In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Ellison likes presenting abstract ideas through the interactions of outside characters on the narrator. For example, his interaction with the yam-selling man during the snowy Harlem nights truly reveals the depth of the narrator's sweet, yam-flavored southern memories. Another abstract idea (and possibly my favorite of them all), is the concept of Rinehart. Rinehart is essentially a persona the narrator embraces when he goes through an outfit change. People throughout the city refer to him under the names and occupations of Rinehart, not paying attention to what he really is underneath the glasses, hat, and suave demeanor. From a pimp to a reverend, Rinehart seems to have done it all. The most ironic part about this situation is that the narrator never encounters Rinehart himself.
Near the end of the chapter, the narrator seems to conceptualize Rinehart on his own, seeing how this man holds so much influence in so many different areas yet no one has been able to fully place down who exactly he is. What's most notable is that the narrator wants to be like Rinehart. He too wants to be able to influence these multiple aspects of society, yet still be his own man on the inside. Rinehart is, as far as this book goes, the closest to invisibility that we've seen.
I think that the narrator's unintentional impersonation of Rinehart has truly opened his ideas to what invisibility truly is, and the fact that the narrator wants to be a "man" like Rinehart is a testament to his developing conscious of identity, and what kind of identity he wants to forge for himself.
I definitely agree with everything in this post, especially what you said about how, because of Rinehart, the narrator has finally come to understand what invisibility means for himself. I thought your point about how, the narrator wants to be able to have significance in his community without losing who he is on the inside. This seems to have happened with the brotherhood because while heis an important figure he isn't allowed to think for himself and he also had to give up contact with his roots and family.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think your interpretation of Rinehart being the most invisible is very interesting. But at the same time, I'm not so sure. At the very beginning of the book, the narrator describes invisibility as other people being unwilling to see him. Yet especially in the bar fight scene, he effectively becomes Rinehart, and that's all that Brother Mateo (or whatever his name is) sees: Rinehart. I'm also very intrigued by Rinehart, as a concept, and I think Rinehart is one of Ellison's boldest ideas in the entire novel.
ReplyDeleteNice post! It's interesting to look back at Rinehart now that we've finished the book. Is Rinehart the invisibility that Ellison was truly pointing to when he was writing the book? To me, it makes sense that Rinehart is invisible, but at the end it seemed like the invisibility Ellison was highlighting was the living-underground-kind-of-invisibility.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Rineheart is also very interesting to me, because of his invisible/visible duality. On one hand, he is one of the most visible people in the novel, with people from all social classes and situations being familiar with him. On the other, we never see his face, or hear his voice, and all we know is that he looks like our invisible narrator. Rineheart is more of an amorphous idea instead of a real person, so it’s interesting that it’s him that the narrator ends up wanting to emulate.
ReplyDeleteRinehart might be the most invisible man of the book-- because he's so cameleon-esque, being whoever other people want him to be, being nobody specific inside. I saw him more as a vessel for the narrator's identity to be created, as a space in which he builds his understanding, and that he can step out of once he's done with his identity-forming. He's like a butterfly, and Rinehart is a chrysalis.
ReplyDeleteCool post! I agree that the narrator's experience as/with Rinehart reveals how invisibility works to the narrator. The narrator seems to recognize to some extent how Rinehart is invisible and wants to mimick it. The narrator discovers how invisibility impacts freedom and how it effects people's emotions too.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point about Rinehart being "the closest to invisible". The narrator wants to be like Rinehart to influence others while remaining himself, but throughout the book, by doing so, others are able to control him.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I totally agree with your point about Rinehart basically being the ultimate invisible man. I think an interesting point in regard to that is the idea we brought up in class that Rinehart might actually have been multiple people before the narrator discovered that identity.
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