Swallow the Lake

This poem was especially interesting to me because it was one of a few poems that used very unorthodox structure.  It also made no direct reference to race or racism, which tends to open poems up quite a bit to various interpretations.  This poem is particularly cryptic.
My interpretation is that the Lake is symbolic of something inescapable.  In this case it is not slavery, but his anger and hate ultimately resulting from slavery.  The author uses a subtle suicide dynamic as a metaphor for killing his restraint and calm persona.  The first stanza establishes the premise of the poem; the narrator is contemplating as he looks "up-down" into Lake Michigan.  I think it's reasonable to assume that the author lives somewhere near Lake Michigan, but I'm not sure if it has any other significance.  The body of water is referred to simply as "the Lake" in the title.  The phrase up-down implies that although he is physically looking down into the Lake, perhaps he is anticipating his change.  From there on out, the poem is structured as broken thoughts.  The second stanza is describing his life experiences, perhaps with racism, but not necessarily.  However the line "More deaths!  Stupidity and death," (11) somehow makes me think directly of hate crimes; he mentions that this causes him great strife and anger.
When one finally gives in, and is "released" from the quiet bearing of that pain "One becomes immune to the bricks / to the feelings / One becomes death / One becomes each one and every person I become," (32-35).  The narrator becomes something powerful, angry, pure.  Yet this release comes with another release: the release of his peace and innocence.  He will be cursed to live a life of restlessness, and there will be no escape.  "I could not whistle and walk in storms / along Lake Michigan's shore / Concrete walks. Concrete deaths / I could not — / I could not swallow the lake," (39-43).  

Sethe's Insanity

The scene where Sethe attempts to kill all of her children is shocking to say the least, and is certainly intended to get the reader to start asking some serious questions, not the least of which is whether Sethe is to be considered a sane character or not.
In my previous post I addressed the manner in which Sethe dealt with her traumatic past at the hands of racism, how she was able to find a state of something close to peace.  This event definitely seems to dispute that hypothesis.  Yet Sethe does not seem to express great regret or guilt from her actions, or at least, she refuses to admit it.  To her, that act of desperation was also an act of love: the only option to prevent the enslavement of her children.
In retrospect, Sethe's behavior in the early chapters of the novel seems to indicate that she had been scarred.  She is often distant and rarely animated.  When she does speak for extended times, there's a cryptic, almost ghostlike quality to her.  I am especially reminded of that paragraph where Sethe tells Denver that "nothing ever dies".  I assumed that Sethe had been left as a shell of a person due to slavery, but I think it has become clear that the scene in the woodshed was the primary cause.
I still stand by my original opinion that Sethe was able to find peace.  She found peace not by burying the past, but by keeping it close to her in daily life.  It seems that she had almost forgotten the event on the surface--she doesn't acknowledge Beloved as the ghost of her deceased child, even though it's painfully obvious to the reader at times--but the past nonetheless remains attached to her.  What is clear is that Sethe sacrificed her humanity in order to protect her children.  The question is if she is insane for being able to live on.

Racism in Beloved

I think racism is portrayed in a pretty distinctly different way in Beloved in contrast to the other novels we've read this semester.  I think this has a lot to do with the time period and specific situation of the main characters of the novel.  They experienced the extreme racism of slavery firsthand.  Other characters such as Bigger, the Narrator, and especially Gunnar, experience a more nuanced prejudice. However it's not quite clear which type of racism results in more pain for each protagonist.  Although Sethe had highly traumatic experiences (arguably greater than any events that other protagonists experienced in this class), they occurred in the past; her daily experience with racism seems to be nonexistent.  Instead, she has been scarred, forced to relive her pain through re-memory.  Yet Sethe has found a state of being that could be called peace; she acknowledges the impossibility of a future, and is satisfied with living a quiet life in the past.  She allows the past to haunt her, yet she also takes comfort in it.  The writing style of the author intentionally tries to pull the reader into that same psyche that the characters in this world share.  For them the past is real, physical.
Characters like Bigger who experience daily oppression also have no future, but Bigger comes to terms with his fate in a very different way than Sethe does.  I think a key part of this is the fact that Bigger wasn't able to physically escape racism in the same way that Sethe did.  It was only after Sethe no longer had experiences to add to her stack of re-memories that she could find mental closure.  At the same time, I have trouble envisioning Bigger escaping Chicago and venturing out into the country to live a humble life with his family.  Beloved introduces another distinct character in Sethe who is unique in that ability to live without living.  For Bigger, it seemed that death was the only escape from racism.   

