but my speech!
In chapter 1 of Invisible Man, the narrator takes part in a battle royal where he fights his classmates while blindfolded. Afterwards, they try to grab money off of an electrified rug. This entire scene felt very nightmarish and the oddest part about it was how the narrator seemed to accept all that was happening and only cared about the speech he had to give. We found it so odd that his only concern was his speech instead of the fact that he had to suffer through this nightmare of an event. Even while giving his speech, he’s so focused on making it perfect that he just casually swallows his blood.
When discussing this chapter in class, I remembered a book that I read last year for 20thCentury Novel, The Metamorphosis. The book opens with the main character, Gregor, waking up as a huge monstrous insect. The odd thing is that his main priority isn’t how to become human again, but instead how is he going to get to work? This book had a very nightmarish aspect to it because the main character is literally a huge insect, but Gregor mostly just ignores the horror of being an insect and instead focuses on how to get up and get to work.
I feel like Invisible Man’s narrator and Gregor are similar in some ways. Both go through something horrible, but their main concerns are something else entirely. It doesn’t really make any sense until you realize how much pressure they are both under. Gregor needs to get to work because he is the only one in his family that works, and he has to pay off his father’s debts and pay for his family’s lavish breakfasts and their cook and maid. To him, being an insect is overshadowed by how if he doesn’t work, what will happen to his family? The narrator lives his life by the idea that if he acts the way white people want him to, then he will succeed in life. His need to impress white people is why he finds his speech so important and why he needs it to be perfect. The battle royal was horrific but what would be even worse is looking terrible to white people. The pressure both Gregor and the narrator feel is why they both focus so much on what we thought was less important than the nightmarish & surreal events they suffered through.
This is an interesting connection that I hadn't thought of before! Both Gregor and the narrator ignore their current predicaments and instead focus on a goal that seems to be odd. It's also worth noting how, while both Gregor and the narrator are in adverse situations, Gregor's concern of taking care of his family seems more important than the narrator's concern of giving a speech to a group of wealthy white men.
ReplyDeleteI'm realizing especially as I am reading Invisible Man that I don't give nearly as much credit to characters in books. Even as I was reading Native Son, I was rolling my eyes at Bigger's actions, wondering why he couldn't have chosen to act in quicker or smarter manner. However, taking a step back, I realize that Bigger was actually surprisingly efficient throughout the book, especially right after Mary's murder. Bringing it back to Invisible Man, I think that although it's easy to judge the narrator for not being able to see past his speech, if we were in his shoes, in his situation, it is possible that we would be concerned with the task at hand. It's difficult to see the bigger picture while we're in the moment, and I think that it part of the reason why the narrator acts in the manner that he does in the beginning of Invisible Man. That being said, the narrator is also very young and unaware of his situation, which also adds to the motivation behind him being concerned solely about his speech.
ReplyDeleteI have not read the book you are mentioning, but I completely agree with the idea that in the situation that the narrator is in in Invisible Man, his mind almost seems to be somewhere else entirely. As readers, we get frustrated with him, like how does he not see how racist and horrible this is? I wonder if perhaps it is some sort of coping mechanism of the racist society he is in. We have mentioned how disillusioned the narrator seems from reality, but perhaps he is this way, because he is subconsciously protecting his own sanity from the truths about institutionalized racism, and how as hard as he tries he will probably be seen as nothing more than less than.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting connection to the Metamorphosis! Both novels seem to take place in a dreamlike or nightmarish landscape where actions don't neccesarily make sense, and both characters are motivated by exterior concerns rathern than acknowledging the absurdity of their situations. As we read further into Invisible Man, the narrator begins to realize how unfair and exploitative the world really is, which is similar to when Gregor comes to terms with the fact he is an insect. Additionally, the narrator feels like some sort of laboratory experiment/insect man when he wakes up in the factory hospital. Both Gregor and the narrator of Invisible Man don't understand why they've been put through such strange events, but it takes them a while to accept that their situations are completely wrong.
ReplyDeleteI also remembered the Metamorphosis while reading this chapter! The Narrator and Gregor are very similar in the way they focus on something seemingly meaningless based on their current predicament. Gregor, a giant bug who can only focus on going to work and the narrator, a man being forced to fight who can only focus on giving his speech.
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