Chronotopic Identity In Invisible Man English Literature Essay

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a novel of deliverance from darkness to light, a resequencer of cognitive awareness and differential patterns of conformity. It rejects imitation, deeming it as nothing more than a form of limitation, a burden hampering the doctrine of artistic creation. The novel appeals to the indirect participation of its readers in determining the mechanisms which constitute a collective conscience, a moral voice which communicates for us and through us.

The author commits to his duality as a mainstream educated, patriotic American insider and his often frustrating position as a repressed minority, a victim persecution, the racial outsider. His status has the potential to propagate a significant amount of perceptual liberation as he is granted insight, unrestricted access into both fundamental facets of the American cultural construct. Ellison is an outspoken denouncer of extremism in all of its forms and manners of content, placing great emphasis on accurate depictions and justifiable service control, banishing impulses or other manifestations of emotion which tend to either embellish or diminish the narrative.

The novel functions by utilizing a strong internal voice attempting to claim the spoils of jazz and random materialization of captured imagination. Generating the narrative voice is not however an entirely independent endeavor as Ellison must preoccupy himself with exhibitions of intent that mark familiarity in terms of style, character development and literary form. He manages to capture random synchronicities in the fabric of language and tame them under the banner of intention and literary design. Language is thus able to ascend to a tier where it is no longer restricted to simply expressing ideas; it begins to generate independent thought, become the forger of identity as an instrument of both creation and deception.

From this standpoint, one is almost obligated to view Ellison’s writing as an act of patriotism and national pride. But he is by no means a celebrator of the founding fathers or other such bribers of destiny. He bows to the common man, the carrier of tradition and the giver of love and enlightening humanity. Powerful men are perceived as the enemies of equality and freedom inside the American experiment. This pseudo-communist view and manner of interpreting deeds, individuals and events will trigger an internal conflict inside the mind of Ellison himself who viewed communism as a corrupt and bankrupt ideology and treated it as such, indirectly of course through his portrayal of the Brotherhood in Invisible Man.

The perception of Afro-Americans is modulated to encompass not only their immediate predicaments, but also the trigger-elements of their past that had obstructed their development as a group and as individuals. Slavery is the key element inside a shameful national battlefield whose remnants still included segregation, unwarranted racial presuppositions and a lack of equal opportunity and respect. Yet Ellison does not let rage or Black Nationalism get the better of him. His solution for mending the hearts and minds of all parties involved is based on love, tolerance, affirmative action, exploring the elements that unite us rather than embracing those which have the capacity to tear our shared humanity asunder.

Ellison is one of America’s gatekeepers of moral history. His influence on the Afro-American novel and the American novel as a whole may have hastened the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement. He carried inside his writing the intellectual turmoil of his generation and set the standard for a new moral and artistic comprehension of 1960s America. His objective was not to portray a coherent image of individual identity, or of black identity but the identity of the American rainbow, the melting pot of intimidating complexity. His verbal flow and communicative fortitude served as a release valve for the creative energies of his countrymen. The great American writer acknowledged Faulkner, Melville or Hawthorne but above all he paid homage to the almost sacred pieces of paper (the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) which had dictated the moral imperatives shaping the beautiful destiny of his beloved America. His patriotism was not uncommon for an individual living in 1940s and 50s America; what was oddly inspiring however was the fact that he managed to unreservedly love a country that had at times rejected and humiliated him because of the color of his skin. Invisible Man is a novel of trust and belief in the ideals for which America stands. Had it not been for Ellison’s patriotism and trust in America’s pledge of liberty and justice for all his novel would never have been written; because despite his façade of irony and pessimism Ralph Waldo Ellison is a true believer that change will come, that he himself can make a difference through his work and generous humanity. The novelist’s responsibility and debt to society cannot be overlooked or ignored towards the realm of perdition. Both form and content must coexist and serve the author’s creative infrastructure, a convergence hub where literature and democracy become intertwined creating not only mentally endowed characters but also intelligent, opinionated citizens/readers who have the courage and mental clarity to change society for the better.

Imagination does not run its course individually and independently. In Invisible Man for example it responds to the needs and compensative prerequisites of American life. This complex and immensely creative subroutine of the human mind governs the flux of the yet undiscovered or under-discovered recoils of fate, regulates preoccupations of solitude fills in the blanks of our existence as all true creation begins with imagination and if we seek to better ourselves we must first envisage it with our mind’s inner eye. The protagonist in Invisible Man is meant to become the perfect American citizen but he is still in beta testing. A more congealed version is set to surface after the author has fully experimented with his test dummy and exhausted all potential behavioral simulations generated by his mental resourcefulness. The final version of the character should be very astute in reflecting not just destiny or possibility but also America’s variations and complexity, referring here of course to its cultural heritage, racial, gender and class interactions.

Invisible Man must not be approached solely based on its intrinsic value. Like any work of art its dedicated objective is to move, transport or transform even abstract concepts such as democracy or perceptions of freedom. Ellison was well aware of this reality and also mentally converged on the topic of control by the artist versus the readership over the resulting cultural product: “the work of art begins to pulsate with those meanings, emotions, ideas brought to it by its audience, and over which the artist has but limited control” (Ellison qtd. in Callahan 1995:94). After setting in motion multiple perspectives dealing with creation as an act of control, he attempts a power play through which the author must fully detach himself from his work, set all personal subjectivity aside and become his own personal appraisal specialist by taking on the role of the reader who must objectively assess a work in progress. This creative method is deeply rooted in imagination, and the ability to immerse oneself inside a fundamentally different role caresses the realm of empathic intelligence, setting about to comprehend the hidden truths behind socially assigned roles and adaptive, intellectual democracy.

