilling undertone to his


words, “You are bound to a great dream and to a beautiful monument.” The


narrator believes the school offers him freedom, but in fact, he is bound to the


dreams and monuments of men like Norton. It becomes a kind of


imprisonment to which both Norton and the narrator are blind.


Norton’s reaction to the Trueblood story is also ironic. He enjoys a


distinct voyeuristic pleasure in Trueblood’s story. Norton’s relationship with


his own daughter suggests that Trueblood’s story allows him to live out


vicariously his own incestuous desires. Norton continually mentions his


daughter’s beauty and purity–at one point, he says, “I could never believe her


to be my own flesh and blood.” He pays Trueblood one hundred dollars for


describing the very sin he himself seems to have wa

nted to commit. He says


the money is meant for Trueblood’s children, but his generosity is tinged with


the same ambiguous significance, the same self-interest that marks his financial


support of the college. The veteran at the Golden Day tavern calls the narrator


an ‘automaton.’ This revives the problematic relationship between white


benefactor and black beneficiary. He directly verbalizes Norton’s narcissism


by stating that Norton sees the narrator as a mark on the scorecard of his


achievement. Neither Norton nor the narrator take kindly to having their


blindfolds removed. The narrator wishes to continue under the illusion that the


college is offering him the freedom to determine his own fate and identity.


However, the vet compares Norton’s position to an invisible puppet-master


pulling the strings and the students’ to that of dancing marionettes: the


blindness of one reinforces the blindness of the other. The vet is labeled


‘crazy’ for daring to see beneath the surface, and for telling the tale of what he


has seen.


>


Invisible Man – Chapters 4-6


Summary


Norton asks to be taken to his room and requests that Dr. Bledsoe, the


president of the college, come and see him. Dr. Bledsoe becomes furious


when the narrator informs him of the afternoon’s events. Bledsoe says he


should have known to show powerful white trustees only what the college


wants them to see. When Bledsoe arrives at Norton’s room, he orders the


narrator to leave and go attend the evening chapel service. Later, the narrator


receives a message that Bledsoe wants to speak with him in Norton’s room.


However, he arrives to find only Mr. Norton, who informs him that Bledsoe


had to leave suddenly, but that the narrator should see him after the evening


service. Norton says that he explained to Bledsoe that the narrator was not


responsible for what happened.


Reverend Barbee, a black man wearing dark glasses, speaks at the


chapel service. He tells the story of the Founder, a former slave born into


poverty, but with a precocious intelligence. The Founder was almost killed as


a child when a cousin splashed him with lye, ’shriveling his seed.’ After nine


days in a coma, he awoke as though he had ‘risen from the dead or had been


reborn.’ He taught himself how to read and later became a runaway slave. He


went North and pursued further education. After many years, he returned to


the South and founded the college to which he devoted the rest of his life’s


work. The sermon deeply moves the narrator. Barbee stumbles on the way


back to his chair, his glasses fall from his face, and the narrator catches a


glimpse of his sightless eyes–Barbee is blind.


The narrator meets with Bledsoe after the service. When he learns that


the narrator took Norton to the old slave quarters, the Golden Day and the


Trueblood cabin, Bledsoe becomes very angry. The narrator explains that


Norton ordered him to stop at the cabin. Bledsoe says that white people are


always giving orders, and that the narrator, having grown up in the South as a


black man, should know how to lie his way out of such orders. Bledsoe plans


to investigate both the veteran who mocked Norton and the college; he also


plans to expel the narrator. The narrator threatens to tell everyone that


Bledsoe lied to Norton about not punishing him. Bledsoe is shocked. He has


worked hard to achieve his position of power and doesn’t plan to lose it.


However, he tells the boy to go to New York for the summer and work to


earn his year’s tuition. He offers to send letters of recommendation to some of


the trustees to ensure that he gets work. If he does well, Bledsoe hints that he


will be able to return to school. The next day, the narrator retrieves seven


sealed letters and promises Bledsoe that he holds no resentment for his


punishment. Bledsoe praises his attitude, but the narrator remains haunted by


his grandfather’s prophetic dying words.


Analysis


Bledsoe is a master of masks. Imperious and commanding with the


narrator, he becomes conciliatory and servile with Norton. Bledsoe’s


infuriated response to the narrator’s explanation that he drove Norton to the


old slaves quarters simply because Norton had asked him to aggravates him


further: “Damn what he wants. We take these white folks where we want


them to go, we show them what we want them to see. Don’t you know that?”


