I began writing this response at the prologue because in this short area I found noticeable connections to a few of our readings from class. The first of which is connections to Native Son. Just like Bigger did early on in Native Son, our unnamed narrator seems to have pent up rage that he displaces improperly to someone who doesn’t seem him in the street. He also talks about people being invisible, but not truly invisible like a ghost (as he compares early on) but because people are incapable of seeing him. This reminds me of the way that bigger discussed peoples blindness in his narrative. He used blindness as a metaphor for ignoring black struggles similar to the way that our narrator uses invisibility in his story. Also, I wanted to point
…show more content…
This quote does the same thing. By calling people “dreamers and sleepwalkers” the narrator suggests they aren’t knowledgable of their actions, and this means “the invisible victim” suffers. So it is necessary for the “dreamers and sleepwalkers” to be awake in order to end the …show more content…
Twice in the book the narrator has a white woman use him in attempt to fulfill some fantasy that she has regarding black men. The first being simply a fetish for the race and the second being a more violent sexual fetishization of the “black beast rapist”. Since sexualizing and sexually objectifying is a very important way that people are oppressed in media and society at large, it is important to look at this book’s inclusion of these themes. By these women wanting him to fulfill some kind of fantasy they make his sexuality an object or commodity that they can collect. It is clear that the author is calling attention to this as he includes this theme at two different points in the novel. In addition to this, the character of Rinehart, whom the narrator is often mistaken for when in his disguise, seems to be a metaphor for a stereotypical black man. He seems to be any number of things from pimp to reverend that a black person is usually stereotyped as. These two extremes of criminal and religious leader show the paralyzing limitations imposed upon black men about what they can be, and how they can sometimes be simultaneously seen as both of these
This quote does the same thing. By calling people “dreamers and sleepwalkers” the narrator suggests they aren’t knowledgable of their actions, and this means “the invisible victim” suffers. So it is necessary for the “dreamers and sleepwalkers” to be awake in order to end the …show more content…
Twice in the book the narrator has a white woman use him in attempt to fulfill some fantasy that she has regarding black men. The first being simply a fetish for the race and the second being a more violent sexual fetishization of the “black beast rapist”. Since sexualizing and sexually objectifying is a very important way that people are oppressed in media and society at large, it is important to look at this book’s inclusion of these themes. By these women wanting him to fulfill some kind of fantasy they make his sexuality an object or commodity that they can collect. It is clear that the author is calling attention to this as he includes this theme at two different points in the novel. In addition to this, the character of Rinehart, whom the narrator is often mistaken for when in his disguise, seems to be a metaphor for a stereotypical black man. He seems to be any number of things from pimp to reverend that a black person is usually stereotyped as. These two extremes of criminal and religious leader show the paralyzing limitations imposed upon black men about what they can be, and how they can sometimes be simultaneously seen as both of these