ANALYSIS OF NON-AFRICAN PROSE

6.1 INVISIBLE MAN BY RALPH ELLISON

SUMMARY OF THE PROSE INVISIBLE MAN

The novel opens with a Prologue describing the depressed state of the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel. He is an invisible man, he proclaims, and has taken to living unknown underground, sucking electricity from the state of New York into his many light bulbs that he has hung in his lair. The novel is to be the story of how he came to be in this position. As a young boy, the narrator overhears the last words of his dying grandfather, whose message lingers with him through high school. He is struck with this idea when he is asked to give his college oration to the town’s most honored white men. At the fancy ballroom where he attends the occasion, he is ushered into the battle royal with the other boys hired for the evening’s entertainment. First however the boys are brought into the room where a naked woman dances. The boys are next blindfolded and pitted against each other in a boxing ring. After several fights, only the narrator and the largest boy, Tatlock, remain and they are told they must fight each other for a prize.

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The next stage requires the boys to grab for gold coins on a rug which turns out to be electrified. The narrator is finally allowed to give his oration and is awarded a scholarship to a renowned black college. At college, he is first faced with the disillusionment which will overcome him by the end. The memory is painful as he relates the day he was given the honor of driving an old white trustee, Mr. Norton, around the campus. The drive goes smoothly for a while although Mr. Norton’s questions surprise the narrator. Norton sees every student at the college as part of his fate. He also welcomes a chance to explore parts of the surrounding town. Mistakenly, the narrator drives Norton into a poor district of black sharecroppers and Norton is intrigued by a disgraced member of the community, Jim Trueblood, who is rumored to have impregnated both his wife and daughter.

Trueblood gives a long description of the dream which made him commit the act of incest and resulted in his wife trying to kill him. After this episode, Norton feels faint and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day brothel in order to find whisky to revive him. Mental patients visiting the bar unfortunately rise up against their attendant, trapping the narrator and Norton in the middle of the fight. Falling unconscious, Norton is revived by a former doctor who speaks to him of the narrator’s invisibility. Thinking the doctor insane, he and the narrator finally return to the college where the narrator is punished for his treatment of Mr. Norton.

The college president, Dr. Bledsoe, relates to the narrator that he should have only shown the trustee what the college would have wanted him to see. The narrator is expelled and sent to New York with seven sealed letters to wealthy employers with the promise that he can return as a paying student in the fall. Though stunned, the narrator decides to take advantage of the opportunity to work for an important person in New York City. Arriving in Harlem, he is dazed but excited. He rents a room at the Men’s House in Harlem and sets out the next morning to start handing out his letters. That process goes smoothly although he is only able to give the letters to secretaries and is told the employers will contact him. After not hearing anything, the narrator becomes suspicious of the secretaries and holds the last letter back, asking first to meet with the employer, Mr. Emerson, upon which he could personally give him the letter.

The narrator’s efforts are once more interceded, though, as Mr. Emerson’s son takes the letter from him at the office and attempts to talk him out of returning to the college or speaking to his father. Finally, the son finally shows the narrator the letter from Dr. Bledsoe which the narrator had been told not to look at. The narrator is horrified to read what is written. Bledsoe writes explicitly to the employers that the narrator will never be allowed back to the school and asks them to see to it in the meantime that he will not be able to return to school as a paying student. Disillusioned, the narrator leaves the office utterly humiliated and terribly angry. He decides to take a job at a paint factory in order to be able to plan out his revenge on Dr. Bledsoe.

The idea of revenge is jumbled during the one long day he spends working at the paint plant. His boss, Mr. Kimbro, is very brusque and demanding, putting the narrator immediately on the job with very few instructions and the order not to ask questions. When the narrator mixes the wrong ingredient into the paint because he is afraid to ask Kimbro, he is fired from that job and handed to another boss, Mr. Brockway, who works as the engineer of sorts. Brockway is paranoid that the narrator is trying to take his job and is thus quite irritable toward him, asking him many questions about his past. They get along agreeably enough until after the narrator returns from retrieving his lunch. In the locker room he had run into what he thinks is a union meeting, though we later realize it was a Brotherhood meeting, and it had delayed him. He explains this to Brockway who explodes in anger at his participation in a union and attacks him, refusing to listen to the narrator’s explanation. The narrator feels the tension snap inside him and fights off Mr. Brockway. Because of their inattention to the gauges in the room, the tanks burst from the pressure and the narrator is covered in white paint and knocked unconscious.

He swims in and out of consciousness for what seems like days in a plant factory, surrounded by doctors who speak of lobotomies and tests which they would not try on him if he had been a white Harvard student. Desperately clutching consciousness at one point, he is asked his name but is unable to remember it. Finally, the doctors release him from the tubes and machines, saying that he has been saved though he never really knows from what. He is brought to the hospital director before he can leave, where he is told that he can no longer work at the plant but will receive ample compensation. Still foggy, he stumbles back toward the Men’s House where he is relieved on his way by a strong, motherly woman named Mary Rambo. The narrator hesitantly agrees to let her take him back to her house where he can rest and revive his spirits. She feeds him and also offers him a place to stay before he returns to the Men’s House. Returning to the house after his hospital stay and lowly employment, he feels inferior and realizes he can no longer reside there. After offending a man he first believes is Bledsoe, he is thrown out of the House and takes Mary up on her offer.

