EN2112: Invisible Man

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EN2112 Invisible Man

• 28 September 2004
• Review Elements of Fiction in
• relation to Invisible Man
• Papers

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ELEMENTS OF FICTION

• These are primary elements other rubrics may
  differ slightly.
• They may be applied, roughly and with adaptation,
  to any verbal work of art and many kinds of
  communication
• These are building blocks, not modes of approach
  (feminist, freudian, foucauldian, formalist,
  filistine, etc etc)
• In analyzing complex work, it is often useful to
  isolate one element or another in order to
  delimit possibilities, deepen focus, and then
  demonstrate that ones observations of pattern in
  one area bespeak the work as a whole (switch from
  depth back to breadth in conclusion)

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6 elements in 3 groups situation, language, and
character

• Plot
• Setting
• Form
• Character
• Point of View
• Style, Tone, and Language
• Theme Symbolism, Allegory, and Image

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Plot

• Plot meaningful series of events that
  develops from conflict(s). Sometimes (5 act
  tragedy) its organized into Situation,
  Development, Intensification, Climax, Falling
  Action (fruition of climax).
• Plot vs Story (development of Forster idea) A
  story is a recorded chronological series of
  events, whereas A plot is a series of events
  deliberately arranged so as to reveal their
  dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance
  (39). Forster emphasizes motivation, conflict,
  and causality. (Aspects of the Novel)
• Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction A Guide to
  Narrative Craft 5th ed. Longman, 2000.

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Plot of Invisible Man

• Invisible Man speaks from a basement with many
  light-bulbs and recounts his troubled journey.
• IM is a young, ambitious man from the South who
  is haunted by his grandfathers deathbed
  injunction that he should live in the lions
  mouth.
• Conflict should he try to be a member of a
  racist community or cynically admit that this is
  impossible? (one possible description).

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Plot of Invisible Man

• IM gives a speech to a white community group and
  is made to look foolish in various ways (Battle
  Royale) but gives his speech and stumbles over
  the word responsibility.
• Conflict Shall he say what he thinks, or what
  they (who have money for his college) want to
  hear?

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Plot of IM (and some meaning, theme, motif)

• IM goes to college, takes an important person to
  see Trueblood (his voyeuristic slumming)
• Dr Bledsoe is furious, and IM is sent packing
  with reference letters.
• Keep this nigger runninghe is tricked.
• His movement the voyage north.

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IM goes North

• Up north, his disillusion/ education continues.
  Eg., the optic white paint company explosion.
  Mr Emerson.
• The journey to the North as escape from southern
  racism is found to be illusory.
• One day he falls into a political action and
  winds up speaking well.

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Plot

• Finale of novel involves choices
• Stay with the Brotherhood? (Communist Party,
  quasi-racist paternalism)
• Ras the Destroyer? (Ethnic nationalism,
  foreshadows Black Aesthetic)
• Or drop out of time like Tod Clifton becomes
  Rinehartrind heart no heart or no meaning,
  no commitment. Just play the system. Not
  dresscf Zoot suit of Malcolm Little at beginning
  of Spike Lees film.

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Setting IM in a whole?

• IM in a basement, in a whole in the ground.
  Waiting to be born?
• Or just stagnant, paralyzed?
• He insists covert preparation for overt action.
• other settings rural South mens club, college
  town, NY factory, the streets
• Great variety to suggest America
• Time 1930s
• Form of novel unifies disparate strands of
  plot.

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Form of novel

• Form is a tricky term. It gathers meaning via
  context, meaning, it means what you mean by it
  when you use it carefully. It can be used in
  many ways.
• Genre bildungsroman story of young persons
  education.
• Also Comic adventurethe hero is often wrong
  picaresque road novel tradition.
• Or it could be read as a political novel, one
  that focuses especially on sandtraps within paths
  toward political engagement.
• Not either/or a genre can be a flat-out
  factual judgment, OR it can be something people
  argue about. One might argue about what kind of
  story one is discussing.

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character point of view

• C and POV are intimately allied
• 1st person used to emphasize mentality of
  character at different moments initial fury at
  racism and invisibility, naiveté as he speaks
  after Battle Royale or to members of the
  Brotherhood.
• Ellison this is the story of a slow learner.

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character and conflict

• A one-sentence statement of the novel and the
  characters central conflict IM continually
  struggles with his various social groups in ways
  that foreground the agonistic struggle for
  individuality and anatomize the corrupting
  influence of conformity in America.

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Character

• Like plot, character is often built up out of
  conflict and tension. Type is also important
  serious writers often like to complicate with
  stereotypes. Obviously, working against type is
  an excellent way to create SURPRISE and TENSION,
  which are two reasons readers keep reading. IM
  work within the system or abandon responsibility?

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Point of View

• Point of view can be absolutely stable, or a
  writer can shift point of view watch for this in
  Dreamer, as Johnson shifts pov in italicized
  chapters. They are in Kings mind, and they are
  beyond what Matthew Bishop can experience
  directly.
• POV can be limited or omniscient. It can be in
  the moment or retrospective. It can be reliable
  or unreliable.

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POV in Invisible Man

• Shifts between present tense and retrospective
  are most important.
• They organize our view of the young mans story
  (the past) and bring it to bear on his present
  in the hole situation (which is narrated in
  present tense).
• Recuperation and redemption of bad past see it
  as a covert (hidden from consciousness, one
  didnt know) preparation for an overt action.
  Soooohell come out of the hole?

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NEXT Week

• style, tone, language, theme, symbolism,
  allegory, image and suchlike.