The rampant success of Invisible Man ignited a vast whirlwind of undignified criticism and unwarranted, feeble justifications. The fact that the book was well ahead of its time concerning matters of race, gender or social affiliation caught the attention of many critics of that time who were unfortunately locked inside a limited mindset, unable to comprehend a visionary such as Ralph Ellison. They interpreted the defiance of norms, categories and labeling as nothing less than literary, social and cultural heresy. The random, free-flowing, fluid literary style Ellison had perfected from his adaptations of jazz was also deemed precarious, seen as lacking in consistency and proper planning. The writer justly and calmly defended his novel, explaining, justifying and clarifying all issues related to his novel regardless of time constraints or argumentative relevance. His eloquence and patience as well as his ability to enhance predictions partaking in an astonishing pre-revelation of the American collective eventually earned him the praise, respect and recognition he most undoubtedly deserves. The novel comes as a response to a creative higher calling, a repayment of spiritual debt, a brave statement of honor and dignity.

Ellison’s working notes and letters have rendered clarification relevant to the conceptual and structural apparatus behind Invisible Man. The first part of the “Working Notes” analyses not only the causes of invisibility but also its subsequent manifestations and the impact it has on all parties involved. He uncovers two main sources of invisibility which are strongly rooted in the American cultural paradigm. The first generative element of invisibility is human nature itself. Man is instinctually pre-programed or pre-conditioned to interpret all physical, mental or spiritual differences as signs of inferiority and potential threats. This unfortunate reality enforces unnecessary clustering and segregation, separation and even conflict. Invisibility is not only a prerogative of race, gender or religious orientation. Individuals have often found themselves in a state of conflict or just ignorance because of trivial differentiations such as being from another city, speaking with a slightly different accent or supporting a different sports team. The conclusion is that no matter how small or big the differences, people are more than willing to surrender their personal identity to that of their respective arbitrary collective. They incapacitate themselves from seeing members of the “rival” faction as fellow, kindred beings and embrace a path of antagonism and dismal competition. The second factor of invisibility would be what Ellison identified in his notes as “the great formlessness of Negro life”. Cultural values here are highly volatile and exposed to a continuous stream of transformation and evolution. Afro-Americans are also subjected to often debilitating and diverse hardships from which only powerful individuals emerge with their personality, identity and sanity intact. Therefore it is difficult to create a stable, “visible” version of oneself inside a shifting and diverse ethnic universe whose objective is to heap disorientation rather than provide a marginally functional moral compass.

The issue of compromise has largely gone unseen in the novel. On the surface it is a concept or deliberate lack of action which leads to a passive resolution of conflicts. Taking a more in-depth look however reveals that compromise merely postpones a brutal reaction or conflict. This method leads to the accumulation of tension, an overwhelming increase in the parameters of rage and self-loathing. Compromise draws its energy not from wisdom but from weakness because the truly powerful do not compromise they just make merciful enlightened concessions from time to time. The unnamed hero in Invisible Man joins the Brotherhood and later serves its nefarious plans not out conviction but out of necessity. This ruthless left wing organization which is nothing more than a literary expression of the real life Communist Party uses the main character as he allows himself to be manipulated. He catches rare glimpses of what goes on behind the curtain but he refuses to see and acknowledge the truth. And herein lurks his predicament: the truth cannot and will not set him free, not the weakened version of himself anyway. The truth always reaches everyone no matter how strong or elaborate the deception might be, yet it is always meant for those who have the power to accept it. Weakness and compromise can also lead to the dissolution of family values. The protagonist’s sexual indiscretions with a married woman are overlooked by her husband in the interest of politics. The fact that there is no vindication for this dastardly act confirms that our character is indeed for all intents and purposes invisible and also that modern day society is severely dehumanizing as under the false and frail mask of a pseudo-enlightenment a man is forced to himself find, accept and provide justification for adultery and sentimental betrayal.

Devising his female characters spawned a great deal of compromise for Ellison himself. Most women in the novel are depicted as prostitutes or secret agents of deception and misrepresentation. Mary Rambo is the only positive female character in the novel, a nurturer, a benefactor for the protagonist, a mother figure. Despite all her qualities however she can never be a true partner for the “invisible man” as she utterly lacks eroticism or passion. She can’t complete him; she can only tend to a limited amount of wounds. From Ellison’s “Working Notes” we are made aware of what could have been the unnamed character’s significant other. Sadly enough she never made the roster. Louise was envisaged as seductive, charming the flagship of American ideals of freedom, democracy and fertility. Her relative perfection sort of defeats the purpose of the whole novel. The main character must be assaulted, tested and prodded from all directions. His hardships are transformative, motivating, the defining initiators of his true identity. Give him love and redemption and you might end up with a Garfield-type character, too lazy and unwilling to seek transformative confrontation. So sadly enough we ended up with good old Sybil, Ellison’s little compromise, who happens to have a bad case of jungle fever and whom the main character regards as nothing more than an obstacle and possibly a source of non-essential information.

The end of the novel commandeers a corpus of interactive integrity where Ellison appeals to both novice and specialized readers. He reveals the representative voice of his narrative, a raft of hope carrying with it the encoded pride of our shared humanity:

Being invisible and without substance, a disembodied voice as it were, what else could I do? What else but try to tell you what was really happening when your eyes were looking through? And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? (Ellison, 1995:581)

1.3. Ralph Ellison: Between “Addiction” and Tradition

Ralph Ellison underscores the linkages and connections between Afro-American Culture and mainstream American culture, based on a hope of potential synergy, choosing to disregard arbitrary bonds of restrictive servitude. The limitations to his method are very few as he manages to create new worth through the exploration of the infinite possibilities conferred by folk tradition, jazz or the tales of old. He promotes his narrative as a stable and truthful presence in “the discontinuous, swiftly changing and diverse American culture.” His body of work expresses a blues-like absurdity in accepting a personal desire to defy limitations, seeking not simply a portrayal of tradition, but a translation, a decryption of its wider, more precise meanings. Ellison’s blues attest to “the agony” of life and the distinct possibility of overcoming all adversity through sheer wealth of spirit and desire to carry on by using pain as a catalyst rather than succumb to its destructive charms.

