To Invisible Man’s narrator, there is a stark difference between black and white. Blinded by the white superiority complex society has taught him, he strives to achieve success by playing into the white supremacists system. In doing this, he deems his own heritage, his skin, and his race, whatever he can define as “black” as bad and deems “whiteness” superior. Psychologically, he exercises “black and white” thinking also known as splitting. He’s forced himself to think with incredible contrast and other details in the values fade away from his sight. Essentially, splitting magnifies the positive or negative aspects of a person to fit them into one of two categories, good and bad.
Much of the reason the narrator goes along with all the insanity of living in such a disgustingly oppressive, racist society is that he idealizes whiteness. The ideas he’s subject to are all built by white supremacy. That includes the scholarship, the college, and most importantly the “positive” stereotype of the humble black man. This is apparent when he meets Mr. Norton, he knows and truly feels he must put on his best manners. Yes, it may also be for his own benefit, but he also genuinely tries to fulfill and answer Mr. Norton’s every request, demand, and question. The narrator never really realizes he has the power to be critical toward Mr. Norton because he’s white (and also rich). Mr. Norton and other white men are the greatest force of society to the narrator, therefore they must be doing something right and they must be great.
Bledsoe epitomizes the internalized racism causing the narrator to equate “blackness” to bad. The narrator admires and idealizes Bledsoe simply because he represents everything white supremacists want black people to be, subservient, humble, and subscribed to their signature brand of systematic oppression. In reality, he doesn’t really see Bledsoe, much like Bledsoe doesn’t see him. In that sense, he doesn’t recognize Bledsoe as a human being nor his humanity. In addition, once Bledsoe reveals his true colors from the mask, the narrator is left bewildered and almost disgusted, quickly reacting to Bledsoe’s horrific nature. The only reason this doesn’t quite yet escalate into total hatred is because of Bledsoe’s white lies. Bledsoe becomes completed devalued to the narrator once the honest intent of his letters is revealed. Once this jump is made, the narrator wants to kill Bledsoe but he still does not truly realize the extent of his black and white thinking.
A huge development for the narrator was accepting his heritage, which he had to go through a lot of crazy events and a lot of positive and negative interactions to realize. This is when his black and white thinking really begins to break down. He no longer desires to push away and reject his self. While this means he no longer categorizes blackness as bad, there is a chance that he may be developing a tendency to categorize whiteness as bad. I believe examining whiteness in context of white supremacy and systematic oppression is positive for the narrator, but he should also realize that the issue does not lie simply in race. Sadly, race plays such a huge and awful role in America that it is what we have learned to put under the spotlight first and foremost.
nice post. I am always amazed how ellison plays with the words black and white. At this point in the novel if i see the word blackness or whiteness it could refer to light+invisibility, skin color, or central and outer like in the paint factory. Knowing Ellison it's probably all three!
ReplyDeleteI agree; the narrator seems to categorize Black from white. I was always fascinated by the way the narrator acted around Bledsoe. Your post offered much clarity. In the narrator's mind, (towards the beginning of the book) there is a certain way Blacks and whites must interact that has been internalized in his mind. Bledsoe represents what he perceives these mannerisms to be, but as it turns out, Bledsoe only acts how he does for his own benefit. Later, something that stood out to me was this idea proposed by Ras the Exhorter which stated accused the narrator of essentially betraying his race by working with the Brotherhood. Ras associates the narrator's actions as bad, because he is a member of the Bortherhood, which contains other white members. I am looking forward to what happens next!
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I absolutely agree about the narrator's idealization of whiteness as a major reason behind his attitude during the first part of Invisible Man. For example in the first chapter the narrator acts naive to an unnatural level, trusting the words of the white authorities up to the point where he finds himself in a battle royal. When he drives Mr.Norton around he does everything he can to prove that he and other black people are working cogs just as they're supposed to be, and is horrified when he fails by allowing Trueblood to tell his story.
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