The Grass Is Green

Right after the narrator leaves Mr.Norton's room, who was being treated by Dr.Bledsoe, he runs into a young student who asks him to deliver a message for her boyfriend. The message, which was delivered in a secret code, was "the grass is green". The character felt insulted by her request, since it seemed foolish and obvious, while he was going through major trouble. Emerson exemplifies the narrator's cynical attitude towards the girl through the following:

The grass was green and they'd meet and she'd be sent home pregnant, but even so, in less disgrace than I..." (pg 105)

The replacement of commas for the word "and" in his reflection depict that it is his stream of counciousness, which represents that he is in a rush, anguished and lamenting his fate. By comparing the hypothetical situation of the girl being pregnant to his own condition, Emerson shows the reader how the problem with Mr.Norton has kept his mind restless, and made him feel pity for himself.

But then, I wondered what the message could possibly mean. The first thing I noticed about it, is that Emerson uses a color. Green. Ah... colors. Emerson constantly uses colors in the novel as symbols, like black, white, golden and, in this case, green. The color green is paradoxical in the narrator's case since it is usually linked to nature and money. These two are opposites in the character's world because the nature represents the rural arrangement of the south, were black people lived and were oppressed, against the money, which was his main inspiration and goal, and which was possessed exclusively by whites.

The redundant nature of the sentence "the grass is green" is also key for the narrator's situation. It is a known fact that the grass is green, because of a green chemical called chlorophyll. The same happens with the main character who, due to a "biochemical accident to my (his) epidermis" is black (pg 3).  By having a character highlighting  the obvious color of grass, and by showing the narrator's negative reaction towards it, Emerson shows the readers how the narrator knows he is black, but he tries to ignore this obvious fact to prevent it from determining his future. Unfortunately, just as the girl mentions and notices the color of grass, white people are constantly aware of the narrator's race, and treat him as an inferior for it.

Identity?

Here within this quiet greenness i possessed the only identity I had ever known, and I was losing it." (pg 99)

Emerson uses these words to mark a pivot point in the character's attitude towards Mr.Norton's incident in Golden Day. Before, the main character had mantained distance with Mr.Norton and made an effort to continue being polite and reserved. Now, as he imagined the consequence to his actions, he wanted to beg his pardon, cry, and show him how awfully sorry he was. he wanted to victimize himself, just as Trueblood did in chapter 2. After visiting Trueblood, the narrator finds how useful it is to become a victim to the white perspective, in order to win their pity and mercy and get financial reward. 

The narrator wanted to do so in order to conserve his identity, but this identity was one that is manipulated and fabricated by the white society, who he praised and respected. On page 99, Emerson show how the character's mentality towards his own race has being affected by the constant interaction with the whites: "I hated them (the black people in the golden day)". This sense of disgustment and hatred shows how the narrator has victimized the entire black community and feels sorry for them. He feels outside of the "black" status and decides to mimic the white's mentality of superior race that abuses and commiserates the others. As the character faces the fact that he is not either black nor white, but invisible, he realizes that he's not superior or inferior to others, just indifferent.

Poem for a Sing-A-Long

Here's the song I made for the poem It Is A Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free by William Wordsworth

Mutual Blindness

At the end of chapter three, the main character is called "invisible" for the first time. This happens at the Golden Day bar, after Mr.Norton is finally awake and is talking with a retired physician who was now a patient due to ulcers. The doctor is cynical about Mr.Norton's belief of destiny and the connection between the black race destiny and his own. He is also dissapointed at the main character's attitude, since he resembles a "walking personification of the negative" or a mechanical man, which is a white-made artifact. He calls the main character invisible because, even though he has the ability and capacity to listen and take information, he is restraining himself from understanding and analyzing it, merely to fit the white men's expectations. Finally, he stated that black people only meant numbers for Mr.Norton's great list of successes. The doctor's opinion deeply offended Mr.Norton, who rushed out the bar.

Ellison uses the doctor's character to portray the unconfortable effect the truth has on people. As the black,  physician dares to criticize and qualify both Mr.Norton and the main character as blind stumblers that have lost the sense of reality, tension is created. The perspective that white men have towards black men of being objects contradicts the black's perspective on white, since they see them as gods. The doctor's words have a tremendous impact on both characters, who feel deeply disturbed by the truth, and leave the bar.

The Curse

On page 16, the character remembers his grandfather's last words, which became a burden for the rest of his life:

"Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head 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. . . . Learn it to the younguns." (pg 16)

Through these words, Ellison offers a cause and a solution, in the grabdfather's perspective, to the inferior condition of black men. The first half of the excerpt has a couple of war metaphors, which represent the violent history of oppression that black people have suffered in the United States. The second half present the solution, which follows the principle of "If you can't beat them, join them". The grandfather lived his life being a spy for the white men and following his orders. He did so to survive, and he wanted his family to follow his example. By comparing the white men to the "lion", the king of the jungle, Ellison highlights the fear and sense of inferiority the black had towards the white.

The grandfather's riddle became a curse in the main character's life since he spend his first years behaving in such way that would please the white. By doing so, he won a scholarship to attend school, but he also silenced his thoughts and opinion.  

The Price of Visibility

"Social..."
"What?" They yelled.
"...equality--" (Pg 31)

This is a fragment of the speech delivered by he speaker in chapter 1, while he was being surrounded by white men in the battle royal. The word "equality" caused commotion among the audience, who had spend the first part of the speech laughing, talking and ignoring the orator. The change of attitude of the listeners reflect a transition from invisibility to visibility, which is feared by the main character. Even though his objective was to shine and appear brilliant among the white men, he still keeps his invisibility coat by writing a speech that would please their race. As soon as he accidentally says his true opinion (race equality), he feels the weight of his words and regrets it. The only time he gets to be actually visible in front of others, he feels afraid and returns to his inferior position.

Through this scene, Ellison exhibits the complex situation of the character and his people in that era. Even though they want to rebel against their opressors, fear dominates them, for which they decide to shut themselves away and remain invisible.

The First Invisible Pages

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man starts off with a strong sentence which gives the reader an insight to the character's mind and self perspective: "I am an invisible man" (3). As a reader I understood that phrase as a metaphor, as the narrator confirms in the following lines. The reason of his invisibility is ironic in the sense that it is based on the color of his skin, which is a merely physical, superficial and visible characteristic.

His complex personality is revealed in the following pages as his emotions and thoughts enter a conflict as he attacks the white man in the street. The man, who had been fooled by the character's invisibility ignored him and bumped him during the night, without apologizing. The main character, feeling deeply offended, demanded his apologies. It results ironic how even if the character was trying to get respect and acknowledgement as a human being, despite his color, he took an erroneous path to try to do so. By surrending to his physical and violent impulses, his intentions were reduced to one of a mugger. Through this case, Ellison exemplifies the importance of choosing the correct how to achieve and transmit our what. 

Invisible Man

In the first chapter of Invisible man, the author shocks the reader with the scene of fighting and abuse even before the main character delivers his speech. The narrator’s description of the scene with the beautiful woman disgusts both the reader and character. 

“As the dancer flung herself about with a detached expression on her face, the men began reaching out to touch her. I could see their beefy fingers sink into the soft flesh” creates the picture of these actions in the reader’s mind to show just how grotesque these men are (20). 

The character feels uncomfortable with these men to begin with because of their power and the color of their skin. Their behavior and aggressive activity don’t help him relax.

The main character empathizes with the naked blonde woman as “the terror and disgust in her eyes” mirrors his own. He is repulsed by these men who are so respected an important in his community, and is suspicious of what they will make him do in the battle royal.