CHARACTERIZATION IN THE PROSE INVISIBLE MAN

1. The narrator (the “Invisible Man”) – A misguided, mis-educated young man whose quest for meaning and identity as a black man in white America leads him into numerous dangerous situations. Although he undoubtedly has a name, he remains nameless and “invisible” throughout the novel.
2. The grandfather – The narrator’s ancestor and spiritual guide whose deathbed revelation haunts the narrator throughout the novel and serves as a catalyst for his quest. He appears in the novel only through the narrator’s memories.
3. The school superintendent – The nameless white man who invites the narrator to give his high school graduation speech at the smoker, where he acts as master of ceremonies. After tricking him into participating in the battle royal, he rewards him with a calfskin briefcase and “a scholarship to the state college for Negroes.”
4. Jackson – The most brutal, sadistic white man at the battle royal. Jackson’s overt racism and vicious — albeit thwarted — attack on the narrator foreshadows Brother Jack’s covert racism and equally vicious attack on the narrator’s psyche.
5. Tatlock- The largest of the ten black boys forced to participate in the battle royal. Tatlock and the narrator are final contestants in the bloody boxing match, which results in a temporary deadlock. In the end, Tatlock defeats the narrator and proudly accepts his $10 prize.
6. Mr. Norton – A white Northern liberal and multi-millionaire who provides financial support for Dr. Bledsoe’s college. A “smoker of cigars [and] teller of polite Negro stories,” Mr. Norton is a covert racist who hides his true feelings behind a mask of philanthropy.
7. The Founder – Modeled after Booker T. Washington, founder of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, the Founder exemplifies the black American who rose “up from slavery” to achieve the American Dream. Although he does not appear in the novel, the Founder (like the grandfather) exerts a powerful influence on the narrator.
8. Dr. A. Hebert Bledsoe – Known to his students as “Old Buckethead” because of his fondness for reciting the Founder’s famous speech on service and humility (“Cast Down Your Bucket”), Dr. Bledsoe is the president of the black college established by the Founder. Entrusted to fulfill the legacy of the Founder’s dream, Dr. Bledsoe destroys the dream to promote his own selfish interests.
9. Rev. Homer A. Barbee – The blind Southern preacher from Chicago who visits the campus to deliver a moving sermon about the Founder’s life and death. Like his namesake (the blind poet Homer, author of The Odyssey and The Iliad), Reverend Barbee is a powerful orator and storyteller.
10. Jim Trueblood – Although readers may tend to think of him primarily as the sharecropper who has sex with his teenage daughter, Jim Trueblood is the only true “brother” (“blood”) in the novel: He accepts full responsibility for his behavior, makes peace with his God, and fights for himself, his family, and his land.
11. Kate and Matty Lou – Jim Trueblood’s wife and daughter, respectively.
12. Mr. and Mrs. Broadnax – (Broad-in-Acts) The white couple who appear in Jim Trueblood’s dream. Mr. Broadnax, like Mr. Norton, is a racist who hides behind a mask of philanthropy.
13. The vet – One of the shellshocked veterans at the Golden Day tavern. Because of his candid speech, his brutal honesty, and his refusal to act subservient toward whites, he is considered dangerous and hastily transferred to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a mental institution in Washington, D.C.
14. Supercargo – The warden/attendant who transports the veterans from the hospital to the Golden Day once a week. The veterans hate him because he represents the white power structure.
15. Big Halley – The bartender at Golden Day. Although Supercargo is officially charged with keeping order at the Golden Day, it is Big Halley who ultimately maintains control. He has his finger on the pulse of the black community.
16. Burnside and Sylvester – Veterans at the Golden Day. Burnside is a former doctor. Sylvester leads the vicious attack on Supercargo.
17. Edna, Hester, and Charlene – Black prostitutes at the Golden Day. Edna harbors sexual fantasies about white men and playfully propositions Mr. Norton.
18. Crenshaw – The attendant who accompanies the vet to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
19. Lucius Brockway – The black man in charge of mixing paints and regulating the pressure on the boilers in the basement of the Liberty Paint Factory. Terrified of losing his job, Brockway causes the explosion that lands the narrator in the factory hospital. Like Dr. Bledsoe, Brockway is a “gatekeeper” who jealously guards his position and does his best to keep other blacks — whom he views as potential competitors for his job — out of the company.
20. Ras the Exhorter (later Ras the Destroyer) – Modeled after renowned black leader Marcus Garvey, Ras is a powerful orator and black nationalist leader who believes that integration with whites is impossible. He is violently opposed to the Brotherhood.
21. Young Mr. Emerson – Mr. Emerson’s presumably homosexual son. Because he himself is alienated from society, young Emerson empathizes with the narrator and shows him the contents of Dr. Bledsoe’s letter, addressed to his father. He also tells him about the job opening at the Liberty Paint Factory.
22. Mr. MacDuffy – Personnel manager at the Liberty Paint Factory who hires the narrator as one of several blacks chosen to replace white union workers out on strike.
23. Mr. Kimbro – Superintendent at the Liberty Paint Factory, known to his employees as “the Colonel” and “slave driver.”
24. Mary Rambo – The kindly, black Southern woman who cares for the narrator after his release from the factory hospital. Although she lives in Harlem, Mary refused to let the corruption of the big city destroy her spirit.

