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Accepting absurdity or fighting back

Raplh Ellison's Invisible Man is by far the wackiest novel I've ever read. The first chapter introduces us into the narrator's absurd world, which is governed by sadistic rich white men who pit young black men against each each other for entertainment. This world seems to have no rules or reason other than to cause humiliation and pain, but the narrator accepts the absurdity of it all and continues fighting for what he thinks is success.

The narrator has a "firm belief in the rightness of things" because he has been trained his whole life to comply with what people in power tell him. The veteran doctor in the Golden Day articulates that the narrator has been blinded by "that great false wisdom taught slaves and pragmatists alike, that white is right." Everything about the narrator's education was controlled by rich white men like Mr. Norton, who work to perpetuate their vision of racial superiority while cloaking their intent in the promise of knowledge and freedom.

As a result of being fed lies about the absurdity of the racist world, the narrator has never learned to form his own opinions. The veteran doctor aptly describes the narrators condition: "He's learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative". The narrator doesn't seem to resent being a second-class citizen in a world where power is reserved for a select few because he has so thoroughly repressed his sense of human dignity.

However, the protagonist in the Prologue represents a completely different form of consciousness. He is proud of his humanity and fully understands the absurdity of the world he has disappeared from. Because of his committment to individualism and independence, he is completely "irresponsible" to the norms that used to dictate his every thought. I'm interested to continue reading and see how the brainwashed young college student tranforms into a luminous (1,369 lightbulbs!) and lucid hermit who celebrates his "vital aliveness". I think such a transformation requires a completely different kind of education than the militaristic state college provides.

Comments

  1. MitchellSeptember 5, 2019 at 11:38 AM

    I like the idea that the Prologue-narrator's consciousness entails "understanding the absurdity of the world he has disappeared from." As we'll see as the novel unfolds, there's a lot of overlap between absurdity and invisibility, and the development of understanding that absurdity is closely related to the "discovery" of invisibility. The narrator in chapter 1 is at his furthest point back from this discovery, and as you say, at this point he's accepting the absurdity so fully that he's not able to see it as absurd. It's just the way things are, and his mission is to please these powerful, sadistic men.

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  2. Charlotte EbelSeptember 11, 2019 at 10:52 PM

    That quote you have that says "white is right" really popped out to me as I was reading your post, because isn't that the slogan for Liberty Paints that Mr. Brockway tells the narrator about? It's interesting how Ellison weaves in these small details that resurface throughout the novel. This particular phrase appears the second time right before the narrator's drastic transformation due to the factory explosion and disturbing medical experiments done on him. After he is 'recovered', the narrator no longer feels like "white is right," and he begins to live more freely. Is this a coincidence that Ellison wove in that phrase right at the end of the narrator's former state of mind to remind the reader of the narrator's conformity to society? I think not...
    Sorry this doesn't really have anything to do with your post, I kind of got on a tangent there.

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