Illusion of Control

    In the beginning of the novel, the Narrator follows the path set out for him in most things, the college, Bledsoe's wild goose chase, and the paint factory. After that experience he decides he is going to take charge and become his own person, however we continue to see him fall in line to other's plans, with the repeated consequence of getting sent away when he deviates from them. With the college, the Narrator thought there was nothing he could've done after the patron asked to drive around, and for that he got unofficially kicked out. 

    Most recently, we saw the narrator deliver speeches for the brotherhood, and when he gets too personal for their liking, in addition to taking an interview which he believed was to their benefit, he gets sent away to the downtown area to make speeches on "the women question", where it would be difficult to get personal for him. This cycle, where the Narrator thinks he is doing what's best, and then gets punished for it, continues to happen, even though his identity has changed a lot from the beginning of the novel.

    A representation we see in the novel, is the coin bank that he tries to get rid of, but fails every time no matter what he does. When first reading this interaction I thought it was humorous, however it became more sad as I thought of how it represented his struggle to leave his past behind and how it paralleled his need to change, but it always ends up the same way.

Comments

  1. Rithika PatnamOctober 10, 2021 at 9:17 PM

    I really like your post! I think it's definitely true that we've seen the narrator make a lot of progress in that he's a lot less gullible to authority figures trying to take advantage of him now. Yet, I get what you're saying - he still manages to get tricked a lot. Honestly, I think it's a "problem" that Ellison will largely leave unresolved, to feed into the uncertain nature of the character.

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  2. RyanOctober 22, 2021 at 9:00 AM

    I like the points you make in this post. I think it is interesting how the narrator "messes up" both his situation at the college and in the Brotherhood, but for opposite reasons. At the college, he is scorned for not thinking for himself and taking control of the situation with Mr. Norton, and in the Brotherhood, he is scorned for thinking for himself and making his speeches personal. The narrator just can't win, and I think that might tie into the fact that he can't get rid of those racist objects. He ends up burning everything else from his past, but those objects remain and I think are representative of the fact that no matter where he is or who he is at the moment, his life will always be affected be racism and his invisibility.

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  3. Ian EvensenOctober 22, 2021 at 9:19 PM

    I think this is a really important detail. There's definitely a pattern going on, and "illusion of control" is a great way to describe it. He has control over his decisions, but when they don't align with what other people want him to do, they take away that control and send him away, just like you said. I think this might also tell us something about his invisibility--in order to be accepted by other people, he has to present himself to them in a certain way, so he doesn't really have the power or control necessary to present his true self.

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