Organized Sports and the Minstrel Dynamic

Organized team sports in America, particularly football and basketball, undeniably have some sort of minstrel dynamic going on.  Black athletes' physical abilities are being used to make ungodly sums of money for primarily white team owners.  However I think the team vs. fans interaction is even more telling.  Teams are held up as representations of their region.  Now this is generally accepted as irrational, however the fan-base continues to indulge in this concept.  As this attachment continues, the fans form a fraudulent emotional bond to the team.  Suddenly the success of the team and its players reflect the success of the individual, despite the fan likely having no actual relationship with the athletes.  Eventually this concept of "I succeed if you succeed" can lead (not saying this is always the case) the fan to feeling that the team/player owes their loyalty to them; they are the fan's property.   When combined with the long history of slavery and the even longer history of racism in America, this dynamic cannot be overlooked. Like I pointed out in class, this dynamic is what makes Gunnar and Scoby so uncomfortable as basketball stars.  The crowd views them as well-functioning tools, and have no appreciation for them as human beings, and probably not even as skilled basketball players.  They see them merely as some ridiculous manifestation of their success.

However in individual sports, most of these problems are fairly absent.  Take tennis for instance.  Pro tennis used to be similar to the NBA or NFL where players were owned by syndicates that governed the schedule and paychecks of the individual.  Tennis was not especially mainstream during this time period however, so that large-scale dynamic of fans associating themselves with the tennis teams was not present.  But before it could happen, the players rebelled and formed the ATP.  Now players are independent and work with tournament organizers to discuss prize money and season schedule.  This point is pretty tangental, but I wonder what modern day NFL and NBA would be like if the players had rebelled and co-owned their teams.  Would it at least reduce the presence of the minstrel dynamic?

"Gang Life" in White Boy Shuffle

The Gun Totin' Hooligans stands out as being the only environment where Gunnar's full character is acknowledged and valued.  Basketball and poetry are Gunnar's greatest skills, but in the public (and often white) eye, only his basketball skills are appreciated.  However because of the very common stereotype of black excellence in basketball, Gunnar quickly becomes expected to perform on the court.  On the opposite side of the same coin, Gunnar's intellectual skills in poetry are not expected of him by whites, and therefore not appreciated.  Beatty writes a somewhat similar novel to Ellison, where the portrayal of stereotypes and ideals takes precedence over realism, but Beatty goes out of his way to use a heaping amount of humor as well.

To more specifically address the gang, it's made up of a bunch of strange characters, maybe primarily for comic effect, however I think it cements the point that this gang is about the unity of those who are outcast or unable to meld with society.  Gunnar quickly falls into his role as the gang and neighborhood poet.  The less serious nature of the gang also seems to indicate that the dynamic might be more representative of urban African-American culture during this time period rather than an actual gang.  The GTH are not dealing drugs and conducting mass organized crime, but rather enjoying each others company in a way that kind of reminds me of the porch scenes from Their Eyes were Watching God.  I think that respect to family and friends in urban African-American culture may be more important due to the subtle and direct stereotypical restrictions placed on them by whites; again, this is their place of refuge.

As a side note; if the gang is taken to be a literal gang, Beatty may be commenting on the difficulties in extricating oneself from that situation.  It is the only environment where many of these people can be appreciated and successful, but it is not without its dangers as well (Psycho Loco).

