A Whole New Level

Whenever given a final chance at life, it snaps right back with a brick to the head. This is the particular situation of the narrator of Invisible Man. He has been sent to New York and all he found out was that Bledsoe simply wanted him as far away as possible. He had done nothing wrong but simply be the individual that people like Bledsoe detest. He is now in real deep shit.
Mr. Emerson's son is a symbol of something that one might call "scrub". He is the little robot working for his father and controlled by everything his father does. He can't really express his ideas in a way that the narrator can understand. He stammers with ideas to the point to making the narrator angry and uncomfortable. But he does have good heart which is something that is found very rarely in New York and much less corporation as big as that of Mr. Emerson. His tone goes from nonchalant to disdainful and he is extremely formal. But he lacks that ability to deliver an idea well which only made the harsh message from Bledsoe to Emerson even harsher for the narrator. His only good move to the situation is creating the option for the narrator to go to another college on page 183. And that may even foreshadow the idea that he just might get into some new college like Harvard. He certainly has the skills and the "ambition" (P184) to make it though even in a white school.
The last sentence of the chapter foreshadows a series of things that may or may not happen. Hey may decide to steer his life around and destroy everything around him starting with Bledsoe. Depending on how much money he actually has, he will go back home, or have to stay in New York until he actually does. Even though that may be his original play, it's very possible that he will choose to stay in New York for good, work until he has enough money to pay for a better college, and start a new life in the big apple. But this is a very critical moment that will decide what he will do in his life. And New York is the perfect symbol for a change in life.

The Situation That Never Sleeps

A simple person coming to the rage of a city like New York can have strong advantages, disadvantages, and plenty of surprises. Now, even though the Big Apple has been also nicknamed "The land of opportunity", the narrator of Invisible Man still finds himself trapped within his own world that is still connected to Bledsoe. He is letting this man take over his life. He certainly hates himself for letting him control him and with good reason. But he is viewing the world as a very limited place for a black man like him. Even though he just saw a black policeman direct the traffic of white people "as though it was the most natural thing in the world"(P159). Maybe the opportunities in this city are bigger than he may think.
He may very well figure out by himself sooner or later that he can do whatever he wants in this new world. But this small light is dimmed by the two intimidating cops standing beside the possible riot in page 160. They tell him to take care of himself but they still seem intimidating for some reason. This brings the idea of seeming versus being. They seem intimidating considering that he has no reason to trust cops since the ones back home are just too agressive. But they may have nothing really against him. Just because the ask "You sure?" and slightly treating him like an idiot does not make it a threat. But he still interprets it as one. Maybe these are just New York cops being New York cops.
Even though he has been rejected from several secretaries now, his hopes do not fade. He now feels equal to any other person walking along the street. The only difference now is the size of his wallet and everyone else's and even that makes very little difference. Such politeness is unmistakably a nonchalant tone. Even though this is an aggressive city, there is something smooth and calm about it that makes it ironic to the sight. But after a while, he realizes that his is standing on unstable ground and it could collapse on him at any moment. He is afraid in a land designed for people like him who come in without a job. He is afraid of the different and of what he does not know. But even though home may be harsh and the city even, he may find himself in a far better condition than he expected.

Mad With Power

Extreme abuse of power come when someone has done an extreme effort to gain such authority or simply has had it all their lives and assumes that it is their right to keep that authority and use it at their advantage. This is the rant that Bledsoe goes into in chapter 6 of Invisible Man. There is no doubt that his tone is patronizing through the entire rant and that he had little reason to scold the narrator to the point of putting himself in jeopardy of loosing his entire power. He simply underestimated the guts of the narrator to go up to him and fight back. But the narrator did not know that this was the man that had far more control than he did in just about every single aspect. He could kick him out of the school, and create his own platform to do just about whatever he wanted with him. But every man with power is afraid of loosing it. And when he was jeopardized with loosing it, he decided to take it easy. He went from formal to familiar register but his tone remained patronizing even when slowing down. But he never apologized. It would have been too far of a humiliation.

      It might be a very common thing in this particular part of the south and this particular time era. But there is nothing more ironic than a black man calling another one a nigger. It is an insult to the entire black community to use that word. But this is not Bledsoe showing his superiority but more of a sign of weakness that he is nothing more than a cheap and overpowered black man. 

Another piece of irony is "Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warning and self-justifying." (P.142) He just described power as being everything that he would like it to be instead of what it really is. When a person goes mad with power, there is no stopping that person and there is will cross any barrier to expand. He has demonstrated that though his entire ten minute rant. He may regret it after sending the narrator to New York or it may be another abuse of power and lie to get him out of the way. This is the last piece of evidence that demonstrates Bledsoe really does have the ability to create his own platform and control his own world.

