Invisible Man Ramblings
Why is it that Ellison chose to have the narrator
reveal the truth of the story at the very end? Well I figure it’s because it’s
not supposed to be a great revelation, the narrator’s actually showed us the
whole time. I think what makes this novel particularly interesting after
reading “Native Son” is the contrast between third and first person. Unlike “Native
Son” the narrator chooses specific moments to share with the reader. Like Mr.
Mitchell said in class, the narrator writes with an audience in mind. To me
that means his accumulative revelations that he shows us are meant to be seen
through a lens of current understanding. That might not make sense right away
but here’s what I’m trying to say. The story is a first person frame narrative,
so there are two layers. In the lens most zoomed in we are just following the
narrators actions. In the second lens, we see the big picture. It’s in the
second lens that we are meant to view the story because the narrator is
training us as reader to view how seemingly random moments are interrelated.
Only
there aren’t just two lenses, there’s another that we knew was there from the
beginning, the one in which the narrator introduces himself “I am an invisible
man.” It’s the lens of satire. This is the lens in which the narrator transcends
any boundaries. This part of the narrator is there throughout the story. Blatantly
in the prologue and epilogue where he talks about things that we don’t yet
understand, but also more discretely in every moment. The satire is in the way
he tells the story, it’s in the specific moments he has chosen to share with
the reader to better understand his experience. Think to yourself: why is it
that the narrator depicts the scene with bird poop? Does it really add to the
story or is that the satirical voice from the narrator?
Lenses aside you have to
keep in mind that this is just a book meant for a wider audience. And a widespread
message is easy to ignore. “Invisible Man” does a good job with the book ends
to make it more personal. This satirical voice that speaks directly to us is
very personal, which is why the impact is strong with the last line: “Who knows
but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”
You bring up a really interesting point, which has led me to consider how different this novel may have been without the prologue. We would be without this "second lens" and would be restrained by the young narrator's naiveté. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI think there's a whole other lens that the narrator does not discover until the end of the book. That is, the narrator starts looking at everything with a whole new lens through the process of writing the book. That lens is the one you see in the epilogue, where the narrator seems less isolated than in the prologue, and has seemed to gain an understanding that everyone else besides him is also invisible. This lens is even more important than the satire in my opinion because it shows the power of stepping back for any amount of time and re-evaluating your life. In this case, the narrator realizes that everyone, not just other people, sees everyone else as they want to, not as they are.
ReplyDeleteI find your model of the multiple lenses to be really interesting. The feeling that every chapter we see in the book is cherry picked by the prologue narrator as a part of his frame narrative is something I forgot as a reader after getting engaged into the book. I feel like the single-line almost casual reveal at the end is meant to show the reader that we've been developing out own view of invisibility throughout the novel in parallel with the narrator, and the one line is just supposed to converge our stream of thought with the narrator's to make it obvious to us that all along we've been learning from the narrator's experiences just as much as he has.
ReplyDeleteI find this very interesting. It's so true that the narrator is sort of able to edit the footage he's sending out, even adding some special effects to feel the disillusionment he felt. Meanwhile, Native Son is closer to a found-footage film where the camera can't turn away, even if everyone would much rather it did.
ReplyDeleteThis blog post made me rethink the novel in a new way. Perhaps because we had been reading the novel with those "tinted glasses" the whole time, we never noticed it. I can definitely think of moments where it seems like the narrator is deliberately making fun of a situation and exaggerating details to make it more ironic.
ReplyDeleteI think this view is very unique and something I was not thinking of when I was reading the novel. I think it is very correct that the things that we were reading might actually of been filtered through. I can totally see how Native son is actually more raw, but invisible man still makes one heck a of statement. I think It really puts another light on this novel. Perhaps needing a second reading with this in mind would be different with this in mind.
ReplyDelete