Lit Analysis 3

1. I chose the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The story is about an African American man and his adversities that helped him get to the person he is now. The story is in the 1920's in the south. Had a talent with writing and public speaking, the main character gives a speech when he was a teen and got a scholarship for college. When he was at college he was in charge of driving Mr. Norton, who is a wealthy white trustee at the college. One day Mr. Norton overheard someone talking about Jim Trueblood, an uneducated African American man who got one of his daughters pregnant . After he heard that Mr. Norton goes to the bar to get a drink. when the true rumor spreads through the college, the college's president who expels the narrator. The narrator moves to Harlem, gets a job. Things are looking up for the narrator, until he got hurt on the job and looses consciousness. He recovers then joins a group called the Brotherhood, headed by Brother Jack. Again things go bad and the brotherhood begins to question the narrators motives in being part of the organization. In fear the narrator hides from the brotherhood. Finally the narrator returns home to a riot and falls into a hole in the street. Police tries to kill him by surrounding the hole he fell into. The narrator tries to tell them that he lived in that hole for the day. This accident gets the narrator to look back on things and gives him the motivation to what he wants and tell his story of life. Telling his story the he finally gets the strength within himself to come out of the hole because he stayed true to himself.

2. The main theme of the novel is the courage to stay true to who you are. considering he was an African American man living in the south in the 1920's those were bad times and it was tempting for him to take the easy way out of things and accept the poor treatment towards blacks. But it was harder to speak out about the cruelty and make a change. It was a struggle he had to overcome in order to face himself and others.
3. Some people might view his tone as cross or dreary, because of his reflection he has all the time on on the racism issue at the time and his struggles. But I see honesty and thoughtfulness.
“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”
4.Literary Devices:
-symbolism
-setting
-tone
-theme
-figurative language
-allusions
-diction
-imagery
-allegory
-point of view

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
“I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied”
“And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own.”
“Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.”
“I remember that I'm invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.”
“Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“The truth is the light and the light is the truth.
“Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.”
“Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.”
“I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound.”
“I felt that even when they were polite they hardly saw me, that they would have begged the pardon of Jack the Bear, never glancing his way if the bear happened to be walking along minding his business. It was confusing. I did not know if it was desirable or undesirable...”

Characterization
1. The narrator describes his thoughts and actions through the entire story,so he is always using direct characterization.
2.I did not notice much change in the author's tone when discussing characters mainly because the author writes through the main character describing his thoughts and feelings
3. The main character is definitely dynamic because he struggles with being himself and being conformed by the racist outlook, he is also a round character because he has so many qualities.
4. I actually got into the book, it was like i was experiencing it with him.