The Bland Normality of Proper English

An important aspect of any humans life, as well as an important aspect of any novel is dialogue. Talking is something we learn to do in the first few years of our life, and something we utilize until the end of it. No two groups of humans talk the same either, certain subcultures/groups have certain nuances in pronunciation or sentence structure that give that certain dialect a flare. This idea is certainly evident in Their Eyes were Watching God, as all the dialogue from Janie and her associates is written to represent how it would've sounded in person as accurately as possible. However, I feel like this practice is rarely used. In most literature about ethnicities or cultures other than typical "proper English-speaking" Americans, the dialectual flairs that make these ethnic character's speech unique gets literally lost in translation, with each sentence going through the author's head and being written out in as perfect English as the author could produce. I wonder why Hurston chose to intentionally not do that, and what the significance of it is?

The Importance of the Truly Invisible Man

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.

Who are you speaking for?

After the narrator experiences the happenings in the "Factory Hospital", we get a sense that he's back at square one. And up until he meets the man selling the yams, this is essentially the case. However, we still see a shadow of his pre-operation self in the beginnings of his speech to the mob. What is interesting is that during the course of the narrator's speech, you can see his change in mentality as the tone of the speech changes. It goes from "law-abiding" citizen to essentially f*** the police. This change isn't a product of his own doing, but it seems like it was brought about through the consistent pestering of the crowd. In the narrator's efforts to move this crowd to take some form of action, he listened to their words and essentially allowed himself to be affect by this mob mentality, becoming their voice. I think this may be because of his lack of own personality at the hands of the factory-hospital. Whatever the case, I think this speech is a good example of the narrator being affected by his environment. Or maybe the narrator had his complacent personality erased and now wants revenge against the authority?

Invisibility is in the eyes of the beholder?

            Over the (admittedly short) course of AALit, we have encountered 2 main stories, Native Son and Invisible Man. While one literally contains "Invisible" in its title, both books deal with the idea of African-American "Invisibility" and what the actual definition of invisibility is, in this sense.

            When it comes to invisibility, Wright uses Bigger to define his feelings of invisibility using his own words. In his eyes, he sees it as the ability to "act out" whenever he is free from the eyes of white people as long as he acts the way they think hes supposed to act. While this invisibility does not save Bigger from the clutches of the corrupt hand of "justice" in the form of a premeditated trial, it does give us a basic concept for invisibility. It isn't the typically thought of complete disappearance of an individual from view, but rather just a lack of awareness of the individual. I think that this may be due to the fact that any African-american person in this time period was not seen as an individual human, but rather just another negro, same as any others that happened to be walking the street. Because of this, it allows an individual to essentially blend into any surrounding using only a change of demeanor and dark skin.

            While Invisible Man has not exactly presented us with the narrator's view on invisibility, it does give us insight into how one gains it. As the narrator goes back into the past to recount his life and how he ended up in an abandoned room, he goes back all the way to before he knew of his invisibility. This shows that invisibility isn't naturally occurring, but rather something acquired through some inner revolution, the same way that Bigger realizes his invisible status after committing accidental murder. That said, if it takes Bigger committing homicide to fully realize his invisibility, what has the narrator done to have embraced this newfound "power"?