HAF2022 Blog

The point of view in Their Eyes Were Watching God  seems to be from an omniscient third-person narrator, who seems to be completely unconnected to everyone else in the story. The most basic and obvious interpretation of this would be that the narrator is detached from the story and only exists to provide the reader with information and descriptions on what is going on. This is generally the most "safe" and reasonable interpretation of any third person omniscient narrator in a story. However, I believe that it goes deeper than this. I believe that the narrator is supposed to be a representation of Janie, most likely being an aged-up Janie reflecting on her past. The "omniscient" aspect of the narrator could be explained by her understanding the full story later on in life as she looks back on it. This would make sense because as far as I can remember, the narrator never says or does anything that would be impossible for Janie to either figure out or hear from people ...

The idea of "invisibility" is key to the novel Invisible Man , which comes as no shock to anyone who actually read the book (or read the title). However, we are never presented with a concrete definition of what "invisibility" truly means. We know that certain characters are described to have it, such as the narrator, Dr. Bledso, Brockway, and Rinehart to list a few. While we get somewhat of a description of the invisibility of each of these characters, I believe that the Rinehart sequence gives us the most insight into what invisibility really means. The narrator describes himself as invisible in the prologue and gives quite a lot of information on the foundation of invisibility. He says that, "I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, ...

     Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright were both part of the Communist Party of the United States of America, and they both eventually fell out with the communist party. This is reflected in their books, Native Son and Invisible Man , where the communist party is depicted in some form or another. In Native Son,  the communist party is explicitly mentioned and is shown in a somewhat negative light. In a similar vein, connections can be drawn between the Brotherhood in Invisible Man  and the communist party of real life.     However, before the connection can be made between the Brotherhood and the CPUSA, it is important to remember Ellison's history with the party. Both Ellison and Wright had a falling out with the party and started to disassociate themselves with them near or around the time they wrote their books. The negative attitude they hold towards the party, especially Ellison, helps form connections between the Brotherhood and the party. For ins...

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 newf...

In the book Native Son, we are introduced to the hostile climate of America in the year 1940 through the eyes of Bigger Thomas. Throughout the story, we see displays of this hostility in either explicit social forms or in deeper, more systemic structures. However, the main constant is that the climate of America during this time is extremely unaccepting of ________. The expected answer here would be African Americans, but this statement works just as well for communists. Richard Wright makes it extremely clear that both of these groups are extremely hated in the broader American society, and that while their circumstances aren't exactly equal, they are comparable to an extent. However, there exists a dynamic between these two groups. The Communist Party of the United States of America was a supporter of equal rights for African Americans, which is displayed very clearly throughout the entire story. Jan, Mary, and Max are the main examples of this attitude. Throughout the story, we ...

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