Stereotypes

"...the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro... his face an enormous grin... the kind of bank which, if a coin is placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth." (319)

Stereotypes are made by men with the sole purpose of classifying, and therefore hurting, other men. Sometimes, what a stereotype portrays is true, but most of the times,  it is a vague generalization of a broader, more detailed group of people. In "Invisible Man", we see how the narrator evolves from being another black slave to being an advocate for human rights and a strong fighter against stereotypical figures of his own race. Nevertheless, he cannot seem to escape his past. 

The novel does start off by telling the story of how once the narrator had to crawl over an electrocuted rug in order to grab some money; meanwhile, his desire for survival was mocked by a crowd of white men. The narrator grows older and now finds a coin bank that makes him furious; perhaps it not only insults him but also reminds him of humiliating, cruel experiences. This coin bank has reminded him of the pain he has gone through living in a racist community and symbolizes the erroneous way in which most people perceive him and his kind. 

What is interesting about the coin bank, beyond the rage it generates on the narrator, is the metaphor the narrator makes about it. After describing the figure, he says that he was chocking, filled to the throat with coins. Now, of course we know that he was not literally choking and not literally filled with coins, but the message is pretty clear. He is choking of fury and resentment; it is a feeling that overwhelms him to the point where it chokes him. Additionally, the reference about the coins makes him a Negro coin bank himself; we understand from his metaphor and desperate tone that he feels as if he might as well give up and accept the fact that he will always be one more thick-lipped, lightheaded, grinning black human being. 

Before this experience, the narrator was once insulted by a waiter who inferred he'd like pork and eggs instead of coffee and juice. After this experience, the narrator encountered a friend of his selling black-slave-dancer dolls in the street, as if they meant no harm at all. Stereotypes just keep hunting him, and not only does he have to fight against them for himself but also he has to do it for his race; most have given up to a point where they don't mind selling the very own doll that has emaciated their image. 

We cannot escape stereotypes for the most part; asians will always be smarter, colombians will always be called drug-dealers, africans will always have AIDS. What the narrator inspires us to do, though, is fight against them. At least applaud that one, athletic asian or stand up against being called a drug-dealer, or prove that you do not really have AIDS. If we ignore stereotypes, they will end up defining us. This has happened to the people around the narrator but, hopefully, if the narrator continues with his struggle, this will not happen to him. 

One Flew Over the Invisible Man's Cuckoo's Nest

It is slightly suspicious how Invisible Man and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest not only share a message of criticism towards suppressive societies but also an alarming amount of similar details. Throughout the first chapters of Invisible Man, people who have read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest begin to realize that both narrators share their invisibility and lack of personality and courage. Nevertheless, this can happen with a lot other novels as well. What is interesting, beyond both novels' message, is how particularly alike both messages are expressed.

Readers start off making a connection between the Invisible Man and Chief Brondem because of their personalities and, as previously stated, because of their invisibility. The importance of this connection vanishes for a couple of chapters until, in one concise yet striking sentence, the veteran tells the narrator, "Come out of the fog, young man" (153).  Almost intuitively, I was brought back to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where Chief Brondem finds himself lost and trapped within a figurative fog while us readers can only but wish he'd come out of the fog. Do these two fogs deliver a similar message? First, we know that both fogs are clearly figurative. Second, we know that both characters are in a submissive position where their complaisant behavior has made of them vulnerable, segregated men with no intention whatsoever of making themselves be heard. What the fog that surrounds both characters is trying to represent is how blinded and trapped they are in their own society. Both, unable to stand up for themselves, now face societal suppression, represented more subtly as fog.

As I continued to read, having this allusion in mind, I came across the Invisible Man's clinical experience. He describes to be lying on a hospital bed with only white people around him; doctors, who I perceive as slightly evil due to the narrator's spasmodic hallucinations and hyperbolic depictions. This reminded me once more of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Chief Brondem experience in Disturbance was not really that different. He would be tied to a bed, and, although tortured with ElectroShock Therapy every once in a while, he'd have recurrent hallucinations and only white, ill-intended nurses around him. Although the Invisible Man is being cured while Brondem was being tortured, both scenarios portray the characters as vulnerable and unimportant to their caretakers. This shows how segregated groups of people, whether it is blacks or indians or lunatics, are alien to societal interests; a black patient is harshly treated and mocked while trying to recuperate from a concussion while an indian is villainy tortured for hallow reasons.