Several essays in Shadow and Act call attention to the purpose of folklore and its inner workings, as they strive to preserve the repeated situations that had once formulated the existence of a well-defined group of individuals, capturing the beauty of thoughts and emotions. The wisdom and spiritual wealth of a group, its symbols, icons and heraldic legacy and ultimately its desire to live long and prosper, generated according to Ellison, an essential truth which captured the spirit of all blacks. Folk symbols can utterly annihilate time through their simplicity, and an entire culture can revolve around a raw image, a universal rhythm. When addressing the black experience Ellison is a firm believer that folklore confirms “the Negro’s willingness to trust his own experience, his own sensibilities” rather than to permit their oppressors and masters to decide these fundamental things for them. Folklore therefore becomes not only a source of cohesive identity but a resource for freedom as well.

Black American folklore functions as an integral part of American and Western culture. Ellison recognizes the merits of a black tradition in confronting new American and global issues, by extracting from life new and profound definitions of joy. Black culture makes wide use of characters who represent folk cultural archetypes functioning inside a wider context of strategic symbology, representing various forms of art, music, religion or folk poetry. In Invisible Man the characters provide contrast and conflict with the lost nature of the invisible narrator who hovers above the storyline observing and sometimes triggering events which consolidate the narrative drive. The slave woman appearing in the prologue is meant to confirm centuries of victimization and hardships, and announce a propulsion towards embracing and understanding freedom. The grandfather who appears several times throughout the novel is a toxic character. He embodies “the ambiguity of the past”, a monument of bitterness and spiritual limitation which can have potentially crippling and debilitating consequences. The old man’s gregarious survival strategy of allowing the so called self-destructive nature of the white man to run its course confirms a false and contagious grasp of what is real and functional. His “yessing” strategy worthy of the great Napoleon himself has nearly fatal repercussions for his grandson who adopts the strategy of his elder not out of belief but out of confusion and desperation.

From a cultural point of view Invisible Man only has two characters who encompass both folk and contemporary black tradition: Trueblood and Mary.

Jim Trueblood is on a very basic level an expectant father, a family man, a maker and supporter of life. Yet he is also a rapist, a pedophile and a performer of adultery and incest. The sins of this father cannot be justified through oniric dementia. His heinous act does not prevent him from finding redemption through music: “I looks up and sees the stars and I starts singing”. He also reaches a very dangerous Popeye the Sailor type conclusion, an empty statement that allows justification for just about anything “I ain’t nobody but myself”. Putting aside the repugnant nature of this character one can’t help notice that he is deeply rooted in tradition; his humor, storytelling and manner of speaking exemplify the turmoil of his ethnic, racial and social legacy. Trueblood is also a part of Western tradition. He acknowledges his weakness and the sins of the flesh and in his twisted way he tries to be a family man: “I’m a man and man don’t leave his family”. From a psychological standpoint, Trueblood is part of the Western tradition of incest entering the realm of Freudian psychoanalysis and dream interpretation.

Mary Rambo is the only character in Invisible Man whom Ellison depicts in a positive manner. All other women are either prostitutes, crazy, sexually deviant, manipulative or lack a moral compass. Mary however is a kind, nurturing individual with a tremendous potential to eliminate the pain and suffering of those around her. She benefits from a robust humanity deeply anchored in the beauty and common sense of folk wisdom and time honored traditions. This female character manages to perfectly integrate into the crazy life of the metropolis without abandoning her individual complexity. She is never tainted by what festers around her and remains true to her pure and genuine calling.

Ellison is able to comprehend both the splendor and the horrific nature of black culture. He uses language for example as a verbal facilitator for the most noble of human thoughts. The rich language of the South, the blooming spoken word of the North, the joyful verbal flow of 50’s Harlem are all pitted against the ability of language to manipulate, to control, to create riots and inspire fear. Folk traditions, associated with other mechanisms of human comprehension, invite both the writer and the reader into the intimate life of blacks in America, allowing us to discover and observe them in celebration or tribulation, gripped by bliss alongside family and friends or in their darkest hour of need. Ellison employs cultural tradition without overusing external connections. His dramatic recoil is often based on a system of illusions which in the end exposes the betrayal of blackness while at the same time expounding a traumatic treatment of folk values.

Folklore does not exist for its own sake. Its governing principle is to override futility within the confines of strict thematic structuralisation and dramatic undertones. Ellison’s conceptual apparatus overpowers outdated representations of the southern folk community deeming them obsolete and leaning towards a more “pre-individual” approach to the matter at hand. He accomplishes an in-depth look into the mind of the individual or their respective collective. His characters are by no means nonsentimental or monosentimental, exploring previously untapped levels of the Afro-American psyche, reaching a point of cognitive no return. This tinkering about with both collective and individual representations of black society is done with flair and a great deal of humor and irony and herein lies the intrinsic value of Invisible Man. He makes the exploration of personal and group identity appear simple, natural and free flowing.

Ellison has a very firm grip on the obvious and strives to implement cultural representations bearing in mind the potential of folklore to bring forth both enlightenment and spiritual unease. His intention is not to call down the proverbial thunder on the established order of perception as he is by no means a revolutionary writer. The milestone he sets out to complete is simply to interconnect Western symbols and mythology with black culture and folk wisdom in the hope of understanding and accepting the rules that govern this particular paradigm.

Ellison’s connection to the West, the systemic support in Invisible Man, offer an almost mathematical precision between creative consistency and cultural pronouncements. Larry Neal credited Ellison with a broad spectrum of theoretical sense, an intimidating corpus of knowledge regarding the “explosive tensions underlying the Black man’s presence in the United States”. (Neal, 1968:9)

Invisible Man resonates as a powerful pledge which is fully committed towards grasping the depths and complicated splendors that forge the definition of blackness. Ellison appears hungry to exploit the functions and dedicated objectives of language. He is not burdened by his cultural responsibility, but rather he views it as a method of release, embracing a higher calling of both a universal writer and a black writer. His hunger for definitions, the study of mannerisms and collective deductions stake their claim on a narrative that is offered with apparent ease and an almost godlike understanding of the black condition. There is music and ease behind his equanimous imagination and desire to embrace the noesis of his forefathers. A clinical presupposition would therefore entail an absolute independence inside the creative laws which define his conceptual apparatus. His examination of blackness though perfectly expounded and formulated is not without precedence. William Faulkner laid the foundation for Ellison through a manifold of emblematic devices and astonishing accomplishments in capturing the proverbial zeitgeist of the South. Although Faulkner asserts himself as the deepest of the southerners, a larger than life communicator through symbols, Ellison’s work should not be misconstrued as imitation or worse, as being written from an anxiety of influence. Ralph Ellison is an adequately developed writer, one profoundly original writer who is able to provide us with fresh new insight into Afro-American culture. His tree of literary knowledge casts a large enough shadow enabling him implement a black focus that gathers success in its encounters with an audience immensely appreciative of his creative undertakings.

