How To Fly

I think one of the most interesting parts of Invisible Man  is the Brotherhood, which is probably a direct allusion to the American Communist Party. I'm not completely certain whether Ellison is portraying them as a good or bad organization, because the narrator still sticks with them even as he's being shunted sideways and around Manhattan. We don't even get a lot of insight into the Brotherhood ideology which may or may not have changed my opinion on them. We only have a small set of interactions between the narrator and some of the members of the Brotherhood. I really dislike the Brotherhood. For a society that's based on the advancement of the human race, they have some pretty backwards ideas. As a piece of African American Literature that's dealing with racial issues I think Ellison is spot on with his portrayal and subsequent criticism of how the Brotherhood confronts race. They pretend they are thinking more rationally and scientifically by envisioning a wo...

At this point in the book (chapter 12 at the point of writing), our hero the narrator is starting to grow a pair. But to what extent? Clearly he's made some progress, as his ridiculously naive younger self used to not even pause to think about being humiliated and puppeted in the first chapter, and I'm very happy to see that there's some character development. Conversely, we can't say that he has fully developed Emersonian self-reliance either. For example, he doesn't talk back to the union, and they were clearly unfairly accusing him. In the prologue I think we can safely say that he's fully reached that level of self-reliance, basically almost killing a guy and stealing power from an unused basement. So how far is he down the line from Chapter 1 to the Prologue? In my experience, when you stand up for yourself for the first time, you gain confidence for the next time. And the next time, and the time after that. It's like a snowball; once you get rolling yo...