Ralph Ellison, the writer of Invisible Man, had interacted with Richard Wright, author of Native Son, a great deal before writing his story. The connections between his story and Wright's are clear throughout portions of the story, in moments such as Mr. Norton being depicted as a "parody" of Mr. Dalton or Emerson's talk with the narrator mirroring Jan's talk with Bigger. Each of these scenes can be interpreted as a criticism of Native Son, but I believe a much more clear example of Ellison's "jabs" at Wright is during the narrator's transformation.
During chapter 11, we are exposed to an almost fever dream-like series of events, where the narrator is put through a series of strange mind-altering experiments. After undergoing electric shock therapy, the narrator gets discharged from the "factory hospital," seeming fine. Except that his entire personality seems to have changed. He is no longer sure of who he is and seems to have a newfound rage. This entire sequence seems completely out of place and disrupts the feel of the story from before. An argument could be made that Ellison introduced this chapter to force character development and to mirror the change the main character experiences as a physical transformation. Given the context for this chapter, this could be a plausible explanation.
However, there is another explanation for the unnatural feeling of the chapter, which is that Ellison is attempting to take a jab at the character of Bigger. Since the very beginning of Native Son, Bigger feels like an angry and aggressive man. He rarely displays emotion other than fear or anger and seems like a generally bad person. He comes across more as a vehicle for the plot sometimes more than an actual character. In this sense, Ellison might be mocking the jarring character of Bigger Thomas by making the main character go through a jarring, completely out-of-place transformation to turn him into that same aggressive and angry man that Bigger is. Through this interpretation, the absurdity of chapter 11 comes across more as him mocking the shallowness of Bigger rather than a lazy tool to progress the plot.
There are of course flaws in this theory, as there are with any interpretation of literature. For example, if this was Ellison's intent, how does the main character reach the state he is in the prologue? Is he perhaps showing an alternate path Bigger could have taken, or is it something else? There is also the point that the jabs at Native Son aren't the main focus of the story, so devoting such a major event to that specific idea would not make a lot of sense in a broader view of the story. As we continue to read through the book, perhaps there will be a more clear explanation for chapter 11 and the events that unfold. But for right now, I think this is a solid theory that would explain both the outcome of the chapter and the chapter itself.
I think it's really interesting to think about the similarities and differences between Native Son and Invisible Man. I did not know that Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright had interacted at all. It's a cool idea that Ellison is taking a jab at Wright with his main character. I don't know if the way Bigger Thomas is is the exact same as the Narrator in Invisible Man during the prologue, but the theory definitely has some merit. I think that the characters of Bigger and Narrator are similar because they are both very much products of their circumstances, but because of Bigger's compulsiveness, he ends up dying because of it. It is important to discuss and compare both Native Son and Invisible Man, because of the inevitability of a comparison essay.
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