Contents
Introduction
Chronology
9
12
Chapter 1: Background on Ralph Ellison
1. Ralph Ellison: The Man and His Work
Contemporary Literary Criticism
17
Ralph Ellison is considered to be among the most influential American writers of the twentieth century. He received national attention in 1952 for his highly acclaimed
novel Invisible Man, which since its publication has inspired a wide variety of critical responses and is hailed
by critics for its complex treatment of racial repression.
2. Ralph Ellison’s Life and Literary Influences
Helped Shape Invisible Man
Norman Podhoretz
26
Ralph Ellison expressed his ambition to become an
American writer, and he felt himself neither limited nor
defined by his race as he became a writer. His life as an
African American and the literary influences of other African American writers, however, do shape his work.
3. A Conquest of the Frontier: An Interview
with Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison, as told to Alfred Chester
and Vilma Howard
36
Ellison discusses the importance of African American
folklore in Invisible Man, his creation of the novel’s characters, and his place among other literary greats who
have taken on the controversial subject of African American experience.
Chapter 2: Race in Invisible Man
1. Invisible Man Retains Its Racial
and Social Relevance
Thomas R. Whitaker
Date: October 20, 2011
Comp Specialist: adarga
47
Edit session: 738
Despite changes in America’s social and political climate
since the publication of Invisible Man, Ellison’s novel is
still relevant decades later. Its satirical targets remain: racial prejudice, blind and deceptive leadership, and the
betrayal of America’s promise.
2. Invisible Man and African American Radicalism
Christopher Z. Hobson
58
Invisible Man’s relation to the radicalism of Ellison’s
youth is the source of its definition of an alternative basis
for the African American social struggle after the Brotherhood experience, its continuing affirmation of possibilities of social reform, and its forecast of the actual content of the civil rights movement to come.
3. Ralph Ellison and the Mythology of Race
Jeff Abernathy
70
The ways in which black characters cope with inequity
provide the situations of many African American novels,
a genre that frequently relies on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn as both a point of reference and, as is the case
with Invisible Man, a text to react against.
4. Striving Toward a Black Democratic
Individuality in Invisible Man
Jack Turner
80
The narrator’s journey in Invisible Man is more than a
quest for selfhood. The novel’s setting within the racially
segregated United States allows Ellison to probe the way
white supremacy distorts Americans’ perceptions of themselves.
5. Ralph Ellison’s Literary Pursuit of Racial Justice
Thomas S. Engeman
87
The narrator of Invisible Man seeks individual liberation
through freedom from social oppression, but he finds this
freedom only in solitude.
6. Sexual Taboo in Invisible Man’s Battle Royal
Johnnie Wilcox
100
The Battle Royal scenes in Invisible Man feature sexual
taboo as a means to condition the narrator for connection
to larger systems of power and control. The Battle Royal
itself is symbolic of the generation of black labor and its
conversion into forms useful to white-controlled systems
of capital.
7. Ellison’s Liberty Paints Represents Racist America
Randy Boyagoda
107
When the narrator of Invisible Man lands a job at Liberty Paints, the last of his hope and optimism is drained.
Throughout the rest of the novel, he finds himself caught
between new immigrants and southern blacks, pushed in
different directions by both while confronted by the rest
of the color-blind nation.
8. Ellison, Memory, and the Act of Writing
in Invisible Man
W. James Booth
118
How Ellison’s narrator moves from invisibility to visibility is a central theme in Invisible Man and is intrinsically
tied to identity, race, and injustice in American culture.
Chapter 3: Contemporary Perspectives
on Race
1. It Is Time to Stop Using the Word Minority
for All Nonwhites
Barry Cross Jr.
126
The political controversy that erupted over the nomination of Latina judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme
Court proves that the term minority should not be used
to describe all racial and ethnic groups who are not white.
2. Color Blindness Suggests People Are
Embarrassed to Talk About Race
Sam Sommers
131
Americans should stop claiming not to notice race. Teaching children to be “color-blind” only teaches them to be
blind to differences in other cultures. Instead, children of
all ethnicities should be taught appropriate ways of describing race.
Date: October 20, 2011
Comp Specialist: adarga
Edit session: 738
3. Racism Continues to Plague People of Color
Jerome H. Schiele and June Gary Hopps
135
Minorities experience social problems that emanate from
racial oppression. As the population of racial minorities
continues to increase in America, white citizens’ fears
over declining power and privilege will also increase.
4. In America, White Neighborhoods Get Retail
Services and Black Ones Do Not
Kelly Virella
143
In the past twenty years, Chicago has experienced a surge
in retail development in once poor and underserved black
neighborhoods. This development corresponds with an
influx of white residents moving into these areas, raising
suspicions about retailers’ motives and creating racial
tension in gentrifying areas.
For Further Discussion
For Further Reading
Bibliography
Index
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