Sightless

Many times, there will be someone that will give much even though he does not have much to give. This is the case of Homer A. Barbee.  He may not be a developed character but he is a small symbol of inspiration for the narrator. But even though he may not be very bright, he is also the "wise man" of every story whether he may be blind or missing a leg.
Ellison uses this character to strengthen the title of the book. To Barbee, everyone is completely invisible. And he has been the invisible one that everyone has paid little attention to until now. So even though he has made himself seen in his speech, everyone else are nothing to him in terms of sight.
Whenever attempting to make a speech to move people, the best possible register is familiar or ceremonial. Barbee used a mixture of both with excellent results. "And of course, you all know the story" (P130) is nothing shorts of familiar register and "how rich and poor, black and white, young and old, all came to pay their homage" on the same page goes with ceremonial. He is doing everything he can to connect with the public to a time when everything was completely equal. By using an optimistic and disdainful tone, he is easily able to be heard.
A "Black-draped coffin"(P 131) is a symbol of a dark feeling. In the case of the black men working which Barbee describes, they feel that cold feeling that they may one day become slaves again. This means that what we now all "Jim Crow laws" would one day pull them back into becoming a minority. Now, his tone goes into gloomy giving him the most powerful piece of attention possible. Being an old man also gives that impression that he has witnessed all that he is talking about. He is the reference of how times were and he has done a good job in demonstrating it.
It is almost ironic how a man can live in such a dark world of blindness but always keep his head up even though he does not see what he's doing it to. Barbee may very well be the narrator's foil at this point. The narrator makes no inspiring speeches, and makes no effort to support the black community he lives in. And out of all, he has no physical or mental conditions that hold him back to being great and admired. So at the moment, he is far more invisible to the public than this blind man. 

Will the real Ozymandias please stand up

A Nice Start

It's nice to see a new way of graduating from school (cough, cough). What really caught my attention was near the end where all the white men seem to get offended for just mentioning "social equality". This is a symbol for the local white culture that simply, is too conservative to even consider the idea of a black man being at their same level. This is perhaps the most racist era of the United States since the civil war. The gloomy and sardonic tones go along with what happens in the story as well. Gloomy when he is forced to fight with blindfolds and sardonic when he is giving his speech and pretty much being completely humiliated. The world choice is not better either; there is nothing nice about what happened up until when he receives the college scholarship. So this part of the story has big ups and downs in the tones but not so much in the diction or the syntax. So Ellison tries to cheer up the mood every time something nice happens but wants to keep the overall mood and environment in which the characters live the same. All that is broad remains while the little details hold.

Lost Habits

Edna is now becoming completely alienated from her husband and smashing her marriage apart in the process. A strong part was her refusing the invitation from her husband afterward with the excuse of wanting to work. Though this should be a valid excuse, she never really "works" but instead goes to her friend's house for art lessons. This is the moment where she is doing everything she can to distract herself from the man that may ruin her life. But there are certain things happening automatically that will not allow a that distraction. She finds that she can't stop thinking about Robert, and the like of time spent with her husband are the two strong pieces that refuse to let her go. In order to get things back in order, she must change back to her old habits. But it won't matter whether she puts strong efforts into changing but whether or not she will at the end of the day. Habits are the base of what people do and if she simply can't get it fixed, there will be a number of things that will go wrong in very soon.

This is the sort of story that has been played over and over when it comes to any sort of relationship. The woman falls in love with another man and has no other alternative but to run away from that feeling or get trapped in a world she does not belong in and will bring nothing but more conflict and more damage. But that is the danger in not being able to change habits. They must be able to fit into the status quo of the society to make things run smoothly. Otherwise, things happen. Edna may not be able to go back to her old life after this.

Spending Time

There is nothing that strengthens relationships better than spending time with a person. In this particular case, there could be no better place to stimulate love than at the shore of New Orleans. But this time, it was Edna the one that decided to start the day with Robert. Though it didn't end in the same romantic night with a kiss that the audience so much loves, it gives that same predictable element of the novel. She simply decided to go on an appropriate date to find an end with a new and stronger mix of feeling that will tear her marriage apart. But these are the small things that make the novel predictable and also unpredictable since there will always be something to come after the ugly fight.

Spending time in the wrong place is just as dangerous as wasting it. Edna decided that her time was not worthwhile with her husband and decided to pursue another. So by looking at the way she chooses to spend time, we can see it will probably end by using the idea of "then means justify the ends." In this case, it's far easier since we have seen several other examples of this same story. But in general, the reason we read a novel like this is to see people spend their time in the wrong place and the wrong time which will lead to their doom. The idea of reading is all about time and how people are either caught in it, or how they choose to spend it and get caught in it as a result. So time is the very base in which they do things except that it is our choice on how to spend it. The only way in which it can no longer be there is by the person not being there and therefore not worrying about time. So by making the novel more predictable, the reader is given a future glimpse on how their time will be spent by reading. But if it is an unknown, they will just drop the book by the fear of having their time wasted. It is all about time.

