Essay 2 idea

For my Essay 2, I am focusing on Alain Locke’s "New Negro". In the article, “Alain Locke and Community”, Leonard Harris argues that “ Locke’s ethical and conceptual paradox is resolved by considering the relationship between instincts and particular social groups as asymmetrical”(239). Conversely, in his article, “Alain Locke: Ambivalence and Hope”, Mark Helbling argues “Locke seeks to locate at the root of individual perception and evaluation elemental states of feelings common to mankind. Thus is the subjective universe of human meaning seen to have an underlying coherence and order”(295). Helbling and Harris have opposing views. According to the OED, the word asymmetrical means, “Not symmetrical, out of proportion, with the parts not arranged correspondingly.” He argues that social groups and their instincts don’t match, and therefore there cannot be a sense of “coherence and order” like Helbling argues. According to the OED, the word coherence means “The action or fact of cleaving or sticking together; cohesion.” He argues that Locke writes about a cohesive mankind, while Harris advocates for an unmatched society and instincts. 

Essay #2 Idea

After doing some pretty extensive research on Huddie Ledbetter (a.k.a. Lead Belly), I’ve not only been captivated by his unbelievable output (an estimated five hundred songs in his life) and the dramatic true story of his life, but I’ve also noticed a very clear connection between Lead Belly and the protagonists of the last two novels we’ve read: Invisible Man and Native Son. 

I plan to start the essay with a biography that runs along the same lines as my blog post earlier this week. Beginning by running through his early life in the South, I’ll briefly trace the path that brought him up to the North, which, consequently, resulted in his exposure to the Communist Party and the general public as an audience.  He made it North by becoming a driver for the legendary anthropologist John Lomax (father of Alan Lomax). 

To connect Lead Belly to both the IM and Bigger, I want to take different details of Lead Belly’s life and connect them to major events and happenings in Invisible Man and Native Son.  They share Southern origins, a sojourn to the North, the “help” of white communists (who they have much trouble actually understanding or relating to).  

I also plan to connect some of Ellisons’ passages about music via close reading, along with the lyrics to Lead Belly’s song “Bourgeois Blues,” and, “Good Morning Blues.”  Lead Belly also was a “public speaker” in a sense. He wrote many campaign songs for candidates (“He Is the Man” for Wendell Wilkie) and several songs relating to American politics and foreign policy (“We’re Gonna Tear Hitler Down,” “National Defense Blues”).  

Essentially, Lead Belly’s life and endeavors complement quiet nicely both the Invisible Man and Bigger and I think there are substantial passages to close read both in his songs and passages from the novel.

Recitatif & Race

Toni Morrison’s Recitatif is a short story depicting the lives of two girls, Twyla and Roberta who initially meet in an orphanage, St. Bonaventure.  Each of their moms had decided that they could not take care of their daughter, one because her mother was sick, the other because her mom, “danced all night” (996). While Morrison doesn’t explicitly tell the reader about the color difference, she instead uses vivid imagery to show the reader that Twyla is black and Roberta black.  While at St. Bonny’s the girls get a visit from their mothers and yet again very strong imagery is used to show the difference between the two girls and their mothers. Using clothing as a separating factor Morrison writes, “she had on those green slacks I hated and hated even more now because didn’t she know we were going to chapel? And that fur jacket with the pocket linings so ripped she had to pull to get her hands out of them (998).” In addition she shows that Roberta’s mother refused to shake hands with a black woman, “Mary, simple-minded as ever, grinned and tried to yank her hand out of the pocket with the raggedy lining—to shake hands…Roberta’s mother looked down at me and then looked down at Mary too…and stepped out of line (999).”

The girl’s second encounter was years later after they both had grown up some. While Twyla was, “working behind the counter at the Howard Johnson,” Roberta was waiting in the lobby to be checked into a room.  Here the reader begins to see the difference between the two girls as Twyla didn’t know who Jimi Hendrix was and was called an “asshole” for not knowing (1001).

Their next encounter was at a new grocery store where they are finally able to sit down and talk, unlike their previous encounter. Morrison informs the reader that they are both now married and have children. Showing the difference in status, Morrison writes that Twyla’s husband James was a fireman and Roberta’s husband did so well that she had a driver and a “dark blue limousine” (1003). During this encounter both women share past memories however Twyla is upset by some of the memories Roberta recalled that she does not remember.

The final two encounters are very different however both continue to show the difference in the two women. In one scene both women are found picketing on separate sides for and against forced integration where Roberta says, “Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you’re not. You’re the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground. You kicked a black lady and you have the nerve to call me a bigot (1006).” Here we see racial tensions rise and it also shows Roberta’s true feelings about Twyla. In addition in the final encounter and close of the book, we see that while Twyla is simply out shopping for a last minute Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, while Roberta is just leaving a party where “men were dressed in tails and the women had on furs…shiny things glittered from underneath their coats,” further showing the differences between the two characters.

