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.