Grant Knoll
Texts and Contexts: Race and American Culture
Professor Zino
Capstone Assignment 2: Literary Analysis
26 November 2013
Blindness
Ralph Ellison, in his novel, Invisible Man, uses many different stylistic
elements to help further elaborate the major themes of the story. A close read of this
novel shows different patterns of development that help to enhance the overall
significance of the book. Invisible Man, is told through the first person perspective of
the narrator, who seemingly lacks any inherent identity. His search for his identity is
made more difficult by the fact that he is black man living in a very racist society
that degrades all but white males. One of the most important themes of the novel is
that of blindness, which is prevalent throughout the story. The narrator deals with
many blinding experiences, which includes an enforced blindness in the battle
royale scene, blindness revealed gradually through Homer A. Barbee’s speech, and
the moment of blinding re-enacted through Brother Jack losing his eyeball. The
narrator is rendered invisible because other characters have racist prejudices
against him, which they don’t even realize because of their blindness. The theme of
blindness becomes fulfilled in the novel specifically in the aforementioned scenes
where speakers like Reverend A. Barbee, Brother Jack, or the narrator and their
audiences are both physically blinded and metaphorically blinded to the racism
present during their time period. There is a clear relationship between literal details
and symbolic meaning in this novel.
The first major scene in the novel where the imagery of blindness plays a
large role occurs in the battle royal the narrator takes part in. The narrator is set to
deliver his high school graduation speech in front of the community’s prominent
white citizens, when he finds out he will be participating in a battle royal with some
of his other black classmates. As they are about to enter the ring the narrator says,
“All ten of us climbed under the ropes and allowed ourselves to be blindfolded with
broad bands of white cloth…But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused
to darkness. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a room filled with
poisonous cottonmouths” (Ellison 21). The actions of the other black classmates and
the white audience are important in this scene, because they both exemplify a
blindness of reality. The black classmates, who are literally blindfolded, are
symbolically blinded to the fact that they are being taken advantage of by the whites
in the community. They don’t realize that the savage beatings they are placing on
one another are solely for the entertainment of the white audience and no other
reason. The narrator while choking on his own blood says, “I spoke even louder in
spite of the pain. But still they talked and still they laughed, as though deaf with
cotton in dirty ears” (Ellison 30). The white audience is unable to see their
degrading behavior and is unable to recognize the significance of the narrator’s
powerful speech when he delivers it to them. Structurally this scene is similar to
other blinding situations, in that it is present in front of an audience. In a battle
royal, where people are trying to physically harm each other, having good eyesight
is important, making the use of blindfolds a good way to further dramatize the
situation. The fact that there is white audience present watching the battle royal
also increases the effectiveness of the theme of blindness, because it shows the
juxtaposition of the white audience to the black classmates, and how both are truly
blinded to the racist society they live in.
Reverend Homer A. Barbee’s speech at the chapel service in chapter five is
another example of blindness that occurs in front of a large audience of people,
however this audience is composed of young black males the reversal of the adult
white males in the battle royal scene. Reverend A. Barbee tells the harrowing life
story of the Founder of the college that the narrator attends in the beginning of the
novel and is later kicked out of by Bledsoe. After Barbee is done delivering his
speech he falls coming off the stage and the narrator realizes, “It was when he raised
his head that I saw it. For a swift instant, between the gesture and the opaque glitter
of his glasses, I saw the blinking of sightless eyes. Homer A. Barbee was blind”
(Ellison 133). Homer A. Barbee was speaking in front of a large audience he couldn’t
see just like the narrator’s plight in chapter sixteen, when the narrator spoke in
front of a large black audience at a city rally. In both scenes Barbee and the narrator
fall as they were coming off the stage, which could symbolize how blindness trips
people up in seeing the actual truth around them. Homer A. Barbee and the audience
he speaks in front of, which is composed of the black kids of the institution, are both
unable to see what’s actually going on in their respective situations. Homer A.
Barbee makes the Founder of the institution out to be a great hero that should be
followed, he says that, “the work of the founder will be one of ever unfolding glory,
the history of the race a saga of mounting triumphs” (Ellison 133). He doesn’t realize
that the institution has brought forth men like Dr. Bledsoe, who rather keep his
power than actually help the narrator and the other black students. After the speech
the narrator notes that, “There was sniffling throughout the chapel. Voices
murmured with admiration and I felt more lost than ever” (Ellison 133). The
audience of black students, which includes the narrator, becomes emboldened to
follow the college’s ideals after the emotional speech, however they are blinded to
the realization that the president of their institution isn’t what he really seems to be.