The title, Recitatif culminates the entire story but also stems from the word recitative which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “a style of music declamation intermediate between singing and ordinary speech, used esp. in the dialogue and narrative parts of an opera or oratorio (Definition 1).” In addition it can also be defined as, “a musical part or passage (intended to be) delivered in recitative; a piece of music that accompanies such a part or passage” (definition 3a). These two definitions show the interworking’s of this story and the lives of the characters.  It depicts the idea that each of the 5 encounters that Twyla and Roberta had were each different from each other but are brought back together at the end to form one work.

1.     What in the story helped you differentiate the two main characters? What were the hints & clues?

2.     Have you experienced a situation like that of Twyla and Roberta’s mothers?

3.     What role does Maggie play in the story? Why is she important?

4.     Is race important in today’s society?

How "Bigger" Was Born

       Richard Wright's How “Bigger” Was Born, depicts how Wright came up with the character Bigger Thomas. Throughout his childhood and most of his adult life Wright has come face to face with many “Bigger Thomases”. He tells us about 5 “Biggers” that he encounters throughout this childhood. All of whom are rebellious, un law abiding citzens, who's personality you can see clearly in the Bigger Thomas character in the book Native Son. Bigger 1 was bascially a bully, who would come and snatch up Wrights and his friends toys and refuse to give them back to them. “The only way he would give them back is if they flattered him and made him feel superior to him. Then if he felt like it, he would throw them at them and then give each of them a swift kick in the bargain (Wright 435)”. Bigger 2, was about 17 and tougher than the first Bigger. His hardness wan't directed towards Wright or any negroes but towards the whites who ruled the south. He would buy food and clothes on credit and never pay it back and he lived in the dingy sacks of the white land lords and never paid rent. When asked why he acted the way he did he would reply, “that the white folks has everything and he had nothing. Further he would tell us that we were fools not to get what we wanted while we were alive in this world” (435). Bigger 3, was refered to the “bad nigger” by the white folks. Once Wright was a ticket taker at a movie theater and Bigger would never pay to get in, but would come up to Wright, pinch him, and walk straight into the movie. He was later killed during the prohibition days; while delivering liquor to a customer he was shot in the back by a cop. Bigger 4, didn't like to follow Jim Crow laws. He would taunt and laugh at the laws and was real rebellious towards them. He ended up in a asylum for the insane. Lastly, Bigger 5 who always rode the Jim Crow street cars without paying and sat where he pleased, was more rebellious than the fourth Bigger and not only were the negroes afraid of him, so were the white folks. In an incident involving Bigger and a Jim Crow street car, a group of rowdy white men even stated, “That's that Bigger Thomas nigger and you'd better leave him alone (436).” All the Bigger Thomas that Wright has encountered throughout his life all ccontribute to the Native Son's Bigger Thomas.

      Wright states that after the negroes were freed that left the whites outnumber by in these areas. “Hence a fierce and bitter struggle took place to keep the ballot from the negro, for if he had a chance to vote, he would have automatically controlled the richest lands of the South and with them the social, political, and economic destiny of a third of the republic” (438)On page 438, in How Bigger Was Born, Wright addresses the reason for black Disfranchisement in the South. According to the OED, disfranchisement means, “ deprivation of the priveleges of a free citizen, especially that of voting at the election of members of the legislature” (OED, n, disfranchisement)”. The White Negro decided to limit the amount of education his black neighbor could receive; decided to keep him off the police force and out of the local national guards, to segregate him residentally; to Jim Crow him in public places; to restrict his participation in the professions and jobs; and to build up a vast, dense ideology of racial superiority that would justify any act of violence taken against him to defend white dominance; and further, to condition him to hope for little without rebelling”(438). This passage can be compared to the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave, because in that novel the white man too tried to leave the negroes ignorant, didn't want them to be educated and didn't want them to feel controlled by them.

Richard Wright “I made the Discovery that Bigger Thomas was not black all the time; he was white too, and there were literally millions of them of him, everywhere” (439)

Discussion Question

1. What is your definition of a "Bigger Thomas"?
2. Have you ever came across a Bigger Thomas. Do you know a Bigger Thomas or know of one?

3. Going back to a question that's been asked, now with the exception on the Jim Crow Period, do you still blame bigger for his actions in A Native Son?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoF6u_68TDk

Slowbama

I also thought you guys might enjoy this.

The King of the Twelve String

As much a folk legend as he was a ground-breaking American musician, Huddie Leadbetter captivated depression-era America with his antics, brought the traditional songs of an oppressed people into the public sphere, and influenced generations of musicians to come.

