Black Stereotypes And Identity Crisis: Perpetuating Denial Of The White Society - Essay Example

Black Stereotypes and Identity Crisis: Perpetuating Denial of the White Society Introduction Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man engages with the postmodern identity crisis of the Black and in particular the Black artists. In some ways his presentation of the identity crisis engages with the debates in African-American literary studies that were initiated by the novelists like Langston Hughes and Percival Everret. Whereas Hughes’ approaches to the identity of a black artist and the Black identity in general, is to affirm it depending conditions and outlines, Ellison insists on the formal and generic issues of the Black ethnicity (OMealiy, 1980: 12-17). He argues that the artistic obligation of the black writers is more of engaging with the issues of interests rather than engaging with the stereotypical issues that are assigned by the White society. Though the white society’s notion of the responsibility of the black artists asserts their engagement with black stereotypes, Ellison tends to trace such notion as an “imposed invisible identity” (Fanon, 1991: 23). Indeed the invisibility of the narrator of Ellison’s novel arises from the society’s notion of ethnicity. The conflict grows between his self-perceived identity and the identity imposed by his society, as the first person narrator of the novel says, “I am an invisible man. No…I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible; understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison, 1994: 7). Ellison’s View and Black Stereotype of Society-Imposed Identity The narrator’s perpetuating blackness reveals a great deal of Ellison’s view of black identity. He is overly obsessed with “the concept of “other” and his view of “other” obviously refers to the white-dominated society” (McSweeney, 1988: 45). According to him, the concept “otherness” is, in the first place, generated by the white society’s assertion of the black stereotype. Ellison personally believes that submitting to the demand of this “other” is the loss of one’s own identity. In his another article, “Art of Fiction” he expresses this view, “If the Negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him, he’s lost the battle before he takes the field”. (Ellison, 2003: 212) In some sense, Ellison launches a lethal satire against the stereotyping of African-Americans as ‘black’ by the dominant white culture. For him the assertion of the black stereotype is nothing but the dream of a race-free America, because it essentially asserts the race-dominated view of the black ethnicity. The bizarreness of the affirmation of the black identity in a dominant white society is presented through the narrator’s interaction with various incidents. Indeed in the novel, “Invisible Man”, the race-depended black identity of the narrator is in continual conflict with the prevailing American culture’s race-based assertion of black identity for the African-American minority (McSweeney, 1988: 45). In the novel, the artistic obligation of Ellison to his society is expressed to its fullest extent, as he says about it in an article, “The artist is no freer than the society in which he lives, and in the United States the writers who stereotype or ignore the Negro and other minorities in the final analysis stereotype and distort their own humanity. (Ellison, 2003: 99) Conflicts between Identities In Invisible Man the narrator’s identity goes into conflict with his society imposed identity. Indeed this conflict occurs on two levels. First the narrator appears to be in continuous struggle to adapt himself with the identity that is imposed by the white society. He is agonizingly reminded of the blackness of his identity at every step by his society. Second, conflict goes on internally within his self. The narrator agonizingly feels something in his “self” that strongly defies the society imposed stereotype. Indeed this agonizing presence of “something” refers to the destabilization of his black identity and the gradual formation of a new one (OMealiy, 1980: 17). The imposed identity of the society is vigorously encouraged and boosted by the rich frontiers of the white society. But Ellison marks this identity as horrendous as committing incest. He ironically refers to the fact the white-imposed identity of the black is as disturbing as their support for incestuous Jim True blood is. The problem of the society imposed identity is that it takes some disturbing elements as the constituents of the black. While Trueblood is disgraced by his fellow people, he receives the support of the white society on the basis that Trueblood’s crime is typical of the black minority. Such stereotypical black identity denies the individual and independent identity for the African-American black minority. Agony of Imposed Identity The internal agony of the narrator arises from his perception of a new identity that is different from the imposed one. Throughout the entire narration the readers are aware of the fact the narrator is grossly discontented with his present identity (OMealiy, 1980: 15). Indeed this discontent is visible in the way how he presents himself in the novel. Even he does not mention his own name. The awareness of the invisibility of identity fairly denotes to his desire for identity. But the readers are instantly questioned what