Ralph Ellison's "The World and the Jug": Race and Literature

Introduction

The literary work of Ralph Ellison is among the most studied and the most controversial. In the context of African American writers, Ellison is both revered and despised for the manner in which he wrote — or failed to write — concerning the question of race. His essay "The World and the Jug," written in 1963, explores the important topic of race and the functions of literature. The purpose of this discussion is to explain how Ellison relates to the Civil Rights and the Black Arts Movements.

Ellison's Response to Criticism in 'The World and the Jug'

Ellison's "The World and the Jug" is essentially a response to criticism about his perceived failure to write protest fiction — a criticism he received throughout his lifetime. This criticism arose largely because of the way other writers such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin addressed race in their literary works. In one of his essays, Howe asks, "How could a Negro put pen to paper, how could he so much as think or breathe without some impulsion to protest, be it harsh or mild, political or private, released or buried? The 'sociology' of his existence formed a constant pressure on his literary work and not merely in the way this might be true for any writer, but with a pain and ferocity that nothing could remove."

In "The World and the Jug," however, Ellison clearly explains that Black people in general, and Black writers in particular, are not a monolithic group. Ellison challenges the idea of what a Black writer should be and what subject matter he should explore. His reply to Howe aligns in many ways with the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. As it relates to the Civil Rights Movement, Ellison's ability to write and publish Invisible Man at the time that he did stands as evidence of the remarkable things that Black artists were able to achieve in the midst of segregation and pervasive racism.

Furthermore, Ellison's attitude about race and race relations was in some ways consistent with what the Civil Rights Movement was trying to achieve — namely, ensuring that Black people would be treated the same way as White people. Through "The World and the Jug" and in Invisible Man, Ellison expresses the desire simply to be a good writer. He seemed more concerned with living the values of equality espoused by the Civil Rights Movement than with protesting in the ways other writers did at the time. In his own way, Ellison was making tangible the very goals the Civil Rights Movement sought to achieve. This is not to say that the protest fiction produced by other writers during this period was unnecessary — it most certainly was needed — but rather that Ellison's efforts were equally needed and powerful in their own right.

Howe and others seemed to want to place Black writers in a box and act as if they could only write in one way. Ellison, however, dismissed such beliefs as misguided. In "The World and the Jug," Ellison attempts to make Howe understand that all Black people do not have the same experiences or the same desires, and that even if they did, they would not necessarily express those desires in the same way.

Ellison, Baldwin, and the Function of Literature

This point was illustrated when a young James Baldwin wrote "Everybody's Protest Novel" as a response and critique of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. In the essay, Baldwin offers a sharp commentary on the way the novel depicts slavery. He believed the novel was one-dimensional and that Stowe could not possibly know the feelings and emotional state of enslaved people because she was a White woman. He also questioned why Stowe did not describe slavery as an evil institution.

Comparing Ellison's response to Howe with Baldwin's response to Stowe's novel reveals a clear distinction in how the two writers understood the Black struggle. On one hand, Ellison explained in his essay that Black life in America was not "an abstract embodiment of living hell." Baldwin, on the other hand, wrote throughout all of his works about the aspects of Black life that were, in many cases, precisely that. In some ways it is difficult to compare the two writers, largely because of the volume of work Baldwin produced relative to Ellison — we can trace Baldwin's evolving thought across a rich body of literary offerings, while Ellison's published output offers fewer such windows.

That said, "The World and the Jug" seems to assert that the function of literature is to allow the writer to express what he is feeling regardless of race. More specifically, literature can serve as an equalizer. In this way, Ellison's beliefs about the function of literature are very much in line with the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement. Whereas some people marched and protested in the streets, Ellison used his ability to write to demonstrate the same principles.

Conclusion

The purpose of this discussion was to explore how Ellison relates to the Civil Rights and the Black Arts Movements. "The World and the Jug" is a response to the notion that all Black writers had to write in the same manner during this period in American history. Ellison was adamant about his right as a writer to express his feelings and his truth in any way he saw fit, regardless of his race.