The narrator is shocked to learn that the surface appearance of humble


servility is a mask under which Bledsoe manipulates and deceives powerful


white donors to his advantage. He is also shocked that Bledsoe thought he


knew this all along. However, the narrator has had blind faith in the ‘truth’ of


the surface appearance until now.


Moreover, Bledsoe has attempted to preserve the rich donors’


blindness to some aspects of the black experience in the South. He becomes


angry when he learns that the narrator has unwittingly removed the blindfold


from at least one of them. The narrator has disrupted the masquerade of the


‘model black citizen,’ and Bledsoe anxiously seeks to repair the damage. The


narrator’s own blindfold has been removed, and the knowledge he has gained


overwhelms him. He is branded a traitor to the college’s image, and he again


remembers his grandfather’s words: believing in the mask of meekness is


treachery. Bledsoe, echoing Booker T. Washington’s philosophy, practices


humility and preaches the virtue of humble contentment with one’s ‘place’ to


the students; but he has been living the grandfather’s advice and uses it as a


mask to his own advantage.


However, we find that Bledsoe uses his humility mask to dupe the


students as well the white donors. He uses the college and Washington’s


ideology for the preservation of his own position of power rather than for the


broad social progress for his people. While toying with an old leg shackle


from slavery, he explains the narrator’s expulsion by claiming that he has


become ‘dangerous to the college.’ Bledsoe calls the shackle a ’symbol of


progress.’ The narrator’s threat to expose Bledsoe’s double-dealing to Norton


and the rest of the college quickly changes Bledsoe’s manner. Bledsoe tells


the narrator that he has ‘played the nigger’ long and hard to get to his position


and he doesn’t plan to let one young, naive student vanquish his


accomplishments. Thus, we find evidence that that his concern for the


college’s image is really just a mask, a cover up of his selfish concern for his


image.


Bledsoe’s power depends on preventing the narrator from ripping his


mask off and exposing his duplicity. He tells the boy to go to New York for


the summer, and suggests that he might be allowed to return to school in the


fall. It will become clear later that the narrator has still not learned to see


beneath the surface; he trusts Bledsoe and overlooks his , propensity for


double-dealing precisely when he should most remember it. The narrator’s


grandfather advised his family to use masks as a form of self-defense and


resistance against racist white power, but Bledsoe uses it as a weapon against


members of his own race. Moreover, he uses it to achieve an influential


position within the white-dominated power structure rather than as a means to


dismantle it, ultimately revealing the limitations of the grandfather’s philosophy.


Reverend Barbee’s sermon on the Founder develops this theme further.


Every student is expected to attend this service and receive a peculiar


‘education.’ Rather than teaching the students to take advantage of invisibility


through masks like Bledsoe, the sermon reinforces blind faith and allegiance to


the college’s and Bledsoe’s outward philosophy. The sermon treats the


Founder like a god of sorts, whose ideology should be trusted completely like


a religion. The sermon implies that his ideology and his life represent a


universal example that should be followed blindly rather than skillfully


manipulated, as in Bledsoe’s case.


Even the Founder himself, the figure head of the college’s power and


glory, is castrated. In childhood, a cousin threw lye on him and ’shriveled his


seed.’ If the Founder himself is sterile, how can his vision and his legacy be


fertile? His legacy’s ‘offspring’ are a blind preacher, the double-dealing


Bledsoe, and a narcissistic Boston philanthropist who refuses to admit his own


incestuous attraction to his deceased daughter. The Founder’s ‘re-birth’


signifies a form of death: his name is lost to history; and he becomes an empty


symbol manipulated by men like Bledsoe to preserve the blindness of others.


The reverent sermon revives the narrator’s blind love and devotion to the


college and to its program; however, this devotion prompts the narrator to


blindly accept a rotten deal with Bledsoe. Bledsoe’s shackle becomes a


symbol of continuing enslavement to multiple forms of blindness.