Ultimately Ralph Ellison produces a genuine and stimulating complexity when it comes to writing based on Afro-American culture and folk traditions. He commandeers cryptic messaging, appearing almost intoxicated with the power of his own written word and duty towards creative instruments of mental debt and depth. Folk tradition for Ellison is not proliferated as an end in itself, the author is severely self-conscious and bewildered by the overwhelming merits of simple traditions that have stood the test of time and enabled their carriers to maintain a coherent sense of identity. True folk forms provide us with a celebration of life, a righteous use of the flexible service instruments which fuel hope in the name of tradition, a proud remembrance of the past that is bound to secure the future.

1.4 Chronotopic Identity in Invisible Man

Mikhail Bakhtin’s systemic apparatus of emblematic devices comprises cognitive depths which function beyond arbitrary boundaries of simple cultural relevance. Therefore applying Bakhtinian mechanisms of comprehension to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a fully warranted undertaking encompassing both structure and a stern analysis of desirable and justified content. Bakhtin’s conceptual framework can be held accountable for altering cultural realms outside its borders of encounter, supplementing external ideas, improving and completing them. All disseminated elements are interconnected, lacking in explicit manifestation, adhering to implicit introduction and dialogic confrontation. Bakhtin asserts that no work of literature can exist as a separate, independent entity. Any literary text is in a state of flux, maintaining communication with other literary voices or streams. The influence can reside in imitation, modular transformation or adaptation, or even rejection which is nothing more than a reversal of method. A text is always informed by other texts and at the same time it has the duty to inform its readership. The connection between two texts is by no means constrictive or parasitic in nature. Its symbiotic orientation capitalizes on interdisciplinary dialogue and voice structure, honoring social complexity and linguistic wealth:

The internal stratification of language is a prerequisite for the novel. The novel orchestrates all its themes, the totality of the world of objects and ideas depicted and expressed in it, by means of the social diversity of speech types and by the differing individual voices that flourish under such conditions. The links and interrelations lead to the novel’s heteroglossia and dialogization. (Bakhtin, 1981: 263)

Identity formation, cultural memory and religion are paramount in the understanding of blacks and whites not as mere individuals but as complex, interconnected cultural entities. Bakhtin’s approach is atemporal and universal, allowing us to not only see or understand Afro-American culture but also to expand its deeper meanings, adapt and improve our own culture, enable a positive cross-cultural contamination by upgrading our shared humanity and collective heritage.

Certain Bakthinian matters of interest such as power and control, materialism, (re)structured social and ethnic relations, dialogism, spatial and temporal paradigms provide the necessary competence to outline patterns of relevant functionality in Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison’s displays a considerable amount of dialogic audacity as a method of integrating social strategies in his novel. His principles are governed by mental alacrity and argumentative observations which often foster resentment and playful overtones of deceptive chaos. Ellison and Bakhtin possess a dedicated, shared infrastructure, a common ground where their variations in discourse can become intertwined and intervene in the establishment of philosophical augmentations and consistent power structures. The boundaries between the two become nothing more than non-cohesive, penetrable conventions which allow transcendent voices to define the desires of randomly assigned trust and determination. Envisioning Invisible Man as a Bakhtinian novel one can’t help but detect the ubiquitous Carnivalesque elements of perception which generate and govern the social environment. The Carnival entails a state of absolute liberation and subsequently a state of pseudo-anarchy, capricious libertinism and equality. It exists outside political, economic and social restrictions, suspending the status quo, living up to ideals of randomness and improvisation. It is a festival which celebrates the annihilation of individual hierarchies and the dismemberment of forged and unjust equilibriums. There is little room for political ambitions or extravagant portrayal of mediocre deeds. The Carnivaleque is a counter reaction to those abusive systems which strive to acquire our humanity with thirty pieces of our own silver.

Another essential Bakhtinian concept that is of great importance to Invisible Man is that of the chronotope. Time-space describes the dual matrix behind the emergence of Ellison’s novel, understanding both history and the topos on which it occurs. Ralph Ellison bends time to his liking offering nonlinear and often simultaneous projections engaging the reader’s attention and selective intelligence, inviting him to experience:

[A] slightly different sense of time, you’re never quite on the beat. Sometimes you’re ahead and sometimes behind. Instead of the swift and imperceptible flowing of time, you are aware of its nodes, those points where time stands still or from which it leaps ahead. And you slip into the breaks and look around. (Ellison, 1995:8)

This enigmatic passage distorts the accepted perception of time, offering a multilayered temporal construct which seeks to achieve transference of control while at the same time generating a climate of insecure reclusiveness and underprivileged substantiations of unclear history.

The chronotope’s initial manifestation in Invisible Man is done through the use of the fictional present. We are informed with great equanimity and familiarity that the narrator dwells in a coal cellar which is designed as a cocoon of self-banishment, an in-between world, a self -imposed Purgatory from which he can be emerge a new man, ready to confront his previous oppressors and the flawed systems that had spawned them. Time here contracts fissuring the containment of common meanings, creating a brave new nexus of darkened topography and supporting a cronosphere of intimidating and deliberate variation. The chronotope is the fulfiller of tradition, an astute element/method which defines our sense of community and social history. According to Mikhail Bakhtin,

The chronotope is where the knots of narrative are tied and untied […]. Time becomes, in effect, palpable and visible; the chronotope makes narrative events concrete, makes them take on flesh, causes blood to flow in their veins […]. Thus the chronotope, functioning as the primary means for materializing time in space, emerges as a center for concretizing representation, as a force giving body to the entire novel. All the novel’s abstract elements – philosophical and social generalizations, ideas, analyses of cause and effect – gravitate towards the chronotope and through it take on flesh and blood, permitting the imaging power of art to do its work. (Bakhtin, 1981, 250)

Time and space are inextricably intertwined with respect to the fundamental acknowledgement of unity inside the formulation of the narrative and their ultimate servitude towards the subject and his/her personal development. An author is virtually unable to bring into being any form of scenery or landscape without considering motion, transformation and temporal progression relating to that particular element. Certain still images though extremely captivating and enticing appear almost soulless, unfueled, doomed by their lack of versatility and mobility, spaces deprived of any active intervention.

