Ralph Ellison’s seminal work Invisible Man achieves one of the most sensational debuts of any novel in American history. Not only did it earn the National Book Award in 1953, the novel also spent sixteen weeks on the bestseller list and is considered to be one of the most influential American novels since World War II. The novel’s acclaim was well deserved, Invisible Man is noted for its masterful use of symbolism, metaphor, multiple styles and tones. The novel is thought to be one of the truest relations of the Black experience in America following reconstruction through the civil rights movement. Invisible Man was recognized by prominent literary scholars such as Saul Bellow and Irving Howe as a landmark publication. For all its acclaim,
…show more content…
Zola, writer of “Something Warmly, Infuriatingly Feminine: Racial (Un)Gendering in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man" suggests that by subjecting the young Black men to this performance the older White men are able to exert their social power and allow them to ease their own anxiety regarding sexual and masculine superiority. By daring these young adolescent men to look at the erotic dance performed by a white woman, but then simultaneously scolding them when they acquiesce these men exert dominance over the Black teenage boys. The woman loses her own humanity and is reduced to a mere symbol of oppression, the dancer arrives with the American flag emblazoned on her belly but in her eyes the narrator sees his own terror reflected back at him, thinking to himself that “above her red fixed smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes; almost like my own terror that which I saw in the other boys.” (Ellison 22). At the peak of the narrator’s naivety he can view the dancer as a person, identifying with her in their like struggle, both suffering at the hands of White male supremacy. Yet, even before he fully understands the depth of his own oppression, the narrator reveals his internalized oppressive attitude towards women, individuals that the narrator is unable to view as equals. Most evidenced in the brief imagery the narrator employs to describe the dancer, the narrator employs qualities that separate her from humanity and promotes a sense of distance between the two parties; the dancer’s face is compared to that of “an abstract mask”, her eyes are “the color of a baboon butt”, her hair similar to a kewpie doll. These descriptions create a depiction of this dancer as one to be scorned for her sexual prowess, he wants to “caress her and destroy her, love her and murder her, hide from her and yet to stroke [her]. Ellison does not employ her
Zola, writer of “Something Warmly, Infuriatingly Feminine: Racial (Un)Gendering in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man" suggests that by subjecting the young Black men to this performance the older White men are able to exert their social power and allow them to ease their own anxiety regarding sexual and masculine superiority. By daring these young adolescent men to look at the erotic dance performed by a white woman, but then simultaneously scolding them when they acquiesce these men exert dominance over the Black teenage boys. The woman loses her own humanity and is reduced to a mere symbol of oppression, the dancer arrives with the American flag emblazoned on her belly but in her eyes the narrator sees his own terror reflected back at him, thinking to himself that “above her red fixed smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes; almost like my own terror that which I saw in the other boys.” (Ellison 22). At the peak of the narrator’s naivety he can view the dancer as a person, identifying with her in their like struggle, both suffering at the hands of White male supremacy. Yet, even before he fully understands the depth of his own oppression, the narrator reveals his internalized oppressive attitude towards women, individuals that the narrator is unable to view as equals. Most evidenced in the brief imagery the narrator employs to describe the dancer, the narrator employs qualities that separate her from humanity and promotes a sense of distance between the two parties; the dancer’s face is compared to that of “an abstract mask”, her eyes are “the color of a baboon butt”, her hair similar to a kewpie doll. These descriptions create a depiction of this dancer as one to be scorned for her sexual prowess, he wants to “caress her and destroy her, love her and murder her, hide from her and yet to stroke [her]. Ellison does not employ her