Wright's Critique of Hurston

I think that in many ways Wright's critique of Hurston is legitimate.  Their Eyes Were Watching God is not a particularly idealistic novel.  The protagonist is on the whole, not particularly complex either.  As some have pointed out, this novel could be seen as a story of a woman finding her identity, but I really don't feel that's the case.  This analysis is digging at something that isn't there.  Her journey is, at best, a pursuit of her ideals about love and the ideal marriage/relationship.  I prefer to read the novel as an adventure: a story about realistic characters with realistic interactions living eventful lives.  Certainly Janie does find some accomplishment after her journey, but it isn't in an existential sense.  I do think that this novel has merit in its portrayal of southern life, but I agree with Wright that this book should not be that significant or lasting.

I don't believe that Hurston has the obligation to write a novel addressing race relations, but I do believe that a truly great novel has to have some philosophical or political/social relevance.  I used the parallel of music in class; there are plenty of good, catchy, successful songs that have no meaning to speak of, but a truly great song will be both well-constructed and possess some depth.

As for Wright's specific issue with Hurston's "minstrel-esque"portrayal of black southerners, I was at first less inclined to agree.  It seems wrong, especially from a modern perspective, to expect a certain portrayal of a group and especially a race from an author.  However in context, this novel was written during a time where such racist stereotypes were still rampant, and Wright was one of many trying to pave the way for change.  Hurston was naive in her detachment (whether intentional or not) from negative race relations and neglected to factor in the damaging effect her work could have in the hands of a racist demographic.

Janie's "Idealism"

Janie's life seems to be unfolding in a progression that is similar to the narrator's from Invisible Man, but very different in both beginning and goal.  She has a naive (at least from the perspective of her grandmother) expectation of what love and men should be, just as the narrator has a naive expectation of what the path to success in the world will be.  Both stories are also large frame narratives, although I think we have a little less understanding of what changes Janie has gone through, whereas the personality differences between the narrator in the prologue and the first chapter are very stark.

The subject matter seems lighter than Invisible Man so far; Janie hasn't really had any strong confrontations with other characters yet, and it even seems that her naive ideal about love may be a thing of the past soon.  This leads me to believe that either the novel will take a sudden darker turn, or Janie may hold onto her ideals and give up secure situations to pursue "adventure".  Then the final question posed to the reader would be something along the lines of "was her 'adventure' and pursuit of ideals worth the less favorable final result?"  I think it might actually be a more interesting novel this way, often tragedies in novels feel contrived or just out of place.  At the same time I don't really think Janie has been established as a particularly unique or compelling protagonist, albeit being independent in many ways, so this plot-line could become boring.  

The Narrator's Max?

Something I noticed after completing Invisible Man was the complete lack of any characters that sympathize with the narrator or have an honest interest in his success.  Bigger on the other hand had both Max and Jan, although they didn't truly understand his psyche until the end of the novel.  When Bigger first met these characters and others, he was either suspicious or outright angry, unlike the narrator, who was very trusting and eager to please.
It may be that this difference is due to the motivations of the protagonists.  The narrator is more concerned with the disillusionment of his preconceptions of his environment while Bigger is trying to carve out his own personal identity.  Therefore Ellison is more concerned with the roles in the environment that his secondary characters play rather than their actual relationship with the narrator.  Native Son is a lot more about Bigger's psyche in contrast to that of what we see as weak-minded individuals.  He is able to pursue his own "accomplishment" in a way that transcends the environment, not particularly interacting with it in anyway.  This is of course evidenced by his complete lack of understanding of Max's speech in the court.  Even in the end when he embraces Max and Jan as something close to friends, it's on a very personal level, independent of the roles each character might play.  The narrator in Invisible Man, for all his resent of being labeled, only really views other individuals through the roles he expects them to fit into.  This is likely a result of the narrator's preconception of having to find success by following the rules of the system.  Was Bigger able to find personal accomplishment because he had no pre-existent illusions of what success meant?  This could be a topic that Ellison and Wright disagree on.

