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英语论文范文-The Symbolism of Identity in the Novel(2)

2013-07-02 01:11
 At first, despite his grandfather’s warning, the invisible man believes that genuine obedience will win him respect and praise. He is finally rewarded with a scholarship and a brief case for his obedient behavior. The battle royal episode exemplifies the novel’s motifs of blindness and masks. The boy’s literal blind-folding in the ring parallels the men’s metaphorical blindness as they watch the fight. The naked girl, the fight, the counterfeit coins symbolize that Blacks are only toys in the white people’s eyes. They do not have any human identity at all. However, the nameless man doesn’t recognize it at the beginning. His only thought is to deliver the speech which he thinks the white would enjoy and praise him, of course, it is not true.
In college he becomes committed to the version of American dream. He virtually worship administers and trustees, who are the embodiments of material success. Dr. Bledsoe, who he admires, characterizes the famous rags-to-riches formula.

“He was the example of everything I hope to be: “influential with wealthy men all over the country; consulted in matters concerning the race; a leader of his people, the possessor of not one, but two Cadillaes, a good salary and a soft, good-looking and creamy-complexioned wife.” (Ellison 2002: 101)

However, his deferential and scrupulous demeanor is only a deceptive appearance, which is a kind of performance. Because he wants to please the white by all means, he would expel the protagonist for an unreal fact that the narrator “dragged the entire race into the slime”.
During the first days in New York City, he believes Mr. Bledsoe’s letters would introduce him to an easy and suitable employment. He trusts these letters very much for they are about him and they are addressed to men with impressive names. Again, shocked at the revelation of the letters, he recognizes that this version of the American dream will never work for him.
The narrator again plunges himself into the illusion and belief that he is visible in other’s eyes and that he can achieve a meaningful identity through his efforts. He then discards his past and accepts a new name. However, he finds that Brotherhood simply considers that he is a tool of them to achieve their ends, and the purpose of Brotherhood is not to relieve the plight of blacks but “we do not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile notions of the man in the street. Our job is not to ask them what they think but to tell those” (Ellison 2002: 473). （科教范文网 lw.AsEac.com编辑整理）
2) From the Rejection to Acceptance of the Past
The quest for Identity the invisible man makes is also the great shift in his attitude toward his own culture, at first he would like to discard the tradition and worship the western culture, and then the enlightenment he gains teaches him that to forget one’s past is to forget one’s history. Losing his past or history means the loss of himself, the loss of his own identity as well. History is closely related to himself.
The blindness to the fact makes the narrator hold fast his ridiculous American Dream. In order to step into the White world and gain the White’s recognition, he wants to get rid of what is associated with “Black”. For example, he wants to forget his grandfather’s beddeath words he is ashamed of, which symbolizes that he refuses to seek for Self-Identity. He is most ashamed and contemptuous of black music when he is in the south for the reason it is related to the past of slavery. After his arrival in the North, he decides to change his southern accent completely into that of the North just in order to identify himself with the people there. He even refuses to eat his favorite food and orders coffee and bread. He smashes a coin bank because it looks like a grinning black man with “Feed me” across its chest.
All the actions symbolize the intention of the narration to break from the past without knowing the true reality of the world he inhabits in. After experiencing all kinds of incidents, he gradually comes close to the truth: he couldn’t forget the past, he is enlightened by the people around him and the events happened around him. He recalls his grandfather’s advice several times when he confronts a conflict or dilemma.
On the day of the first winter snow, he emerges from his safe retreat and encounters an old street vendor named petite wheat straw who bakes yams in an improvised oven. The yellow sweet potatoes and the fragrance remind him of past days when he usually enjoyed it in the south. He buys first one and then two more hot baked yams with melted butter, eating them in the sight of everyone. Buying baked yams and eating them as he strolls along, he openly asserts his kinship with the blacks and his southern origin. Ellison sees the folk tradition, the spirituals, blues, jazz and folk-tales as a stable factor in “the discontinuous swiftly changing and diverse American culture”.