In chapter sixteen the narrator’s speech in front of a large black audience at a
city rally is rife of blinding imagery and symbolism. The narrator right before the
speech sees a photo of a champion boxer who lost his sight in an unfair fight and
died in a home for the blind foreshadowing the blinding imagery to come. The
narrator undergoes a bout of blindness in a boxing ring similar to the one in the
battle royal scene, “entering the spot of light that surrounded me like a seamless
cage of stainless steel. I halted. The light was so strong that I could no longer see the
audience, the bowl of human face. It was as though a semi transparent curtain had
dropped between us, but through which they could see me-without themselves
being seen” (Ellison 341). This scene is similar to the other blinding event at the
battle royal in that they both occur in similar settings, both in front of an audience
and in a boxing ring. The clarity of vision is important in a different way in this part
as the blindness caused by the lights doesn’t cause the narrator physical harm, but
causes him to forget his original speech making it go against the ‘scientific’ way the
Brotherhood wanted it executed. The narrator brings forth another theme in
relation to blindness, the theme of dispossession, when he says, “They think we’re
blind-uncommonly blind. And I don’t wonder. Think about it, they’ve dispossessed
us each of one eye from the day were born” (Ellison 343). He speaks about how the
black race can no longer be blind to the dispossession of their lives and identity by
the white community, however the whole time he cannot actually see his audience.
The moment that the narrator learns in chapter 22 that Brother Jack
possesses a glass eye, serves of great importance in that the narrator realizes that
the Brotherhood is led by a blind leader, who does not really know what the African
Americans in Harlem need for true social progress. This section acts as the last
important blindness scene in the novel. The narrator after giving a eulogy for Todd
Clifton’s death returns to his office to find the Brotherhood waiting for him there.
During an argument between Brother Jack and the narrator, the narrator sees
Brother Jack’s eye pop out, “I stared at the glass, seeing how the light shone through,
throwing a transparent, precisely fluted shadow against the dark grain of the table,
and there on the bottom of the glass lay an eye. A glass eye. A buttermilk white eye
distorted by the light rays” (Ellison 474). The narrator finds out in a dramatic way
just like with Reverend A. Barbee that Brother Jack is blind or at least partially blind.
The narrator up until this point had previously no idea that Brother Jack was at least
partially blind. Both Brother Jack and the committee with him, which constitutes
the audience in this scene, are blind to the fact that in reprimanding the narrator for
rallying people around Todd Clifton’s death they are supporting his racially charged
murder. Brother Jack tells the narrator that losing his eye was, “A minor lesson in
discipline. And do you know what discipline is, Brother Personal Responsibility? It’s
sacrifice, sacrifice, SACRIFICE!” (Ellison 475). The narrator pondering this in his own
thought says, “See! Discipline is sacrifice. Yes, and blindness” (Ellison 475). Brother
Jack doesn’t realize that the loyalty he has to the Brotherhood is blinded by a false
ideology that they are supposed to uphold. The Brotherhood doesn’t truly care
about the political concerns of blacks in Harlem, which is evident in their lack of
concern in the racist killing of Clifton. The narrator understands that the discipline
and sacrifice that Brother Jack and the Brotherhood value is really another form of
blindness.
Ellison builds his blindness scenes in similar settings mostly in front of large
audiences, which helps the narrator. The narrator’s involvement in the battle royal,
the narrator’s speech he gives at a city rally, and Reverend Homer A. Barbee’s
sermon at the chapel service all occur in front of large audiences, in which both the
audience and the person giving the speech, are blind to the racist society they live in.
The stylistic elements in these scenes help to further illuminate the theme of
blindness. The theme of blindness in the novel is brought forth in different ways in
each major scene. There’s enforced blindness in the battle royale scene, blindness
revealed gradually through Barbee’s speech, and the moment of blinding re-enacted
through Brother Jack losing his eyeball. In each case the nature of the blinding
affects the audience. These different “performances” of blindness lead to the
narrator’s revelation of his invisibility, because he understands that by being
constantly surrounded by people who are blind in a metaphorical and physical
sense to the world, no one he has associated with can actually see his true identity.
Without other people being able to he see his identity he is basically rendered
invisible. This invisibility the narrator experiences is fully cemented through the
theme of blindness in the novel.
Works Cited
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York : Random House, Inc., 1952. Print.