The True Naturalist

The Invisible Man has a somewhat opposite protagonist dynamic to Native Son.  The narrator starts out (in his life, not the novel) as a fairly average character, albeit perhaps especially submissive and naive.  He is certainly not an unrealistic or extreme character that many would label Bigger as.  On the surface, this makes him seem more relatable than Bigger was at the opening of his story, but ultimately his lack of depth ends up making the reader feel more distanced for most of the novel.  However the narrator changes drastically from this almost lack of personality to an extremely eccentric, analytical, and probably insane character by the time the epilogue rolls around.  This somewhat blank slate was formed into something very complex through Ellison's very detailed and maybe absurd environment.  Bigger however quickly evolves into a unique, impassioned character that I at least found to be relatable on a very human level.
I already wrote a blog post (and response paper) on why I consider Native Son to be more of an existentialist novel than a naturalist one; I find The Invisible Man a better fit for this category.  Ellison doesn't really care whether the reader finds the narrator to be an interesting character, just that the premise of the character is believable.  From there Ellison uses his symbol-ridden environment to mold him, thereby accomplishing his social commentary on the visibility/invisibility of an individual in society (or whatever you think he is trying to say, because really, who knows).  As others have pointed out, Ellison wants the reader to be able to imagine themselves in the narrator's position.  Regardless it seems clear that Wright is more concerned with existentialism, as evidenced in Bigger's final words, and the general lack of blatant symbolism, instead favoring character interaction.  Ellison seems to be more resigned to the power of naturalist influences, and only has ambiguity in what exactly he is using his naturalist ideology to point out.

As an aside I'd like to say that my opinion on The Invisible Man has changed, and I found the ending to be really satisfying.  I'm not saying I enjoyed it as much as Native Son, but I like that Ellison is able to portray naturalism in a non-pessimistic way as the novel closes.

Why I Find Native Son Compelling, and not Invisible Man

Native Son is such a unique novel to me because of Bigger (I've already written a blog post on this, so I won't get into it that much).  Wright focuses far more on Bigger's thought processes and sometimes unpredictable psychological developments rather than irony and "environment development".

Invisible Man on the other hand focuses massively on irony and environment/setting details.  However in my opinion it falls short instead on the protagonist.  While I don't think the narrator is undeveloped, find him a bit boring.  In the beginning of the novel, he's clearly not meant to be very relatable.  He's submissive, naive, and almost without any self-respect.  He doesn't really have any striking ideals or personality aspects that I find interesting.  Later he breaks out of this character somewhat, becoming a great deal more skeptical and aggressive.  However these personality aspects are really only noticeable because of the contrast to his old character.  As far as I'm concerned he's become an average, educated young man, still without any particular ideals or goals other than to be vaguely successful.

Now one could make the argument that Ellison's huge environmental and ironic depth makes up for the lacking protagonist, and it does to some extent, and while the constant ironies give a lot of potential for analysis, for me it gets a little old.  The plot is a bit too predictable, and you can hardly read a page without being thrown with some irony (or what might be irony).  If you combine that with the often predictable narrator, the novel often seems fairly unimaginative.  While the prologue gets us wondering how the narrator develops, I wish it didn't exist at times, because the reader not only knows where the narrator will end up (irrelevant and "invisible"), but we also know his final psychological result, which I don't enjoy knowing.

Please keep in mind that I'm not done with the novel yet, and I am quite biased towards Native Son.  I just think Invisible Man is an acquired taste that I don't quite have.

The Narrator's Evolving Interactions with Figures of Authority

One way we can observe the narrator of Invisible Man evolve as a person is to look at how his interactions with figures of authority or experience (particularly black figures) change over the course of the novel.  The narrator arrives at the college still full of naivety and submission.  However he does believe that he has some understanding for how to behave in the world to succeed.  He initially respects Bledsoe because he believes that Bledsoe has honorably and patiently made his way up the social ladder.  However after simply doing what he is told, what he always thought was the key to success, he ends up on the bad side of Bledsoe, and Bledsoe reveals that he is constantly putting on a mask and attempting to play the system.  Eventually the narrator becomes angry for the first time in the novel, and I believe that this stems from his core philosophy slowly being picked apart.

When he meets Emerson, the narrator is already uncomfortable and angry before Bledsoe's letter is revealed to him.  Instead of taking Emerson as a helpful, well-meaning man, the narrator feels insulted, targeted, and like he's being played.  The reveal of the letter only increases these emotions.  This interaction was almost Bigger-esque when he was talking with Jan.  Both characters just wanted to do their job, and these men were stepping out of their roles in a way that made the protagonists feel like they were the butt of a joke or trap.