Finally, the lobotomy. Doctors in Invisible Man consider it appropriate for the narrator to undergo a lobotomy and doctors in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest actually performed one in Randal McMurphy. Lobotomies are a highly controversial medical procedure in which most of the brain's frontal lobe is removed; that is, the place where most of our personal characteristics lie is cut out. This procedure, now highly unpopular, received a lot of criticism during the second half of the twentieth century because it would cause severe side effects on its patients; however, it was commonly known for successfully dealing with behavioral and psychiatric issues in patients. The fact that a lobotomy is being planned for a black and that it was done on a "lunatic" shows just how margined these people are and how invisible they are to society. A doctor even says it in Invisible Man, "It would be very different if the patient were a white Harvard student", meaning the procedure would perhaps be a lot less invading and damaging if they were treating with a white, educated person that with a black, unidentified man. This is unacceptable; a lobotomy should not be performed on a black or on a lunatic just because they are dark-colored or crazy. Clearly, the intentions of putting these patients through the torture of a lobotomy goes beyond the desire to cure them; what doctors are basically doing is cutting away the brain tissue that makes them them, consequently modeling them into being more submissive and complaisant.

It is unlikely that Ralph Ellison and Ken Kesey agreed to make the same type of references and deliver a similar message in their novels; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was published nearly thirty years after Invisible Man. Nonetheless, this pivotal coincidence allows readers to understand the meaning behind the novel's title, for example, by relating Invisible Man with Chief Brondem's experience. Themes are endless, but what is interesting is how the ways in which these themes are delivered are also sometimes equally timeless.

Racism; Has it Become a Black Predisposition?

Racism is an inevitable topic when dealing with segregated blacks; nevertheless, how much of it is their own fault? In Ralph Ellison's novel, "Invisible Man", the story of a young, ostracized black is told through his own resentful memories. The title of the novel resembles the narrator's behavior most pointedly; his indulgent nature makes him invisible to both whites and blacks. However, we meet another interesting character at the beginning of the novel, Dr. Bledsoe. The tension between Bledsoe and the narrator represents the effects of racism within blacks and their relationships; have they become predisposed to it?

The narrator is a complaisant black who, at the moment of the story which I am interested in discussing, had gotten into trouble for taking his school's director to an all-black bar.  The director had forgiven the narrator since it was him who had asked to be shown around that area. Nonetheless, Dr. Bledsoe, black himself, shows up and worsens the situation. Bledsoe asks to speak privately with the narrator and, were it not for the narrator's outrage, nearly abused him with a metal bar. They go on to having a heated argument and Bledsoe explodes with rage, questioning the narrator on what their race has come to.

What most struck me about their argument was Bledsoe's speech on his power over whites and blacks:

"I's big and black and I say 'Yes, suh' as loudly as any burrhead when its convenient, but I'm still the king down here. I don't care how much it appears otherwise." (Page 142)

First, his language. This is a scholar speaking, and he goes on to mocking his own self, his own race, with words such as "I's" and "Yes, suh". This implies Bledsoe's thoughts on his fellow blacks; uneducated, loud, illiterate... On the other hand, describing himself as "big and black" so openly nearly resembles a racist, white man's offensive description towards blacks. Additionally, his claiming to be the "king down here" displays his unconscious sense of inferiority. Finally, the fact that this is a black attempting to physically assault another black in a racist milieu shows how desperate Bledsoe is for feeling he has control over something. He says it himself, claiming to have control over white men and black men and showing them, for example, what he wants to show them. This is clearly a misconception Bledsoe has convinced himself of.

Bledsoe's violent behavior and self-insulting speech contrasts with the narrator's obliging character. The latter is an example of why racism continues; nothing is done against it. The first, however, is the archetype of why racism exists beyond white men themselves. I remember reading an article a long time ago in which the author claimed that blacks were also to blame for the endurance of racism, explaining how they purposefully act in rebellious ways and chose certain hazardous lifestyles simply out of grudge. Bledsoe shows signs of that; he mocks his own people and attempts to break the rules by setting up his own methods of punishment and control. Both behaviors should be equally condemned; on one hand nothing is being done and, on the other, nothing productive and beneficial at least. 

Ellison's message perhaps emphasizes the effects of being invisible, but I decided to look at the other side of invisibility too. It seems as if blacks had a grudge so large and dating so far back that they have become predisposed to racism, showing this by either failing to stand up against it or thinking of themselves as powerful in an almost white-racist-man sort of way when placed in a position of authority.