Born in 1888, William Leadbetter was recognized for his strong voice and musicianship long before touring the country with famous anthropologist John Lomax.  Huddie began performing as child and continued until the day he died. His first instrument was the accordion; however, his paradigm was the twelve string guitar, which he learned while performing with the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1912.  Even in 1912, Lead Belly was already addressing race issues, specifically with his song "The Titanic" (which was coincidentally the first song he ever wrote on the twelve string).  Famous boxer Jack Johnson was denied passage onto a ship (although not ACTUALLY the Titanic) because he was black.  When Lead Belly performed for white audiences, he had to leave out the line, "Jack Johnson tried to get on board. The Captain, he says, 'I ain't haulin' no coal!' Fare thee, Titanic! Fare thee well!" 


Music was the lifeblood of Lead Belly and wherever he found himself, he was singing and playing about it. After marrying and fathering two children at the age of twenty, he left his family in search of life as a musician. Throughout his life Lead Belly constantly found himself in trouble with the law, landing prison time on several occasions. He didn't let this hinder his music, however. In 1925, during his second prison term in Sugar Land, he was pardoned after the minimum seven years of his 7-35 year sentence.  His pardon is widely recognized to have been due to his Sunday afternoon performances for the then-governer Pat Morris Neff, for whom he also wrote a song as an appeal to pardon him.  He again used his music to get him out from behind bars, with help from his new friend John Lomax.  Upon release in 1934, Lead Belly was unable to find a job (due to the fierce effects of the depression) and became a driver for Lomax as he collected field recordings and gave lectures.  


While traveling with Lomax, Lead Belly's music was exposed the American public, who received it with open arms.  Along with recording for several record labels (Columbia, Folkways, the Smithsonian Archives, and several more), Lead Belly performed before Lomax's records, and was even featured in one of the first filmed episodes of "March of Time." Although his portrayal in the newsreel is blatantly racist, implying a master/servant relationship between Lomax and Lead Belly (who both play themselves). *Interesting fact---Lead Belly wears a bandana in this film to cover up a gnarly scar on his neck he received when stabbed in a fight while in prison.

Ultimately, Lead Belly had a widely popular musical career full of inflationary legends and characterized by a lack of financial success.  Lead Belly's final performance was actually on campus at the University of Texas for an event honoring John Lomax.

Lead Belly, I believe, is a good representation of the archetypal "Bigger" of which Richard Wright wrote. His uncontrollable temper, his inescapable "blackness" (as seen in the March of Time reel and in his time magazine headline that read 'Lead Belly - Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel'), and his roots in the South.  Ironically, Lead Belly was actually a good friend of Wright's, although he was never a communist sympathizer.  The legend of Huddie Leadbetter is bottomless and deserves more than a blog post; but hopefully I've given a historic and cultural context and made a textual connection between Lead Belly and Richard Wrights' Bigger. 

Bigger's New Outlook, 97-119

Bad example: Use italics (preferred) or underline to designate the titles of books or films.

Bigger at breakfast:

"Bigger sat at the table and waited for food. Maybe this would be the last time he would eat here. He felt it keenly and it helped him to have patience. Maybe some day he would be eating in jail. Here he was sitting with them and they did not know that he had murdered a white girl and cut her head off and burnt her body. The thought of what he had done, the awful horror of it, the daring associated with such actions, formed for him for the first time in his fear-ridden life a barrier of protection between him and a world he feared. He had murdered and had created a new life for himself. It was something that was all his own, and it was the first time in his life he had had anything that others could not take from him. Yes; he could sit here calmly and eat and not be concerned about what his family thought or did. He had a natural wall from behind which he could look at them. His crime was an anchor weighing him safely in time; it added to him a certain confidence which his gun and knife did not. He was outside of his family now, over and beyond them; they were incapable of even thinking that he had done such a deed. And he had done something which even he had not thought possible.

Though he had killed by accident, not once did he feel the need to tell himself that it had been an accident. He was black and he had been alone in a room where a white girl had been killed; therefore he had killed her. That was what everybody would say anyhow, no matter what he said. And in a certain sense he knew that the girl's death had not been accidental. He had killed many times before, only on those other times there had been no handy victim or circumstance to make visible or dramatic his will to kill. His crime seemed natural; he felt that all of his life had been leading to something like this. It was no longer a matter of dumb wonder as to what would happen to him and his black skin; he knew now. The hidden meaning of his life -- a meaning which others did not see and which he had always tried to hide -- had spilled out. No; it was no accident, and he would never say that it was. There was in him a kind of terrified pride in feeling and thinking that some day he would be able to say publicly that he had done it" (105-6).