By the time the narrator encounters Brockway, he's almost on his way to becoming the narrator of the prologue.  This impressive old black man who has made his way in the world, and clearly at least to some extent is in a position of power in the factory, who has learned everything he knows through only experience, is immediately looked down upon by the narrator.  Brockway also seems to have the same ideology as the narrator did previously where working for a respectable white man is an honor (he deeply hates the "ungrateful" union workers) and takes pride in the fact that the white factory owner needs him.  Brockway seems to be a very upfront, if paranoid character, but the narrator has already been set off into a state of perpetual anger which only accelerates his development.  This is his last interaction with a figure of knowledge and/or authority that results in his "rebirth" from the factory hospital.

Somewhat Disorganized Thoughts on The Driving Force of Native Son

As any young, poor, black man living in the 1940s, Bigger has few options in life.  Racism is unhidden and rampant in Chicago, however somehow Bigger Thomas' personality emerges in these conditions. is ambitious and proud, disgusted by his surroundings.  As I've said before, Bigger is like an idealogue without an ideal.  He wants desperately to be something great and powerful, but has no idea where to begin.  His options were closed so early in his life that he never even had the luxury to fantasize.  Like most other men in his position, Bigger is terrified and submissive around whites, and understandably so.  However his greatest fear is to be a failure, a nobody.  

This combination of his immense pride and fear causes him to become the angry and isolated character he is.  Instead of being closer to his community as a result of that fear, he lashes out at them, as evidenced by his irrational assaulting of Gus.  Bigger does not wish to associate himself with what he sees as weak failures, or perhaps associate with anyone early on in the novel.  This only drives him deeper and deeper into his ocean of fear and isolation.  Although Wright is writing from a third person perspective, it seems first person in nature.  The reader is so firmly attached to Bigger in all his actions and thoughts that to us it seems he is the only character.  Bessie is clearly just a tool to Bigger; something that exists for his immediate gratification, and when she is no further use to him, he does away with her.  When we encounter the naive but well-meaning Mary, a character with ideals that many of us share such as social equality, the reader can't help but resent her with the same hate that Bigger feels.  Not only is he confused by her seemingly unrestricted social conduct, but she associates Bigger with members of "his community".  To Bigger there is no greater insult.  

It is this isolated, angry, arguable sociopathic character that ultimately takes Mary Dalton's life.  The action was out of immense fear and impulse, and yet Bigger convinces himself that it was murder.  This was perhaps the most shocking and revealing aspect of the novel, the climax.  Not the murder itself, but when Bigger happily takes on his role of the dangerous, cold, and calculating murderer.  At this point Bigger knows somewhere within him that he has no future, and yet he hasn't accomplished his goal yet: to become something.  He does not resent fate, for he was "always killing": always killing in his head those who stood in the way of his success.  He was always prepared to die for his ambition, and to him it was a small price.

In a certain sense I see Native Son as a protest novel.  However it is just as unique in its accomplishment of this as Bigger Thomas.  Whether or not Wright intended for this to be a protest novel, Bigger represents what is in my opinion the most vital and powerful aspect of the human psyche: humanity's pride and ambition.  This is what makes him understandable to the reader, if not sympathetic.  Wright uses racism as a tool to show how society can crush ambition, and therefore, to me Bigger Thomas is a very real character despite his extremities. Wright said that there were many Biggers, more than he could ever convince us of.  I do see Biggers everywhere; people that have yet to find that outlet.  Some have said that Wright was unfair to Bigger Thomas' character.  He was too much a product of his environment, and didn't give any credit to his own individuality.  I see Max as Wright's self-criticism on this topic; Max sees Bigger as a faultless representation of something bigger, but in the final scene of the novel Bigger makes it clear that he wants his actions to be his and his alone: the actions of an individual human.   Wright didn't want to create a mere protest novel, but something that could examine the human soul.