From an anthropological standpoint space regulates the proliferation of matter, its placement and displacement, it defines imagination, our senses, our orientation and most memory processes. In Invisible Man space is paradoxically associated with one’s trials and tribulations, and indeed one’s very race and ethnicity. Our protagonist’s inferior social standing exposes him to a series of unfortunate events leading to the unlikely decision to seek shelter underground away from the aggression and veil of inequity of the world above. The river of black water he sees while underground is reminiscent of the River Styx, the gateway to the underworld, the land of the dead. His shelter may appear like a scourge, a form of punishment through isolation but this assumption is erroneous. This in-between space is his (re)source of ultimate freedom and analytic contemplation. Our protagonist must answer to no man or abstract entity. He is not part of the world of the living and he has not crossed into the realm of the dead, he is essentially off the grid. But this is by no means a stable situation. He is living on borrowed time in this spatial “dimension” and a return to the outside world is imminent. This must come to pass not to save his life as he is safe and secure just like in his mother’s womb. What is at stake here is his sanity as no normal human being can function properly without human interaction. It is said that he who finds solace in solitude is either a god or a beast. His isolation can only be temporary and must be utilized as a medicine against external human aggression. But the cure has the potential to become more harmful than the disease itself if taken in large, unjustified doses. This method of therapy through isolation can also be encountered in the case of the world’s most popular comic book character: Superman; whose origins can be traced back to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ãœbermensch. He often took refuge in his famous Fortress of Solitude to find himself, momentarily isolate himself from the world that can sometimes be too much for any one man or even a superman.

Ralph Ellison employs what Michel Foucault patented as heterotopic spaces. History and memory are only given a marginal role regarding these distinct entities. Heterotopic spaces exist outside the rules and norms that predicate the existence of normal topography. These areas of interest reflect reality in accordance with their own internalized doctrines and mechanics that supersede normal renditions of space. These spaces are intentionally created by the author in order to provide his character(s) with an escape from a seemingly impossible and grave situation. A heterotopia is a crisis generated realm that is rarely entered voluntarily. Once inside one of these spaces borders are expunged and the proprietor of this piece of odd real-estate is free to roam, explore and exploit the topos according to his necessities. All laws are suspended in these spaces and no malevolent force can raise claim to even partial jurisdiction. This beneficial turn of events is extremely empowering for the former victim of aggression who becomes the dominus of the terra incognita. Inside the spatial refuge time exists only as an abstract notion, flowing without consequence or residual relevance. It is powerless to trigger any effects that may shape the concrete, physical world thus causing a gridlock which may deprive it of influence in the wider context of historic relevance.

Despite his decision to create a realm inside his novel where time is more or less suspended Ralph Ellison recognizes the merits of temporal proliferation in the establishment and empowerment of literary fiction. All novels must bear the heavy burden of the period under which they are written, but the true test of a novelist and his work is the power to not only stand the test of time but also reshape it, gain the ability and nerve to re-justify the past and its gatekeepers while at the same time embracing their prophetic legacy to announce or even actuate events that have not yet come about. By employing a generative method which is strongly rooted in the first person narrative Ellison retraces modern Afro-American history beneath the watchful shelter of calculated anonymity. The protagonist is presented with a number of cultural and historical role-models/trans temporal archetypes which are intended to germinate choices reflecting the purpose of individuals and the contradictory temporal constructs for which they stand. History is severely allegorized, questioning and throwing into doubt archaic protocols of temporal perception towards the establishment of a pertinent conceptual model of competing narratives and cognitive resurgence. Linear chronology is for all intents and purposes placed under strict quarantine allowing multiple temporal instances to calibrate and re-examine conduits of temporal deployment and circulation. Time becomes a guinea pig of narrative experimentation, functioning as an enforcer of literary objectives, authorizing individuals to use whatever means necessary to reach their innate potential and emerge from their hole to fulfill their destiny. The novel is teeming with allusions relating to the past offering testament to Ellison’s intention to reverse engineer formulas of development having to do with the main character’s intellectual evolution. History in Invisible Man does not consist of a singular, well congealed autarchic entity. We are in fact dealing with multiple ramifications and competing illustrations of past ideologies which still influence the present: Marxist dialectics, white supremacy, Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism to name but a few. These convictions, which stem from multiple interpretations of temporal consequence underscore and address a desire to examine the very fabric of time while at the same time taking into consideration the fact that their dispersion and distribution is the result of pre-determined racial, ethnic and social vulnerabilities or susceptibilities. The conviction required to undertake such principles of life has more to do with fate or randomness than well-informed, independent personal choice. The people who embrace such ideologies are often prone to regression, a diachronic approach to life and current events, repetitive angsts and a constant search for conflict and enemies as they seek justification for their own unworthy, shady activities. Ralph Ellison firmly rejects these existential debilitators as they unjustly reduce the complexity of the American paradigm to several poorly understood words shouted from the mouths indoctrinated drones who seek to place limitation on the thoughts and deeds of the free.

