Invisible Man Chapter 1

I was planning to make my next Invisible Man blog about the rest of the prologue that I didn’t cover but I decided to skip ahead to Chapter one. Chapter one brings up many interesting themes that I think will be increasingly relevant as the novel progresses. Firstly, just like in Hamlet, we see the theme of seeming and “is’ing”/being. Seeming is what you appear to be on the outside. This is what others see or what they think they see. On the other hand, “being” is what you actually are. The old man tells the narrator that he has committed treachery when he gave up his gun in Reconstruction. In doing so, he gave up his ability to fight for the rights of blacks which meant he ultimately sided with the whites. He tells the narrator “I want you to keep up the up the good fight” but in a different, not with guns and fighting.  The narrator’s grandfather tells him to “Live 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 till they vomit or bust wide open”. In other words, his grandfather wants the narrator to seem to be happy with the whites. Pretend like you agree and that you want to be obedient.  However deep down he wants the narrator to remember that white people are his enemy. In doing so he can work against the whites while appearing not to be. This idea reminds me of Polonius’s famous line from Hamlet in Act I scene iii, “This above all: to thine ownself be true” because the narrator must always remember to put his own intentions before the whites.

Hamlet’s relationship with his father parallels the narrators relationship with his grandfather. They are both given tasks to carry out even after the death of the person who ordered it to them. I also found it interesting that the narrator also viewed his task as a curse like Hamlet does.  

"Oh No" by Robert Creeley

If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit

for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.

~Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley in his poem, “Oh No”, portrays the dangers of being trapped by a society that institutionalizes his citizens.  The people of such a society go out in search of a better life until they end up in a tedious job that they must maintain in order to keep up with the rest of society. As a result, they end up in a nine to five job that they go to five days a week. Eventually they end up living to work rather than working while living. The first two lines, “if you wander far enough / you will come to it” describes an innocent journey into the unknown.  People leave home or their hometown in search of a bigger life or something similar to the American dream. The word “wander” implies that those who come here are lost and don’t intentionally come here or that these people don’t know exactly where they going.  What and where “it” is not explained which makes the place appear very mysterious. I think Creeley does so to suggest that the wanders, like the readers, also don’t know what it is and unknowingly find themselves in it.  However “it” seems like a very nice place at first. They  are given a place to sit which represents the new luxuries that these people are able to afford. The chair is “for yourself only” because you are working for your own benefit, not the benefit of society as a whole. It seems great because “all of your friends will be there” so you feel safe and in communion with them. You guys are all there for the same reason which is comforting. The “smiles on their faces” suggests that they are happy to see you and happy to be there. In what appears to be a Utopian society, everyone is happy and has a place or way they can contribute to society.

However the title of the poem suggests otherwise, that this is not a Utopian society; something is wrong. The phrase “Oh No” implies that there is a sudden realization that there is something wrong. In reality, society has lured these people by promises of money, opportunities, and other luxuries to wander into their chair, or place in society. But this is a society based on the ideal of survival of the fittest and you must fight for the things society has promised.  And though “your friends will be there”, they are not your friends in this context. Just like you, they are fighting for the luxuries that society as promised. Rather than happy smiles, they wear deceitful smiles because though they appear to be your friend, they will be willing to throw you under the bus in order to help themselves in society. Now you all have places. However society has not done you a favor by giving you a place to seat. Your seat is what traps you and now you can’t get up. You have now been trapped in a tedious lifestyle that no longer benefits you, but the society that lured you there. 

Invisible Man Prologue

From very early on I could tell Invisible Man was going to be a very insightful book. The narrator introduces himself as an invisible but unlike the scientists from H.G. Well’s Invisible Man, the narrator of Ellison’s version isn't actually physically transparent. Instead, he is invisible because people “refuse” to see him for who he actually is. I marked this in my book because I think it is important to note that people chooses not to “see” him. One way people do this is that they see him through a stereotype that they think he fits into instead of for him as an individual. As a result they don’t see him, they see the stereotype. They judge him based on his surroundings and they don’t look at him as an individual “it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surrounding, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me”.   They see what they want to see and not what is in reality there. This brings up the idea of illusion vs reality. People choose the illusion that they want to see and “refuse” the reality of what is there. From the prologue it is apparent that the book will touch on some existentialist ideas.

I thought it was interesting that the narrator doesn’t believe his invisibility to be a bad thing, “I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves” ,and he even goes on to say later, “I myself, after existing some twenty years, did not become alive until I discovered my invisibility”. So does one want to be invisible? I don’t think the narrator necessarily wants to be invisible, but he accepts that he is invisible. See other people “refuse” to see him; it is there blindness that makes him invisible and not is inability to be seen. He knows that he can’t make himself be seen if others don’t want to see him and as a result he tries to remain invisible “I remember that I am invisible and walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers”.

My favorite scene in the book so far is when he nearly kills a man that he “bumped” into. The man is like a sleepwalker who the narrator rouses when he bumps into him. However as a sleepwalker, the man is still sleeping/ dreaming and thus still sees the world through the illusion of the dream rather the reality of what’s there.  The narrator realizes this before he is about to slit the man’s throat and he stops himself and lets the man live, “it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually; that he as far as he knew, was in the midst of a walking nightmare”.   Here we see the dangers of when reality and illusion mix together.

There is so much more to analyze in the prologue. However I will leave that for another discussion or blog. 

King Hamlet's Ghost

                Many of the early scenes revolve around the ghost. The guards are frantic and become hysterical when they discover that it is the ghost of King Hamlet. However the ghost’s relevance surpasses just what it does and mainly resides in what it represents.  Firstly the ghost represents the disorder that has befallen Denmark. King Hamlet is murdered by his own brother Claudius who forms an “incestuous marriage” with King Hamlet’s wife.  As a result the current aristocracy has been built upon a throne of disorder.  Now there is a ghost to fully bring home that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Denmark has become like a rotten apple that appears fresh from the outside. Denmark tries to “seem” like they have everything in control to other nations while in actually they are falling apart from the inside.  King Hamlet was murdered and thus unready for death so he ghost continues to walk the Earth. The dead are supposed to stay dead. The fact that the spirit of a dead person can roam and interact with the living exemplifies this chaos which is so bad that it not only affects the world of the living, but the realm of the dead.  

                

More importantly the ghost represents what Hamlet might have been looking for since the marriage of his uncle and his mom, a reason to further justify his detest for them and to take action.  He was already unhappy that Gertrude and Claudius were able to so easily get over the death of his father. He knew something was array but in his current position he was unable and didn’t have just cause to do anything about. Now the ghost of his father has come to him and tells him that he was murdered by Claudius and that he wants Hamlet himself to avenge him.  Like the God that Hamlet idolizes him to be, King Hamlet comes and gives Hamlet divine like instructions to bring order to Denmark. And like a orthodox follower of a religion, Hamlet swears to not be distracted by any other “baser matter”.  King Hamlet and Hamlet are shown to have more of God to religious follower relationship than a father- son relationship. This connects back to Act I scene ii when Hamlet refers to his father as the Sun God. I think this is why it becomes a burden for him to carry out his father’s wishes because he feels like it something a god has chosen him to do and thus it is something that he must do as he says “O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right”. It becomes his “duty” which is a recurring theme. This task becomes so important to him that it appears to drive him mad. Though we know he is likely acting/seeming mad initially as he says “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on”, I wonder if eventually might be driven mad by his burden as the tragic hero.