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THEMES IN THE PROSE INVISIBLE MAN

1. Invisibility and identity: The unnamed narrator is uncertain of his own identity and describes himself as functionally invisible to others. The themes of invisibility and identity are tightly intertwined within Ellison’s text. When the invisible man describes himself as “invisible,” he doesn’t mean he’s literally invisible. Rather, he means that those around him simply don’t register him. He explains this as a problem with their “inner eyes,” in contrast to their physical eyes—something deep within them chooses not to see the person standing before them, even as they visually take him in.
2. Racism and inequity: The narrator constantly encounters inequity, and both implicit and explicit racism, in his interactions. Racism is a major theme throughout Invisible Man, both implicitly and explicitly. Implicit racism is evident in many of the narrator’s interactions with white people, even those who believe themselves to be benevolent. Mr. Norton, for example, has invested heavily and generously in the Black college, and appears to care a great deal about the success of the community, but he is also deeply self-aggrandizing about that investment. He uses his financial outlay as an excuse to place expectations and assumptions on the narrator and the Black community because he views himself as an important part of their story, whether or not they want him in it.
3. Power and control: Many of the conflicts in the novel revolve around the struggle to establish and maintain power and control. The personal and institutional conflicts within Invisible Man can largely be viewed as fights to retain power and control. When Dr. Bledsdoe expel the narrator, it isn’t because he has caused any tangible harm. It’s because he has been involved in something Bledsdoe finds disreputable, which threatens the school’s standing and, by extension, Bledsdoe’s own station in life. As he and the narrator argue about the impending consequences of the incident, he tells the narrator outright that he will betray as many other Black people as he needs to in order to retain his own power.

SETTINGS OF THE PROSE INVISIBLE MAN

The story takes place in a small southern town, at the nearby college for blacks, and in New York City during the late 1930s. Although Ellison denies any autobiographical elements in the novel, the town and college are reminiscent of his own Tuskegee Institute. More important than the place is the time of the setting. The narrator arrives in New York during the rise of socialism, expecting to contribute to and benefit from the changing times. Instead, he is continually duped. He lives in a basement apartment illuminated by 1,369 light bulbs, which provide, symbolically, enough light to examine his identity but which physically would produce enough heat to destroy life. Through a mistake, the power company pays his electric bill. A cave dweller, invisible to the world, the narrator searches for enlightenment within a supposedly enlightened society.

6.2 WUTHERING HEIGHT BY EMILY BRONTE

PLOT SUMMARY OF WUTHERING HEIGHT

Volume 1:

• Mr. Earnshaw brings home Heathcliff, an orphan
• Catherine and Heathcliff form a deep bond
• Mr. Earnshaw’s death; his son Hindley returns, resenting Heathcliff”

Volume 2:

• Catherine and Heathcliff’s love grows; Edgar Linton appears
• Catherine marries Edgar; Heathcliff disappears
• Heathcliff returns, wealthy, seeking revenge against those who wronged him”

Volume 3:

• Heathcliff’s revenge unfolds; Catherine dies after giving birth
• Heathcliff’s obsession with Catherine’s memory intensifies
• Young Catherine (Cathy) and Linton Heathcliff (Heathcliff’s son) fall in love”

THEMES OF WUTHERING HEIGHT

1. Love vs. class and social status
2. Revenge and its consequences
3. Nature (moors) vs. civilization
4. Family dynamics and loyalty
5. Identity and belonging

CHARACTERIZATION IN WUTHERING HEIGHT

1. Heathcliff – orphan, found and adopted by Mr. Earnshaw
2. Catherine Earnshaw – Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, Heathcliff’s soulmate
3. Edgar Linton – wealthy neighbor, Catherine’s husband
4. Nelly Dean – housekeeper, narrator

SETTINGS OF WUTHERING HEIGHT

1. Wuthering Heights: Earnshaw family’s farmhouse, symbolic of turbulent love and passion
2. Thrushcross Grange: Linton family’s elegant estate, representing wealth and social status
3. The Moors: vast, wild, and atmospheric Yorkshire moors, reflecting characters’ emotions
4. The Earnshaw’s garden: symbolizing beauty, innocence, and childhood
5. The kitchen at Wuthering Heights: hub of domestic life, warmth, and comfort
6. 6.The grave of Catherine Earnshaw: symbolic of lost love and memory
7. 7.Penistone Crags: rugged, rocky outcropping, reflecting Heathcliff’s tumultuous emotions
8. Liverpool: port city, symbolizing escape, commerce, and industrialization

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