Ralph Ellison commences his narrative with temporal interrogations mixed with conflicting elements of time personalization and structure control. The author resorts to elements of anticipatory and pre-determined negative temporality as he confides in his readership, piecing together what is to be expected throughout the novel. Invisibility affects the chronosphere on a perceptive, relative level of interpretation, generating an alternate dimension of awareness that commits to partial reconfigurations. Ellison constructs a relative temporal framework by skillfully relating to a past experience which seems to exhibit explanatory relevance via association and description of similar mechanisms of temporal non-conformity:

Once I saw a prizefighter boxing a yokel. The fighter was swift and amazingly scientific. His body was one violent flow of rapid rhythmic action…. But suddenly the yokel, rolling about in the gale of boxing gloves, struck one blow and knocked science, speed, and footwork as cold as a well-digger’s posterior…. The yokel had simply stepped inside of his opponent’s sense of time. (Ellison, 1995:8)

Time can thus become a nullifier of individual dynamics, underscoring a self-implied factor of elusive randomness which can determine the outcome of any form of Homo sapiens endeavor. These alternatives to the habitual modes of temporal flow are bound to trigger adaptive mechanisms of coping, developing a state of superior awareness and a consolidated reactive pattern adequate for such unpredictable situations. The novel makes great use of the boomerang metaphor partaking in the investigation of temporal trajectories. Ellison is fully aware of the cyclical nature of history. He exposes various historical figures or events not for our entertainment or amusement; he does it so that he may provide us with viable learning experiences because those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Cyclicality is the harbinger of fate and Ellison familiarizes us with his personal brand of circularity when he brings to our attention Norton’s repetitive disbelief and the pseudo-Purgatory that is the Golden Day.

Ralph Ellison’s depictive chronotopic architecture fosters a unique substitutive meld based on the re-sequencing of marginally different factors of space, time and collected experience. His unique intersections enable and disseminate dialectical progression while at the same time discarding gregarious, racially reductive ideologies. His novel is one of deliberate contradictions commandeering creative instruments of mental debt and depth in order to secure a cohesive sense of identity, granting supportive methodology and dignity to the righteous voices of the forgotten carriers of tradition, the wardens of our enlightened collective future.

1.5 Stereotypes and Analytical Female Constructs

A literary analysis aiming to uncover the role of various feminine typologies as they relate to the narrative development and expansion in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man will at first deceive us into believing we are to walk away from this subject matter empty handed, affected by the illusive undertones of misspent efforts and cognitive engagements for which we could have determined a better use. Upon overcoming this initial setback we will encounter a secondary conduit of hijacked irrelevance reducing the depiction of women in the novel to mere basic stereotypes portraying whores, sophistication in seduction, simple minded slaves, raw sin and debauchery, closing the morally eclectic circle with love and legitimate prophetic affections. It would be highly counterproductive for the readership to succumb to ill-conceived reductive deductions and overlook a deeper layer of meaning(s) lying hidden beneath the veil of deliberately crafted superficiality. In terms of viewing the artist’s work as nothing more than a product, the stereotype only provides the exterior packaging, the content, the core of the intellectual production is often encoded, beyond the reach and sight of vague, superficial eyes. Ellison justifies his choice of literary devices in his essay “Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity” postulating that stereotypes, in spite of their simplified nature act as heralds, or beacons for much larger truths and greater realities. Their presence can be associated to the tip of an iceberg dissimulating colossal and frozen realities:

The Negro has been more willing perhaps than any other artist to start with the stereotype, accept it as true, and then seek out the human truth which it hides. Perhaps his is the example to follow, for in his work technique has been put once more to the task of creating value. This is meant as no plea for white writers to define Negro humanity, but to recognize the broader aspects of their own. Negro writers and those of the other minorities have their own task of contributing to the total image of the American by depicting the experience of their own groups. Certainly theirs is the task of defining Negro humanity, as this can no more be accomplished by others than freedom, which must be won again and again each day. (Ellison qtd. in Callahan 1995, 43)

Afro-American writers made use of this literary method not just so that they could add multiple tiers of depth to their work; they employed it so that they could navigate the perilous cultural and ideological waters of their time. In other words these authors encased powerful truths so that at least on a surface level they appeared compliant with the status quo. The reality of their situation was that every day, with every stroke of the pen they were fighting not only for the rights and emancipation of their people but also for the moral enlightenment of their oppressive white countrymen. Stereotypes supplied the essential cloaking mechanism needed to protect the dissemination and proliferation of ideas, ideals and human typologies, allowing the truth to slip through the cracks of unwarranted or biased censorship aiming to support and praise the maintenance of the same old unjust mechanisms of oppression.

Approaching the issue of the gender ratios in Invisible Man we cannot and must not overlook the fact that the centrality of the novel is dominated by a male character and his male tormentors who appear to somehow control every aspect of his life. They control not only the material dimension of his existential conundrum but also leech on his spiritualty, attempting to drain away his humanity and crush the development of what is intended as a theoretically independent personality. His efforts to be a useful and productive member of society are met with extreme hostility (dissimulated or brutally evident on a case by case basis) by the men around him, striving to reject any form of genuine positive reinforcement or just acknowledgements of merit. At first he blames his race for all the obstacles he encounters, and this is indeed a vector of genuine relevance, but it is not solely responsible for all of the invisible man’s predicaments. Gender plays a paramount role in a highly competitive and amoral world, where men operate on obsolete versions cave man software, pushing them towards abrupt and abusive decision that fuel the much coveted competitive edge defining modern society. Everything ranging from status and money to women and the destinies of the weak is up for grabs, and any and all males present in the vicinity are perceived as potential rivals. The painful awareness that comes with the multiple traumatic events he comes to experience at the hands of various male characters will establish a special connectivity between the narrator and the women who manage to touch his life. He identifies with them as they are all the victims of an abusive and heartless male dominated system devouring any semblance of innocence and sensibility in its path of voracious spiritual and communal dismemberment. The main character of the novel is for all intents and purposes a red-blooded American man, but his innate kindness and penchant towards mercy and altruism reveal a feminine side that does not undermine his masculinity; quite the contrary he is enriched and completed by it, adding new depths to his emergent humanity. Women are his escape ticket from a world which is at times overpowering, his fortresses of humanity regardless of any potential moral shortcomings. Each woman he encounters, good or bad is a valuable life lesson for the protagonist, and he knows full well he can learn something from any and all experiences with the fair sex:

“Old woman, what is this freedom you love so well?” I asked around a corner of my mind. She looked surprised, then thoughtful, then baffled. “I done forgot, son. It’s all mixed up. First I think it’s one thing, then I think it’s another. It gits my head to spinning. I guess now it ain’t nothing but knowing how to say what I got up in my head. But it’s a hard job, son. Too much is done happen to me in too short a time. Hit’s like I have a fever. Ever’ time I starts to walk my head gits to swirling and I falls down. Or if it ain’t that, it’s the boys; they gits to laughing and wants to kill up the white folks. They’s bitter, that’s what they is . . .” (Ellison, 1995:11)

For a woman freedom seems to be closely related to trauma, love and responsibility. A woman is pre-conditioned to love and be a nurturer, be an unsung hero in a male dominated society which barely has time to acknowledge the fundamental importance of the female role. A female is preoccupied to nurture and protect while the men in her life are in a constant search for people to “kill up”. Even under delicate emotional circumstances women demonstrate superiority in affections, being able to learn how to love that which has been imposed upon them by the male dominated society:

I stopped and questioned her, asked her what was wrong.

