This week, we were assigned to watch this interview with Ralph Ellison, author of The Invisible Man. The first thing that I was struck by was just how eloquent Ellison was. As a journalist, I can definitely relate to the nervousness that comes with interviews, although I'm usually the interviewer, not the interviewee. It's obvious that Ellison is well-educated, and he has a gift of expressing himself concisely and accurately.
Ellison describes his teaching experience, citing it as "one of the few places where I can be and touch [...] the younger generation" and describing how, through teaching, he learns how "they formulate their questions" and "misunderstand their problems" (6:33 to 7:00). Ellison was definitely older when he wrote Invisible Man, and this explains his accurate depiction of young people in the novel, despite the fact that it had been at least a decade since he had been their age. I really appreciate when authors really try to relate to their characters, as I've read too many books with teenage characters who act more like my parents or whose slang is probably a few decades too old.
One section of his speech that really resounded with themes in The Invisible Man was when Ellison shared that he believed that "Negro leaders at that time seldom really led Negroes, but were usually dependent upon the largesse of white leaders" (11:13 to 11:29). One can definitely see this throughout the novel; in fact, it is a motif that appears quite often. The Brotherhood, for example, is mostly run by whites who only use black Brothers to create the appearance of equality and to appeal to other African Americans. One scene that especially stands out to me is Tod Clifton's Sambo doll. The racist caricature of the doll and the strings controlling it represent the control that the white leaders of the Brotherhood have over their African American peers and how they are racist, not in an overt or obvious way, but in a more subtle way.
All in all, this interview reminded me of another interview with Ellison we read in class. He mentioned that people often separate art and protest, when really, they can both coexist and be the same. Unlike other books that I've read, Invisible Man doesn't just skim the surface of racism or turn it purely into a, mind the pun, black and white situation. Invisible Man delves much deeper than that as an analysis of American society and, more broadly, a look at human nature itself.
Ellison describes his teaching experience, citing it as "one of the few places where I can be and touch [...] the younger generation" and describing how, through teaching, he learns how "they formulate their questions" and "misunderstand their problems" (6:33 to 7:00). Ellison was definitely older when he wrote Invisible Man, and this explains his accurate depiction of young people in the novel, despite the fact that it had been at least a decade since he had been their age. I really appreciate when authors really try to relate to their characters, as I've read too many books with teenage characters who act more like my parents or whose slang is probably a few decades too old.
One section of his speech that really resounded with themes in The Invisible Man was when Ellison shared that he believed that "Negro leaders at that time seldom really led Negroes, but were usually dependent upon the largesse of white leaders" (11:13 to 11:29). One can definitely see this throughout the novel; in fact, it is a motif that appears quite often. The Brotherhood, for example, is mostly run by whites who only use black Brothers to create the appearance of equality and to appeal to other African Americans. One scene that especially stands out to me is Tod Clifton's Sambo doll. The racist caricature of the doll and the strings controlling it represent the control that the white leaders of the Brotherhood have over their African American peers and how they are racist, not in an overt or obvious way, but in a more subtle way.
All in all, this interview reminded me of another interview with Ellison we read in class. He mentioned that people often separate art and protest, when really, they can both coexist and be the same. Unlike other books that I've read, Invisible Man doesn't just skim the surface of racism or turn it purely into a, mind the pun, black and white situation. Invisible Man delves much deeper than that as an analysis of American society and, more broadly, a look at human nature itself.