Invisibility (of a different kind?):

"Now that the ice was broken, could he not do other things? What was there to stop him?...he felt that he was arriving at something which had long eluded him. Things were becoming clear; he would know how to act from now on. The thing was to act just like others acted, live like they lived, and while they were not looking, do what you wanted. They would never know. He felt in the quiet presence of his mother, brother, and sister a force, inarticulate and unconscious, making for living without thinking, making for peace and habit, making for a hope that blinded. He felt that they wanted and yearned to see life in a certain way; they needed a certain picture of the world; there was one way of living they preferred above all others; and they were blind to what did not fit. They did not want to see what others were doing if that doing did not feed their own desires. All one had to do was be bold, do something nobody thought of. The whole thing came to him in the form of a powerful and simple feeling; there was in everyone a great hunger to believe that made him blind, and if he could see while others were blind, then he could get what he wanted and never be caught at it. Now, who on earth would think that he, a black timid Negro boy, would murder and burn a rich white girl and would sit and wait for his breakfast like this? Elation filled him...No, he did not have to hide behind a wall or a curtain now; he had a safer way of being safe, and easier way. What he had done last night had proved that. Jan was blind. Mary had been blind. Mr. Dalton was blind. And Mrs. Dalton was blind; yes, blind inm ore ways than one. Bigger smiled slightly. Mrs. Dalton had not known that Mary was dead while she had stood over the bed in the room last night. She had thought that Mary was drunk, because she was used to Mary's coming home drunk. And Mrs. Dalton had not known that he was in the room with her; it would have been the last thing she would have thought of. He was black and would not have figured in her thoughts on such an occasion. Bigger felt that a lot of people were like Mrs. Dalton, blind..." (106-7).

Solidarity?

"As the car lurched over the snow he lifted his eyes and saw black people upon the snow-covered sidewalks. Those people had feelings of fear and shame like his...To Bigger and his kind white people were not really people; they were a sort of great natural force, like a stormy sky looming overhead, or like a deep swirling river stretching suddenly at one's feet in the dark. AS long as he and his black foldks did not go beyond certain limits, there was no need to fear that white force. But whether they feared it or not, each and every day of their lives they lived with it; even when words did not sound its name, they acknowledged its reality. As long as they lived here in this prescribed corner of the city, they paid mute tribute to it.

"There were rare moments when a feeling and longing for solidarity with other black people would take hold of him. He would dream of making a stand against that white force, but that dream would fade when he looked at the other black people near him. Even though black like them, he felt there was too much difference between him and them to allow for a common binding and a common life. Only when threatened with death could that happen; only in fear and shame, with their backs against a wall, could that happen. But never could they sink their differences in hope.

"As he rode, looking at the black people on the sidewalks, he felt that one way to end fear and shame was to make all those black people act together, rule them, tell them what to do, and make them do it. Dimly, he felt that there should be one direction in which he and all other black people could go whole-heartedly; that there should be a way in which gnawing hunger and restless aspiration could be fused; that there should be a manner of acting that caught the mind and body in certainty and faith. But he felt that such would never happen to him and his black people, and he hated them and watned to wave his hand and blot them out. Yet, he still hoped, vaguely. Of late he had liked to hear tell of men who could rule others, for in actions like these he felt there was a way to escape from this tight morass of fear and shame that sapped at the base of his life. He liked to hear of how Japan was conquering China; of how Hitler was running the Jews to the ground; of how Mussolini was invading Spain. He was not concerned with whether these acts were right or wrong; they simply appealed to him as possible avenues of escape. He felt that some day there would be a black man who would whip the black people into a tight band and together they would act and end fear and shame. He never thought of this in precise mental images; he felt it; he would feel it for a while and then forget. But hope was always waiting somewhere deep down in him...his hope toward a vague, benevolent something that would help him and lead him, and his hate toward the whites; for he felt that they ruled him, even when they were far away and not thinking of him, ruled him and by conditioning him in his relations to his own people" (114-5)


Motivation -- from "How Bigger Was Born" (will reference again on Thursday):

"The birth of Bigger Thomas goes back to my childhood, and there was not just one Bigger, but many of them, more than I can count and more than you suspect."

Bigger No.1. -- Bigger the bully (434)
Bigger No.2. -- Bigger angry at the whites, abusive of their systems -- jail (435)
Bigger No.3. -- The black movie theater (435-6)
Bigger No.4. -- The rebel, insanity (the vets?) (436)
Bigger No.5. -- The rebel, reverence, fate unknown (436-7)

Unified ideals, Nazism, Bigger as fascist (444-447)

Responding to Critical Literature

Richard Wright

Bigger and his family: 

- What is the dynamic between Bigger and the members of his family? How do they get along? How do they cope with living in a cramped apartment?

- Why is Bigger so angry? Are his siblings as angry at everything?

- Why is Bigger so resistant to the idea of getting a job (especially a job offered through Relief)? Why does he need the job (according to his mother)?

