Struggles with Awareness
To be fully real, one must first be recognized by another person of equal or higher prestige in society. Only through proving one’s self, can such awareness be achieved. In a typical Hegelian struggle, two equal opponents face one another and battle for dominance. One will succeed and become the Master, and one will fall short to become the Bondsman. As Hegel describes though, “in serving and toiling, the Bondsman can actually find self-awareness; his Bondage is not absolute” (Pg.30 Course Reader).
I can draw distinct connections between The Invisible Man by Ellison, and Hegel’s Master vs. Bondsman confrontation; this will help visualize the “invisible man’s” place in society during Ellison’s time. I believe that Ellison was simply creating a metaphor for the way society treated black individuals in the 1900’s. Both examples (The Invisible Man and Lordship and …show more content…
This one sentence climax of the passage describes a point of differentiability between Bondsman and Master. Without sight, black folk can be interchanged with white and become equal. The insult that the man presented in the dark alley would have been given regardless of the person interacting with him. Again, with no clear sense of sight, for all the man knew, he was insulting another white man. The insult was not pointed toward a black person; in the dark alley there was no way of knowing what color the narrator was. This means that whites (masters) cannot judge blacks (bondsmen) without a clear distinction. In this case, the distinction is the skin color that couldn’t be detected in the dark alley. With no distinguishing features of Bondman and Master, who is to judge whom? He was not discarded as a black man in the alley, but rather one of equal nature. Much like Hegel says, in the dark these two individuals stand as equals until conflict arises which will separate the Master from the
To be fully real, one must first be recognized by another person of equal or higher prestige in society. Only through proving one’s self, can such awareness be achieved. In a typical Hegelian struggle, two equal opponents face one another and battle for dominance. One will succeed and become the Master, and one will fall short to become the Bondsman. As Hegel describes though, “in serving and toiling, the Bondsman can actually find self-awareness; his Bondage is not absolute” (Pg.30 Course Reader).
I can draw distinct connections between The Invisible Man by Ellison, and Hegel’s Master vs. Bondsman confrontation; this will help visualize the “invisible man’s” place in society during Ellison’s time. I believe that Ellison was simply creating a metaphor for the way society treated black individuals in the 1900’s. Both examples (The Invisible Man and Lordship and …show more content…
This one sentence climax of the passage describes a point of differentiability between Bondsman and Master. Without sight, black folk can be interchanged with white and become equal. The insult that the man presented in the dark alley would have been given regardless of the person interacting with him. Again, with no clear sense of sight, for all the man knew, he was insulting another white man. The insult was not pointed toward a black person; in the dark alley there was no way of knowing what color the narrator was. This means that whites (masters) cannot judge blacks (bondsmen) without a clear distinction. In this case, the distinction is the skin color that couldn’t be detected in the dark alley. With no distinguishing features of Bondman and Master, who is to judge whom? He was not discarded as a black man in the alley, but rather one of equal nature. Much like Hegel says, in the dark these two individuals stand as equals until conflict arises which will separate the Master from the