“I dearly loved my master, son,” she said.

“You should have hated him,” I said.

“He gave me several sons,” she said, “and because I loved my sons I learned to love their father though I hated him too.” (Ellison, 1995:10)

The woman’s ability to forgive and love is not only morally worthy of applause and praise it also constitutes the fulfillment of a higher spiritual ideal that is at the very core of all of the world’s major religions. Throughout her life the old woman has had to endure rape and enslavement at the hands of her white master and all she can do is celebrate the life she was able to create because of these ordeals. Forgiveness is a huge achievement under such dire circumstances but finding the power to love your tormentor and mourn his passing is clearly beyond the realm of understanding of most men who can never truly grasp the true depths of a woman’s endurance and capacity for unconditional love.

The levels of the reefer induced hell the protagonist visits provide an additional corpus of proof attesting to the beauty of femininity:

That night I found myself hearing not only in time, but in space as well. I not only entered the music but descended, like Dante, into its depths. And beneath the swiftness of the hot tempo there was a slower tempo and a cave and I entered it and looked around and heard an old woman singing a spiritual as full of Weltschmerz as flamenco, and beneath that lay a still lower level on which I saw a beautiful girl the color of ivory pleading in a voice like my mother’s as she stood before a group of slave owners who bid for her naked body. (Ellison, 1995:9)

The pits of hell seem to display redemptive elements based on a singular source: womanhood. Both women are multiple facets of the same pillar of creation and empathy which appears to bring a glimmer of light into the darkest corners of creation. The old woman takes it upon herself to sing and understand the pain of the world, an endeavor made accessible to spirits not just inhabited but dominated by love. Ellison provides an interesting plot twist by placing a beautiful white girl in the position of being sold into slavery. This decision overturns and annihilates arbitrary racial standards, and the fact that in the midst of all that darkness he associates the voice of an unknown white woman with the loving memory of his mother all the more confirms the protagonist’s affinity and special sentimental connection to women and the love and beauty they are so gracefully able to emanate regardless of context or any external influences.

The novel’s protagonist tends to see the best in women and in all people in general for that matter but he does not over-idealize the members of the opposite sex. His encounter with the beautiful blonde at the Battle Royal scene uncovers conflicting interior feelings he strives to avoid externalizing:

A sea of faces, some hostile, some amused, ringed around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde – stark naked. There was dead silence. I felt a blast of cold air chill me. I tried to back away, but they were behind me and around me. Some of the boys stood with lowered heads, trembling. I felt a wave of irrational guilt and fear. My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself. . I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the others with my body; to feel the soft thighs, to caress her and destroy her, to love her and murder her, to hide from her. I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me with her impersonal eyes. (Ellison, 1995:19)

The protagonist becomes brutally torn between the righteous whispers of the soul, and the unstoppable cravings of his disoriented young body responding to impulses that are elemental to the human condition. The woman embodies not only ideals of physical beauty, she is also the supreme forbidden fruit, a temptress they can never have, a Salome treading carelessly on their dreams of love, lust and aesthetic beauty. Our main character knows she is there only to serve as a method of humiliation devised by the ruling white men who see their status somewhat threatened and decide to emasculate the young blacks who were in over their heads in the whole situation. The woman provides us with an interesting paradox seeing as she is both misleading and truthful at the same time. She literally has nothing to hide; she is just some easy woman who has no problems with nudity as long as proper financial compensation is provided, her “impersonal eyes” clearly confirming it’s all just business for her. And still her beauty lies to the young men, and the protagonist falls for the young nymph/mermaid for hire naively imagining connections or feelings that can never be, lying to himself she only has eyes for him. In spite of all the patterns of separation between them (race, gender or status) there exists a substantial connection between the invisible man and the blonde seductress. They are both defenseless pawns, absolute victims in a game of exploitation run by ruthless white male figures:

As the dancer flung herself about with a detached expression on her face, the men began reaching out to touch her. I could see their beefy fingers sink into the soft flesh. Some of the others tried to stop them and she began to move around the floor in graceful circles, as they gave chase, slipping and sliding over the polished floor. It was mad. Chairs went crashing, drinks were spilt, as they ran laughing and howling after her. They caught her just as she reached a door, raised her from the floor, and tossed her as college boys are tossed at a hazing, and above her red, fixed-smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys. (Ellison, 1995: 20)

The woman may not be a bona fide slave but the incidents and traumatic experiences she is subjected to would undoubtedly prompt a similarity within the interior mechanisms of perception and existential self-evaluation. Just like the invisible man her emotions and sentiments are inconsequential to the huge amorphous white male blob running the show. Their humanity is up for grabs; their souls will be subjected to intensely mangling undertakings not to soothe the savage beast, but to cater to its every whim, satisfy its collective gluttony for human suffering and domination, feeding on the life blood of helpless innocents. What is even more eerie is the fact that the victims are expected to accept their fate with a huge, albeit artificial smile on their faces. The woman and the protagonist are the fresh meat in the white shark tank, traumatized actors in a grotesque spectacle of human degradation, fighting not just to make an honest dollar, but for the very structural integrity of their battered souls. The voices of reason are few and far between inside this malefic, animalistic collective, seeing themselves overwhelmed by the chaos and enthusiasm of moonstruck men, howling in aggressive frenzy as if taken over by some form of adolescent lycanthropy. The good and the decent find unity which transcends gender or race, discovering their destinies are inextricably intertwined by the fear and terror lurking behind their show masks, being betrayed only by the windows to their souls. The entire scene is put into perspective if one is to consider the image of the white woman in the main character’s reefer generated descent into hell. An apparently absurd and theoretically impossible hallucination is now afforded prophetic applicability. Returning to the more pragmatic, social implementations of the unfortunate situation, we can deduce that there is a valuable life lesson to be learned from the entire ordeal consisting in the fact that concealing the true self can often mean the vital difference between failure and so-called success in a world where the rules are made and upheld by absurd patriarchs, gatekeepers of collective injustice.