>


Invisible Man – Chapters 7-9


Summary


On the bus to New York, the narrator encounters the veteran who


mocked Norton and the college. Bledsoe has arranged to have him


transferred to a psychiatric facility in Washington D.C. The narrator doesn’t


believe Bledsoe could have anything to do with it, but the veteran winks and


tells him to learn to see under the surface of things. He tells the narrator to


hide himself from white people, from authority, from the ‘big man who’s never


there’ but is always ‘pulling his strings.’ Crenshaw, the veteran’s attendant, tells


him that he talks too much. The veteran replies that he verbalizes things that


most men only feel. Before he transfers to another bus, the veteran advises the


narrator, “Be your own father.” The narrator arrives in New York and is


astonished to see a black officer directing white drivers in the street. He sees


a gathering on a sidewalk in Harlem. A man is giving a speech about ‘chasing


them out’ in a West Indian accent. The narrator feels as though a riot could


erupt at any minute. He has seen Ras the Exhorter giving a speech. He quickly


finds a place called the Men’s House and takes a room.


Over the next few days, the narrator delivers all of his letters except


one addressed to Mr. Emerson. After a week, he receives no responses. He


tries to reach the trustees by phone only to receive polite refusals from their


secretaries. His money is beginning to run out, and he entertains vague doubts


about Bledsoe.


The narrator sets out to deliver his last letter and meets a jive-talking


man named Peter Wheatstraw who recognizes his southern roots. He tells the


narrator that Harlem is nothing but a bear’s den, reminding the narrator of the


stories of Jack the Rabbi t and Jack the Bear. He stops for breakfast at a deli.


The waiter says he looks like he’d enjoy the special: pork chops, grits, eggs,


hot biscuits, and coffee. Insulted, the narrator orders orange juice, toast, and


coffee.


The narrator arrives at Mr. Emerson’s office. He meets Mr. Emerson’s


son, a nervous little man. Emerson leaves with the letter only to return with a


vaguely disturbed expression, chattering about his ‘analyst’ and ’some things


being too unjust for words .’ Finally, Emerson allows the narrator to read the


letter: Bledsoe has told each of the addressees that the narrator was


permanently expelled and had to be sent away under false pretenses to


protect the college; he never intended for the narrator to di scover the finality


of his expulsion. Emerson says that his father is a strict, unforgiving man and


will not help him, but he offers to get the narrator a job at the Liberty Paints


plants. That narrator leaves the office full of anger and a desire for r evenge.


He imagines Bledsoe requesting that Mr. Emerson ‘hope the bearer of this


letter to death and keep him running.’ He calls the plant for a job and is told to


report to work the next morning.


Analysis


The reigning ideology in the South for the advancement of black


Americans is that of Booker T. Washington and the college. Both white and


black Southerners practice this ideology. At the Golden Day, the veteran


succinctly pointed out the blindness and en slavement that this ideology entails,


and Bledsoe ‘expels’ him from the South just as he expels the narrator. Unlike


the narrator, however, the veteran has wanted a transfer for years. His


defiance of the masquerade through ‘free speech’ earns him the ‘ freedom’ he


has wanted, but that of course becomes an ironic victory. His trip North leads


only to further confinement in another asylum in the capitol of a nation


purportedly founded on the principles of freedom.


The veteran tries to clarify the power system for the narrator. He tells


the boy to lose his blindness and see under surface appearances because


power works most efficiently when invisible, hidden behind deceptive masks.


The veteran revives the doll met aphor with the image of important men pulling


strings. Those controlling the narrator’s life remain invisible, hidden behind


masks. Pulling his strings, they treat him like an object, not a person.


However, the veteran ascribes the phrase ‘the big man who’s never there’ to


powerful whites. He fails to recognize the manner in which black men like


Bledsoe use this form of power against other black Americans. Ultimately,


Bledsoe himself may remain blind to his own role as a mask behind which


white power and influence can operate and propagate. He uses the same


deceptive means to achieve power. However, as we noted in the last section,


rather than dismantling the white-dominated power structure, he reinforces


and reproduces it.


The veteran represents an old literary trope: the fool. By exploiting the


ambiguity of his comic and tragic role, he defines his version of the truth; and


his fool’s mask allows him to speak openly with fewer consequences.


However, his ambiguous banter keeps the reader unsure of his seriousness.


For instance, when he advises the narrator to be his ‘own father’ before


leaving the bus, he is actually offering his own ‘fatherly advice.’ He is telling the


narrator to define his own identity, while simult aneously defining it for him.


The narrator is on an archetypal journey. Like thousands of black


Americans, he joins the Great Migration North looking for freedom. He


marvels at the variety and vibrancy of Harlem. He sees Ras making an


inflammatory speech in the street calling the b lack Harlem residents to drive


out the whites,

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