Bigger and his friends:

- How do Bigger and Gus get along on 15-22 (when they are outside smoking)? What interests them? What do they claim limits them and restricts their responsibilities? Gus: "'If you wasn't black and if you had some money and if they'd let you go to that aviation school, you could fly a plane'" (17). 

- Who do Bigger and Gus imitate while playing white on 18-19? Why do they choose to imitate these people?

- Do Bigger and Gus feel the same way about the social limitations placed on blacks by whites?

- What is the big "haul" (24) that Bigger and his friends have discussed for so long (23-7)? Why are they afraid to this job?

- Why does Bigger lash out so violently at his friends? Why is he so restless? (25-8, 36-9). 

- Why doesn't their plan work out? Was it really too late (41-2)?

Bigger's fantasies:

- Why is Bigger so interested in Mary Dalton? What opportunities do his ideas of her (when he sees her in the newsreel) suggest to him? (31-4).

Critical conversation -- Baldwin's "Many Thousands Gone"

"As for this New Negro, it was Wright who became his most eloquent spokesman; and his work, from its beginning, is most clearly committed to the social struggle. Leaving aside the considerable question of what relationship precisely the artist bears to the revolutionary, the reality of man as a social being is not his only reality and that artist is strangled who is forced to deal with human beings solely in social terms; and who has, moreover, as Wright had, the necessity thrust on him of being the representative of some thirteen million people. It is a false responsibility (since writers are not congressmen) and impossible, by its nature, of fulfillment. The unlucky shepherd soon finds that, so far from being able to feed the hungry sheep, he has lost the wherewithal for his own nourishment: having been allowed -- so fearful was his burden, so present his audience! -- to recreate his own experience" (32-33).

What is the issue Baldwin has with Native Son? Do you agree? Is Bigger a convincing character? Is he intended to be representative of the plight of blacks in the United States?

"Native Son begins with the Brring! of an alarm clock in the squalid Chicago tenement where Bigger and his family live. Rats live there too, feeding off the garbage, and we first encounter Bigger in the act of killing one...Bigger's situation and Bigger himself exert on the mind the same sort of fascination. The premise of the book is, as I take it, clearly conveyed in these first pages: We are confronting a monster created by the American republic and we are, through being made to share his experience, to receive illumination as regards the manner of his life and to feel both pity and horror at his awful and inevitable doom. This is an arresting and potentially rich idea and we would be discussing a very different novel if Wright's execution had been more perceptive and if he had not attempted to redeem a symbolical monster in social terms.

What does it mean to "redeem a symbolical monster in social terms"?

"One may object that it was precisely Wright's intention to create in Bigger a social symbol, revelatory of social disease and prophetic of disaster. I think, however, that it is this assumption which we ought to examine more carefully. Bigger has no discernable relationship to himself, to his own life, to his own people, nor to any other people -- in this respect, perhaps, he is most American -- and his force comes, not from his significance as a social (or anti-social) unit, but from his significance as the incarnation of a myth" (34-5).

"Despite the details of slum life which we are given, I doubt that anyone who has thought about it, disengaging himself from sentimentality, can accept this most essential premise of the novel for a moment. Those Negroes who surround him, on the other hand, his hard-working mother, his ambitious sister, his poolroom cronies, Bessie, might be considered as far richer and more subtle and accurate illustrations of the ways in which Negroes are controlled in our society and the complex techniques they have evolved for their survival.

Did you find these characters more compelling than Bigger? Are they more representative of general social conditions?

We are limited, however, to Bigger's view of them, part of a deliberate plan which might not have been disastrous if we were not also limited to Bigger's perceptions. What this means for the novel is that a necessary dimension has been cut away; this dimension being the relationship that Negroes bear to one another, that depth of involvement and unspoken recognition of shared experience which creates a way of life. What the novel reflects -- and at no point interprets -- is the isolation of the Negro within his own group and the resulting fury of impatient scorn. It is this which creates its climate of anarchy and unmotivated and unapprehended disaster; and it is this climate, common to most Negro protest novels, which has led us all to believe that in Negro life there exists no tradition, no field of manners, no possibility of ritual or intercourse...But the fact is not that the Negro has no tradition but that there has as yet arrived no sensibility sufficiently profound and tough to make this tradition articulate. For a tradition expresses, after all, nothing more than the long and painful experience of a people; it comes out of the battle waged to maintain their integrity or, to put it more simply, out of their struggle to survive" (36).

"The sense of how Negroes live and how they have so long endured is hidden from us in part by the very speed of the Negro's public progress...Bigger, in the meanwhile, and all his furious kin, serve only to whet the notorious national taste for the sensational and to reinforce all that we now find necessary to believe. It is not Bigger whom we fear, since his appearance among us make our victory certain. It is the others, who smile, who go to church, who give no cause for complaint, whom we sometimes consider with amusement, with pity, even with affection -- and in whose faces we sometimes surprise the merest arrogant hint of hatred, the faintest, withdrawn, speculative shadow of contempt -- who make us uneasy; whom we cajole, threaten, flatter, fear; who to use remain unknown, though we are not (we feel with both relief and hostility and with bottomless confusion) unknown to them. It it out of our reaction to these hewers of wood and drawers of water that our image of Bigger was created.