Moving on from the Battle Royal incident we find the main character years later, helpless, the victim of an ill-fated work accident and some unethical medical experiments perpetrated by the very people whose sacred duty was to heal and do no harm. His redemption comes from the nurturing mother figure Mary Rambo who rescues him and nurses him back to health while at the same time imprinting upon him a couple of models of strength and resilience meant to empower and consolidate his personality:

Her eyes swept the machine and as she soothed her smashed fingers she snickered, “You must be awful strong for them to have to put you under all this pile of junk. Awful strong. Who they think you is, Jack the Bear or John Henry or somebody like that. . . . Say something, fool!” (Ellison, 1963:247)

The above excerpt is part of a manuscript deleted from the original 1952 version of the novel, and it sheds new light on the character of Mary Rambo placing emphasis on her strength and ability to inspire fortitude in others. This version of Mary on occasion resembles the image one would associate with a U.S army drill sergeant, not shying away from using a little tough love in order to help awaken the protagonist from his slumber and prepare him for the battles to come, given the limited amount of time she has to get him ready to face his demons and reclaim his stolen humanity.

Mary is both nurturer and selfless protector, imparting upon him wisdom accumulated through countless generations of folk traditions and collective experiences, passed on to honor the lives of the forefathers so that their sacrifices may not have been in vain. This newly found magistra is a godsend for the main character of the novel, providing him with physical and emotional security, regeneration, information but above all inspiration. Comparing him to Jack the Bear delineates his innate potential, his formidable capacity to emerge more powerful than ever from the slumber. Naming him John Henry implies that he will fight and defeat the cruel and soulless mechanized society working to exert powerful control over the human collective. Considering the roots of folklore he is indeed bound to win but in doing so he forfeits his life, thus making his triumph all the more precious and worthy of praise and respectful remembrance. Though men play the main roles in the novel and drive almost every aspect of the narrative the novel’s protagonist is only able to forge a genuine connection with Mary Rambo. This irrefutable reality would suggest author Ralph Ellison’s admiration for women and the noble traits they embody as they are applicable to Invisible Man. Rambo is not only the ultimate mentor she also appears as the truest of friends.

I had lost my sense of direction. I spent my time, when not looking for work, in my room, where I read countless books from the library. Other than Mary I had no friends and desired none. Nor did I think of Mary as a “friend”; she was something more – a force, a stable, familiar force like something out of my past which kept me from whirling off into some unknown which I dared not face. It was a most painful position, for at the same time, Mary reminded me constantly that something was expected of me, some act of leadership, some newsworthy achievement; and I was torn between resenting her for it and loving her for the nebulous hope she kept alive. (Ellison, 1995:258)

In order to properly ascertain the genuinely connective depths between the protagonist and Mary we must strip the entire paradigm to its bare human essence and acknowledge the realization that Mary is somehow outside the normative malefic flow of society. Human predatory nature almost coerces us to do away with the weak or the destitute. It is a cruel fact of our humanity, probably scorched into our genes by millennia of humanoid survival where the proverbial weak gazelle is a liability to the group. At our very best most people settle with just ignoring those in need of help and just focus on selfish needs or the problems affecting immediate family and nothing more. It is true there is a restricted number of individuals who do manage to pay attention to the those extremely vulnerable, but their purpose is not to come to their aid, their intention is to control and exploit them, make use of their despair and lack of human support and turn them into terrified followers who will dare not question their master’s wisdom. They say a man can be controlled through his weaknesses and shortcomings, and a man without money, family or friends is the perfect mark for any self-made, self-appointed titan of exploitation. There is however an elite category of people who reside outside the jurisdiction of nefarious convictions and remain true to the inner light bestowed upon them by their loving Creator. Mary Rambo is one of those special people. She possesses no hidden agenda or ulterior motives, heeding only an inner voice teeming with love which compels her to help those who are less fortunate. Mary is indeed more than just a friend who helps someone in need, she is a restorative, elemental force whose purpose is to help the invisible man reach his full potential and fulfill a destiny which has the power to not only redeem the protagonist but also the exploited people around him. As long as she is around hope can never die and we must bear in mind that this almost angelic figure is not just his best chance of succeeding, she is his only chance.

The typology of Salome is re-enacted when the invisible man meets Emma who is nothing more than the magnificent blonde 2.0. The protagonist is now part of a more elaborate Battle Royale where the invisible man is now afforded the luxury and privilege of approaching an attractive young white woman on equal footing. This encounter is part of a more elaborate scheme of the Brotherhood seeking to grant the main character a false sense of empowerment:

Emma came up and challenged me to dance and I led her toward the floor as the piano played, thinking of the vet’s prediction and drawing her to me as though I danced with such as her every evening. For having committed myself, I felt that I could never allow myself to show surprise or upset – even when confronted with situations furthest from my experience. Otherwise I might be considered undependable, or unworthy. I felt that somehow they expected me to perform even those tasks for which nothing in my experience – except perhaps my imagination – had prepared me. Still it was nothing new, white folks seemed always to expect you to know those things which they’d done everything they could think of to prevent you from knowing. (Ellison, 1995: 315)

The dance would entail a lot more than a simple recreational activity, resembling perhaps a confrontation between two intelligence operatives both trying to ascertain and analyze their respective strengths and weaknesses. The protagonist can feel there is something suspicious about the whole situation and as such tries to fit in as much as possible