this identity is. Though they are not explicitly told about the desired identity of the narrator, they are aware that the convectional black stereotypical identity is the one that is desired by him. In fact, he is mentally tormented with his black stereotype, as he says, “I had no longer to run from the Jacks and the Emersons and the Bledsoes and Nortons, but only from the confusion, impatience, and refusal to recognize the beautiful absurdity of their American identity and mine” (Ellison, 1994: 550). Invisibility in the White-dominated Society Ellison deciphers the deceptive part of the black identity that his society imposes upon the black minority. In the broader context, Ellison’s reference to the deception of the principal of the collage refers to the deception of race-free America. The deception of the stereotype-based black identity is that on one hand, it affirms a black stereotype in the name of preserving socio-cultural identity, but on the other hand, it limits the scope of possibility by isolating the minority from the mainstream of the society (Nadel, 1988: 89-96). Ellison upholds this deception through the letters of recommendation that was delivered to the anonymous narrator for a job in the north. The letter was given to him as a recommendation. But the irony is that he does not get any job. In this event, the narrator’s realization of his invisibility is that the letters are meant to keep him away from returning to school. Whereas the letters fairly resemble to the black stereotype, the deceptive element of such stereotype-based identity gears up the isolation of the African American minority. The narrator feels that the “irresponsibility” is a “taken for granted” part of his identity, he complains that he has not been given the chance of being “responsible” for anyone. Indeed the irony of the black identity is reflected in the following sentence: Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me? And wait until I reveal how truly irresponsible I am. Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement. (Ellison, 1994: 13-14) The Identity Conundrum in the Novel In the novel Ellison has showed a continuous effort to the traits of black identity in the white society. Successfully he explores the self-terminating and self-denying tendency of this identity. The identity leaves no other way but to terminate and deny one’s (the black people’s) self, as Bledsoe the president of the college. In this society a black man’s only means of success is to comply with the outline of this imposed identity that the white dominated society demands from him. Once being aspired by the success of the collage’s president, Bledsoe, the narrator desires to be like him. But soon he discovers that Bledsoe is not the one that he wants to be, because in a white-dominated dominated society Bledsoe is no more “Bledsoe”. He has had to shed his individuality by becoming a perfect black in the eye of the white-dominate society in order to achieve his success. Ellison’s novel, to a great extent, mirrors the conundrum of the American identity. Indeed Ellison has to face the dilemma regarding the assertion of American identity. On one hand, he is confronted with the American dream of a heterogeneous and, at the same time, harmonious culture. But on the other hand, he feels that the notion of cultural diversity and heterogeneous American culture defers the dream of one America. There are seemingly endless barriers to this assimilation of the culture of the minority with the main body of the American culture. This color-blind American identity is breached by the race-based affirmation of black identity. For the narrator marks it as the “beautiful absurdity”, as he notices, “I had no longer to run from the Jacks and the Emersons and the Bledsoes and Nortons, but only from the confusion, impatience, and refusal to recognize the beautiful absurdity of their American identity and mine”. (Ellison, 1994: 550) Conclusion Ultimately, Ellison is preoccupied with the conflict between the white-society imposed identity and his selfhood. He finds that what the white society wants the anonymous narrator to be is the perpetuating reminder of his blackness. But he is tormented by the deception and ironies of this imposed identity. According Ellison, the deception lies in the fact that the white society further isolates the African-American black minority from the main body of American society by imposing the derogatory stereotypes to this identity. Hence Ellison attempts to draw his readers’ attention of the fact that this imposed identity ultimately turns into the society’s refusal view selfhood and individuality of the black people. References Ellison, R. (2003) (1994) Invisible Man. New York: Modern Library, Ellison, R. (2003) “Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity.” The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison. John F. Callahan, Ed. New York: The Modern Library, 81-99 Ellison, R. (2003) “The Art of Fiction: An Interview.” The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison, John F. Callahan, Ed. New York: The Modern Library, 210-224 Fanon, Franz. Black Skin, White Masks (1952). Berkeley: Grove Press, 1991 McSweeney, Kerry. Invisible Man: Race and--Identity. Boston: G.K.Hall, 1988. Nadel, Alan. Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon. , 1988. OMealiy, R. G. (1980) The Craft of Ralph Ellison, 1980. Read More