How does this idea connect with the invisible man's yessing them to death and destruction?

"It is this image, living yet, which we perpetually seek to evade with good works; and this image which makes of all our good works an intolerable mockery.

Consider Bigger's reluctance to accept a Relief job.

The "n-----," black, benighted, brutal, consumed with hatred as we are consumed with guilt, cannot be thus blotted out. He stands at our shoulders when we give our maid her wages, it is his hand which we fear we are taking when struggling to communicate with the current 'intelligent' Negro, his stench, as it were, which fills our mouths with salt as the monument is unveiled in honor of the latest Negro leader. Each generation has shouted behind him, N-----! as he walked our streets; it is he whom we would rather our sisters did not marry; he is banished into the vast and wailing outer darkness whenever we speak of the 'purity' of our women, of the 'sanctity' of our homes, of 'American' ideals. What is more, he knows it. He is indeed the 'native son' : he is the 'n-----.' Let us refrain from inquiring at the moment whether or not he actually exists; for we believe that he exists. Whenever we encounter him amongst us in the flesh, our faith is made perfect and his necessary and bloody end is executed with a mystical ferocity of joy....

"And there is, I should think, no Negro living in America who has not felt, briefly or for long periods, with anguish sharp or dull, in varying degrees and to varying effect, simple, naked and unanswerable hatred, who has not wanted to smash any white face he may encounter in a day, to violate, out of motives of the cruelest vengeance, their women, to break the bodies of all white people and bring them low, as low as that dust into which he himself has been and is being trampled; no Negro, finally, who has not had to make his own precarious adjustment to the 'n-----' who surrounds him and to the 'n----' in himself"

Native Son (pgs. 3-42) by Jonathon Thomas

Jonathon Thomas

TTH 12:30-2PM

4/18/12

Native Son (pgs. 3-42)

            Book one of Richard Wright’s Native Son begins with a quarrel between the Thomas family of four (Mrs. Thomas, Bigger, Buddy, and Vera) and a large rat inside of their small and crammed home. Eventually, Bigger, the oldest son of 20, kills the rat and relieves the terrified family from the scare. As the family prepares to dress for the day, Bigger’s mother continuously questions Bigger on the choices of his lifestyle and encourages him to get his life on track by striving for a job offered by the relief. Bigger’s mother, along with her youngest child/daughter Vera, believes that Bigger is selfish and inconsiderate for not taking the job in order to better both the family and the poor living conditions they endure. Buddy, the middle child, sides with Bigger most of the time during the arguments with Vera and his mother, but realizes himself that he would make use of the opportunities that Bigger receives but does not take advantage of. The entire family appears to be upset and dissatisfied with the way that they currently live, but no one appears as distraught as Bigger, for he knows deep down in his heart that the hope of a better lifestyle for the family rests upon the outcome of his decision of taking initiative of his life and getting a job and doing well. The entire family sadly shares one room and only receives the little food that is provided by the good graces of the Relief (welfare). To show the conditions of how the family eats, Wright (author) reveals that they only ate bacon and bread for breakfast. As of the moment, Bigger and his family’s future is not looking too bright if it is solely depending on the wise decisions by Bigger, because of his level of responsibility and the fact the he is involved with some of friends (G.H., Gus, and Jack) that have a history of robbing stores or from other blacks.

            After lots of strife from his mother, Bigger sets out of the house to meet up with Gus and later with the gang at Doc’s billiards. When the gang meets up, they discuss their plans to rob a white man and his shop, which they have never done before. Gus is hesitant to go through with the robbery agreement because he believes that the repercussions will be more severe than robbing another black person. Bigger scolds Gus for being hesitant, but secretly feels the same fear that he sees. Leading up to the planned robbery, Bigger becomes even more hesitant to carry out the robbery, because he cannot stop thinking of the consequences that can occur and about the possible opportunities with his job. The day of the planned robbery, Gus shows up late and Bigger threatens him with a knife, pretending as if he is upset that they are no longer able to carry out the robbery when he is actually relieved that they aren’t going to. However, the gang would have been successful in doing the robbery, but Bigger used his anger tantrum against Gus and Doc as an excuse to not go through with the robbery and to hide his fear of consequence. This action basically depicts that the likelihood of Bigger doing future jobs with the gang is slim.

Questions

1.      Does Bigger’s anger and frustrations have to do with his personality or his age? (Bigger is 20 years old)

2.      Why does Bigger resent taking the job that will surely allow him to provide for the family and improve their current living conditions?

