english 201

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man establishes itself as something of a neo-slave narrative through linking itself to Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself. The reference is explicit and deliberate: Brother Tarp, an elder black member of the Brotherhood, a northern and white-founded Communist organization, hangs a portrait of Douglass on a wall in front of the titular “invisible” narrator, saying, “Don’t thank me, son […] He belongs to all of us.” Shortly after, Tarp further reinforces the connection to Douglass’ Narrative by giving the narrator a broken chain link as a gift—one that plays a large part in the narrator’s ultimate escape to safety, calling to mind a similarly enigmatic and talismanic object: the supposedly magical root that plays a part in Douglass’ successful stand against the slave-breaker Edward Covey. Tarp, then, acts as the new Sandy Jenkins, the fellow slave who tells Douglass about the root, thus establishing the continued need for Douglass-esque, pre-Emancipation tricksterism in the middle of the twentieth century.

(NOTICE: THE THESIS COMES IN THE LAST SENTENCE OF THE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH, WITH TWO SUPPORTING POINTS FOR THE THESIS COMING BEFORE IT. THE REVERSE OF THIS WORKS TOO.)

The key to each object’s influence upon the success of its possessor is a shrewd awareness of the complexities pertaining to class—particularly, those complexities that present themselves when class intersects with and is problematized by race. An understanding of the true, ironically master-slave relationship of the overseer/slave-breaker to the plantation owner proves crucial to a young Douglass’ stand against Covey’s violent discipline and surveillance strategies; and the young, “invisible” man’s gradual realization of the power of his own black individuality results from his incremental discovery of the ultimate failure of the Brotherhood’s simplistic Marxism to foster and protect that individuality. “Class” in the abstract, metaphysical, and monolithic sense of Marxism, after all, tends to conveniently ignore intra-class divisions (based on race, gender, sexuality, nationality, history, etc.) which threaten to undo Marxism’s mechanistic neatness.

I see both Douglass and Ellison’s invisible man as successful examples (the former from 19th-century American literature, the latter from 20th-century American literature) of negotiating overarching systems of white panopticism that, in large part, work upon their respective victims by disseminating an oversimplified version of class based on race prejudice and a social investment in whiteness. These successes are the result of each protagonist’s gradual acquisition of a more nuanced class-consciousness that goes against the dominant white culture’s indoctrination. Ellison’s novel has the added importance of demonstrating the continuing need for such awareness and tricksterism just over a century after what Douglass demonstrates in his Narrative.

(NOTICE: THE PREVIOUS TWO PARAGRAPHS WORK TO DEFINE THE CONCEPTS CENTRAL TO EXPLORING YOUR THESIS—IN THIS CASE: THE INTERSECTING OF CLASS WITH RACE, THEN WHITE PANOPTICISM. ALSO, THE FINAL SENTENCE REITERATES THE THESIS STATEMENT FROM THE INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.)

As for theoretical bases, I see Marx (as counter-example, of course), Michel Foucault (the panopticism and mechanisms of surveillance-recruitment discussed in his Discipline and Punish), Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (“schizoanalysis” and desire-production, particular in terms of race as designation on the “body without organs”), and Jean-Francois Lyotard (economy as having a libidinal basis), among potential others, playing a part. Much of this theoretical application will pertain to the apparent loss of sanity necessary for each protagonist to escape and transcend their respective social prisons, as well as other factors which get bound up with class for both Ellison and Douglass along with, mostly, race—gender, sexuality, religion, and geography, for example.

(NOTICE: THIS CONCLUDING PARAGRAPHS PROVIDED YOUR TENTATIVE SOURCES.)

Assignment:

Obviously, I’m not expecting something as deep as this. However, following the structural formula provided with this example, argue how certain “bigger issues” are addressed through either a singular criticism of ONE work of art (book, movie, movie trailer, series, episode, song, album, etc.) or a comparison/contrast of TWO works of art. Should you choose one, I expect no less than TWO sources (including the work of art itself). Should you choose two, I expect no less than FOUR sources (including the works of art themselves).