The start

Things are starting to happen that the characters themselves simply cannot explain. Things that they do instinctively and when they finally realize that they have don it, there is no room for explanation. This is something like Robert finding himself running after Edna in chapter ten when she is walking back home. He has no explanation of why he ran except for the fact that he wanted to make sure that she was not afraid of getting home safely or if she would rather go with company. But why running? He has not yet described any emotions that are even close to love. He may have denied it in his talk with Adéle but this is good enough evidence that there is something happening in his head that will develop into love even if he does not know it yet. And this could be one of the most dangerous aspect of love: he has a suspicion that it's there but knows not when it will suddenly come up and bite him.

Edna is at a different stage of love in chapter ten. We know that Robert took Adéle's advice in distancing himself from Edna. She may not know this, but feels that distance happen and goes on into simply having a bad time at the shore. That is when Robert finds regret and proving the idea that his love is starting to develop. But Edna does not really take it easy. This is a part of the book where a love can and will give out another set of feelings. Edna simply felt excluded but at the same time with a developing love over Robert and when he came to accompany her home, she tried to reject it. But she did so in a more soft manner than expected. Most people would have simply walked faster to get away. But she stayed behind which means she still has hopes of getting something out of the possible love.

Envy

Envy tends to be the strongest element that comes up in a marriage. In The Awakening it is the base of most conflicts including that of Robert and Adéle Ratignolle in the beginning of chapter 8 when she asks him to stay away from Edna. From here on in, an argument comes concerning why he should stay away from Edna and whether Adéle is jealous or not. Taking into consideration the fact that she and Edan are good friends, there is little room for a valid excuse on why she is not jealous. Very few times will envy come in front of true friendship in this form. In other worlds, Adéle has taken out of consideration the idea of friendship for the sake of her own convenience. She wants the same relationship that Robert and Edan will develop in the future and that by definition is envy.

With envy, comes a set of mistakes that typically break out into the continuation of the same heated argument. "You are not thinking of what you are saying (P46)" is a sign of desperation on Adéle's part and is perhaps one of the most ironic quotes in the book. She is the one speaking without correct processing and the one that is simply not being herself taking into consideration that she is kicking out her best friend to keep the man she wants. She is becoming mad with the power that she does not have. She is becoming the villain of the story that will end with the words of "envy is wrong."

Stuck

There often comes a time in a marriage where a series of feelings of regret comes into play. Taking Edan, she is looking back in the days where she did love her husband as support to try to recreate those feeling that are no longer there. Guilt will begin to come in and the dissatisfaction that she was simply not able to keep going with her marriage. those feeling turn into anger later on when she reacts to the music played by Mademoiselle Reisz. The most likely possibility is leans to that old feeling of love no longer being there and then being replaced by something darker. In this particular situation, there is little room to blame someone other than herself since she is sharing these emotions only with herself.

This is pure evidence that in a truly stable marriage, the feeling to the other person on the long run certainly counts even if there is still a constant supply of physical objects to enforce the love. This is also proof that after a certain time, a person's love for another may wear off and produce a strong mix of feeling that will typically end in the wrong place. At this point, Edan remembers loving and tries to apply that feeling to the present and see if it's there. Since it's not, she can only think of how things were and image how they would be if it were still in the same condition. She is stuck in the life that she feared most of having and lost what she feared most of loosing. From here on in, she will be either forced to live the life, or find an alternative that may cause further conflict within the story.

Starting Conflicts

Every time that there's a conflict between two people, it can either expand, or be resolved in a series of regretful and apologetic events. This is not the case of Edan and Léonce. Very few times will a starting conflict cool off in a novel and turn out to only be a little bump on the road. A novel must have a predictable side where a conflict will have to develop. Otherwise, the plot will only develop under a certain number of ideas that will soon be repeated. A conflict creates a stream of though where the writer can argue and the reader can think upon and therefore make the book much more productive and attractive to read. And in a starting conflict like this, there can't be a change in heart now that the reader has foreshadowed the future increasing conflict. This is of the few things in the novel that if changed, will make it far less intuitive to read and loose the magic of sitting back down and reading once more.

With little room for alternative to such a predictable move, authors will try to tweak whatever will come afterwards in the novel. They will bring something original and completely unexpected in order to stimulate that new generation of thought that makes the novel worth reading. But even if things do happen as the reader predicted, it continues to be a book worth reading. But the best authors are able to present an original idea or set of ideas, and be able to present them so that the reader can understand them and use them. So far into The Awakening, it has been relatively predictable but there is still some hope for a turnaround.