3.      What is the reason to why Bigger hides his emotions and some of his thoughts from his family and friends? How does this action cause him to react with both family and friends?

Historical Content:

-        http://www.u.arizona.edu/~fishback/The%20Impact%20of%20Relief%20and%20Public%20Works%20Programs%20on%20Socioeconomic%20Welfare%20During%20the%201930s.html

Dead Presidents clip

>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z3a5mZ5Twc <<<

Bigger Thomas Picture

>>> http://www.wellesnet.com/native_son.htm <<<

Targeted passages

-          Pg. 9: beginning and middle passages

-          Pg. 42: long passage 

Invisible Man, 535-end

Rioters in Harlem

Chapter Twenty-Five

What is the first thing that happens to the Invisible Man when he arrives downtown?

What is happening in Harlem? What does it mean when Ellison writes that the "crowd was working in and out of the stores like ants around spilled sugar" (538)?

What's the significance of Dupre's "'cotton-picking sack fulla stuff'"(540)?

What does the IM decide started the riot? See 540-41.

Why is the man in the building yelling "'Colored store!'" on 542?

Why do the men get oil in the store on 543?

Is the riot all about destruction? Look at the "free beer" woman on 544. Why does she keep tossing the glass milk quarts into the street?

Why do the men torch the building where "'most of [them] live'" (545)? Is this purely destructive? See 547 -- "'My kid died from the t-bees in that deathtrap, but I bet a man ain't no more go'n to be born in there.'"

Is the IM still concerned about Sybil? See 556.

How is Ras reacting to the riot? How is he dressed? How is he trying to direct the people? See 556.

What does the IM realize on 559 regarding his visibility, even to Ras and his people? What does this lead him to do to Ras?

Where is the IM trying to get to by 561? Why?

Does the men's story on 561-64 confirm the IM's verdict on his visibility on 559? Was his stand against Ras even visible?

What does the IM come to realize about his grandfather's advice on 564? Was his grandfather really "wrong"? Have things really "changed too much since his day"? Or do you think that this strategy is only one that works if you start off doing it from the beginning?


What happens to the IM on 565 when he is trying to escape from the men who want to steal his briefcase? What does he mean when he says that "'All of [them]'" are in his briefcase? What has he still not managed to get rid of?


What does the IM do to the contents of his briefcase on 567-568? What does he realize?

What happens in his hallucination? What does he realize on 571?

Epilogue


Did the IM's invisible "place him in a hole" or did it show him "the hole I was in" (572)?

After being "honest" for so long, why does the IM find it so hard by the Epilogue -- "Let me be honest with you -- a feat which, by the way, I find of the utmost difficulty" (572-73)?

What does he decide that his real problem was all along (see 573 and also 15).

Is he satisfied with hibernation or does he want to reenter the world?

Why does he ultimately decide that agreeing them to "death and destruction" is problematic in the mid-to-late twentieth century (575)? Have things indeed changed since his grandfather's day? (564)

What does the IM mean when he says that "The fact is that you carry part of your sickness within you," or that "at least [he does] as an invisible man" (575)?

Who is Rinehart ultimately on 576? Does the IM have some Rinehartian elements by this point?

Why does he stay in his hole, according to 576? What does he mean when he says that he now knows that "men are different and that all life is divided and that only in division is there true health" (576)? Does the world outside accept division or does it try to eliminate it, according to the IM? See 576-77.

What does the IM do to Mr. Norton? Why?

Why does the IM (and presumably Ellison) write? See 579-80.

What part of himself drives him out of hibernation? See 580-81. What is perhaps his "greatest social crime"(581)? Why might hibernation be a crime, even for an invisible man?

Quiz 5 Questions

Questions about Invisible Man generated by the class.

"Behold the Invisible
Thy will be done O Lord!
I See all, Know all, Tell all, Cure all.
You shall see the unknown wonders."

The narrator is given a handbill in the street on the way to Hambro's with this passage on it from Rev. B. P. Rinehart, spiritual technologist.  I believe this was a foreshadowing of Invisible Man's realization that he is completely invisible to everyone around him.  He will understand that he has had all of these identities forced on him by others, like The Brotherhood, or even the so-called big shots from the beginning of the novel when he says "social equality" instead of "social responsibility" and is asked to explain, to which he admits he made a mistake and the crowd is appeased.  All of these events, and the fact that he was merely playing roles relinquished to him in these events, become clear to him.

On page 498, after the Invisible Man removes his disguise that causes some confusion for everyone between him and Rinehart, the Invisible Man comes to revelation: "It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it.  He was years ahead of me and I was a fool.  I must have been crazy and blind.  The world in which we lived was without boundaries."  This is a crucial moment for the narrator, where he realizes that he does have a self even though he is invisible to others.  The veil that has been blinding him from himself is lifted at this point.  He also realizes that Rinehart is a shape-shifting symbol for limitless possibility.  The different aspects of Rinehart; Rinehart the Rounder, Rinehart the Rascal, Rinehart the Gambler, etc., that the Invisible Man is mistaken for lead to his understanding that he has never had a self because he has always accepted an identity given to him by others.

This was a poem written by Langston Hughes, published in 1951. Langston Hughes was a crucial part of the Harlem Renaissance as a social activist.  The Harlem Renaissance had many goals and dreams, of which Hughes makes a point that if they are not realized, it can rot a people from the inside out.  I believe it was Ellison's objective to make a point of preventing others from labeling members of the black community so as to crush their dreams.  With Rinehart's character, he demonstrates that to be an individual, to know yourself, is the most powerful weapon one can have against a society's attempts at defining a people against their will.

The novel comes full circle on page 508 with this quote: "I didn't know what my grandfather had meant, but I was ready to test his advice.  I'd overcome them with yeses, undermine them with grins, I'd agree them to death and destruction."  The invisible man finally understands what his grandfather meant on his deathbed.  In the previous paragraph he comes to the conclusion that, "I was my experiences and my experiences were me, and no blind men, no matter how powerful they became, even if they conquered the world, could take that..."  The narrator, no longer the invisible man, at least not to himself, is filled with confidence now that he has defined himself, and he has a new plan, a new direction, and seems to be for the first time truly fearless.

Questions:

1. Is the yessing strategy recommended by his grandfather the best way to proceed? Why? Why not?

2. Who do you perceive Rinehart to be? Why had he been blind to Rinehart's existence before?

3.  When does the game end with leading the double identity proposed by IM's grandfather?

Invisible Man, 462-534 -- cancelled

Invisibility

Join up with a group (1, 2, or 3) and examine a chapter of the novel (Group 1 will examine Chapter 22 -- the Brotherhood's reaction to Tod Clifton's funeral; Group 2 will examine Chapter 23 -- Ras, Rinehart, and Hambro; and Group 3 will examine 24 -- yessing them to death -- Sybil and the escape towards Harlem).

In examining each section, create a list of AT LEAST 5 questions similar to prior lists posted on this blog and have one group member submit it in a comment along with a listing of all of your names. This will count a as a qualifying blog comment for all involved. It will also make it easier for you to get another qualifying comment by responding after class to the questions you developed.

Suggestions:
Chapter 22  (Group 1) -- consider why the Brotherhood members act the way that they do. Pay especial attention to their reactions to the IM's use of his "personal responsibility," why they resent Clifton being made a hero or martyr, and the significance of Brother Jack's eye.

Chapter 23 (Group 2) --  consider how Ras challenges the IM to speak for the Brotherhood, especially in light of the Brotherhood's reaction to the IM, why the IM initially chooses to disguise himself and what his disguise reveals to him. Also, who is Rinehart? Any questions involving Rinehart should be more specific than this one. What does Hambro tell the IM to do? What does he decide to do on his own and why?

Chapter 24 (Group 3) --  How does the IM go about his plan? Is he successful? What does Sybil want? How does the IM react?

IM's Role in the Brotherhood

Throughout the scene with IM and the woman, she implores him, whether with manipulative intentions or legitimate curiosity, to tell her about the Brotherhood. Her intentions aside, it is important to notice that outside his saying, “from now on one of our main concerns is to be the Woman Question,” (Ellison 414) he never truly responds with a satisfying response to her inquisition. His failure to address the questions asked of him is not without significance. The Brotherhood has offered IM structure, leadership, and an outlet for his compulsive urge to deliver speeches. However, his role within this system is not clearly defined and cannot be articulated much further. Realistically, IM is simply an abstract black figurehead of the Communist movement. This is illustrated by Brother Jack’s mistress who asks him, “But don’t you think he should be a little blacker?” (303). Her question suggests that while IM might possess superior skills as an orator, his skin color is the primary basis of his selection as the new leader. He is forced to give up his name and sever ties with his home and family while employed by the Brotherhood. In this way, IM relinquishes any sense of an identity he might have possessed and again enters into a struggle to reconcile his image in the North with his Southern past. While he sees the organization as a magnificent opportunity for his own advancement, he is blind to the fact that he is merely a pawn of the white leaders. Just as has been the case throughout the book, another outside force enters his life and squashes his identity. Although he is allured by the perceived leadership that accompanies his position, he is neither truly aware of the meaning of his role nor the ideological basis of what he is supporting. This same oblivion is what the vet admonishes him for earlier in the book when he tells IM to “Look beneath the surface” and “come out of the fog” (153). For this reason he is unable, or perhaps unwilling to attempt to articulate the details of his position within the Brotherhood movement when speaking with the inquisitive woman.