Invisible Man Essays (Examples)

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is a remarkable work that has been widely acknowledged for its ruthless exposure of the American Dream as a myth. However, while Ellison may have used American history and culture as the backdrop for his novel, focusing on his expose of the American Dream alone may actually be a far too restrictive assessment of his work. For, the fact is that Ellison's main purpose in the novel seems to have been to question the fundamental worth of the universally characteristic human quest for social success. Ellison achieves this through highlighting the fact that social success is usually built and maintained through the use of hypocrisy, deceit, sycophancy and power plays. Thus, Ellison's Invisible Man is a novel, which establishes the hollowness of social success when measured against the loss of individual values, dignity, and freedom. In fact, it is the loss of individuality that…

How will it end?

Ain't got a friend.

My only sinIs in my skin

What did I do

To be so black and blue?

Ethnicity is thus seen as a force which could both annihilate and empower a person. While it gave one a sense of belonging, it can also cause distinctions between people residing in his geographical location and sharing a common national identity. The protagonist realizes that in order to develop a more expansive sense of self, it was important to shrink the gap between ethnic identities by relinquishing personal boundaries.

There's a stench in the air, which, from this distance underground, might be the smell either of death or of spring - I hope of spring. But don't let me trick you, there is a death in the smell of spring and in the smell of thee as in the smell of me. And if nothing more,…

You sure that about 'equality' was a mistake?"

Oh, yes, sir," I said. "I was swallowing blood."

The hero's complicity in the rendering of his own invisibility comes full force at the end. The imagery of the hero swallowing blood mirrors how the narrator, a black man, chose to swallow his own anger and shame. The hero was fully aware that he was nothing more than another black man to these drunken white people, an object of entertainment. However, instead of pummeling the nearest drunk, the narrator decides to swallow his rage, because the townspeople offer him a scholarship to the "state college for Negroes."

Another image that has greater social relevance is the gathering at the ballroom. This gathering serves as a microcosm of a town whose class structure is delineated by race. The white people in the room, the town's important citizens were all white (and male). The…

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison's prologue to Invisible Man explains his perception that he is invisible because of ethnicity. The white population only sees African-American men as stereotypes and if they were viewed by whites at all it is through the lens of their racism. In the United States, the majority of the population since the founding has been white men and women. Consequently, anyone who does not belong to that racial category is considered a racial minority. The American record against African-American people has been particularly heinous, given the history of black slavery, then segregation and Jim Crow laws in the American south, only to name a few of the myriad of prejudicial policies which have affected that part of society. The narrator's invisibility, he acknowledges has all to do with the social indoctrination of the Caucasian population against the African-American community. The entirety of the narrator's life would be…

And E-sharps, form the main part of the piece. At the end of it all comes a dramatically violent, sharp and steep-rising crescendo followed by a clear, calm and measured finally that is flat: so flat, in fact, as to thud percussively and at once to the earth and after it fall wobblingly below it.

Ralph Ellison thus orchestrates the unpredictable actions and tone changes and of this novel with the skill of a maestro: from the narrator's grandfather's bassoon-like deathbed warning, to the fateful chance meeting with Norris to the expulsion from school to the narrator's discovery of the true content of the seven reference letters he has so industrially distributed, the parts of the story are as tightly controlled, juxtaposed, varied, blended, surprising, and climactic as a symphonic masterpiece. Ellison, through the voice of his unnamed narrator, "conducts" cadence, pace, rhythm of the main action, and even perhaps…

Ellison Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison's novel, Invisible Man depicts women as marginalized either as maternal or sexual figures. The stripper, Edna, Hester, Sybil, Emma, the rich woman, and Mattie Lou Trueblood are seen largely as sexual objects. In contrast, Mary Rambo is a maternal figure who cares for the narrator. Overall, the female characters are seen as secondary, with little character development in comparison to the male characters. This treatment of women in Invisible Man as primarily sexual or maternal objects largely reflects the traditional views of women's roles in society during the 1950s.

omen are often seen as sexual objects within Ellison's Invisible Man. The most obvious examples of this sexual identification of women is seen the characters of Hester and Edna. Edna and Hester are both black prostitutes at the Golden Day. Hester hates white men, while Edna is convinced that white men make better sexual partners. In…

Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison.

Dividing people by race. Five quoted passages. Five outside sources.

Annotated Bibliography

Invisible Man"

Invisibility. ho has not felt invisible at one time or another in their lives? However, for many groups within society, invisibility is not a phrase, it is a day-to-day reality. Its roots are planted deep in prejudices, stereotyping, and basic intolerance and ignorance of cultural diversity. That American society was and is founded on immigrant cultures may be common knowledge, however, it is not commonly accepted. Although, all are American, society has labeled certain groups according to their ethnic backgrounds. These labels are stigmas that are not easily shaken off or dispelled. Stigmas are like brands that signify differences placed on the group as a whole, not the individual. hen an individual is seen only in the context of his or her ethnic group, only in terms of the stereotypical persona…

I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself" (496). He realizes that while he may feel invisible, he is not; he is a real man with real thoughts and opinions and he is finally beginning to understand what they are. For example, he finally comes to terms with being African-American and asks why he should "strive toward colorlessness" (499) in a world of individuals that want to be the same, which means they do not want to be themselves. He observes, "life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat" (499). He realizes that the best way to live to by living as one was born. Robert Lee observes, "what we are left with at the end of the novel is a man living in clear…

person or separates him from the rest: it also s to associates him with his past, his accomplishments or his blunders. Furthermore, it colors and limits a person's entire personality and environment almost with finality, unless his name suddenly changes to alter the memory his name carries with it.

This was precisely what happened to the narrator in his own novel. One's name was so significantly indicative and judgmental upon one's person that he refused to name himself from beginning to end. It would be a betrayal if he gave his name or gave himself any. He was so important to himself that he could not allow a name to limit or smear or negate his identity. aand destiny.

The narrator cannot remember any time that a name ever gave him honor. And dignity. (Just) because he was black, his whole life to the present was a series of humiliations…

According to his benefactor his case, represents, my dear Mr. Emerson, one of the rare delicate instances in which one for whom we held great expectations has gone grievously astray, and who in his fall threatens to upset certain delicate relationships between certain interested individuals and the school. Thus, while the bearer is no longer a member of our scholastic family, it is highly important that his severance with the college be executed as painlessly as possible. I beg of you sir, to help him continue in the direction of that promise which, like the horizon, receded ever brightly and distantly beyond a hopeful traveler." (191)

As he was the inadvertent instigator of a white benefactor of his college being exposed to the ill temper of a black man who teaches there and is apparently capable of truth-telling, the invisible man is dismissed from his beloved school. The manner in…

Invisible Man
1
Race is experienced in Invisible Man in a variety of ways. In the beginning of the book, the narrator describes himself as “invisible”—as being flesh and bone and yet going unseen by people. He goes unseen because he is a black man and people choose not to see the black man: they do not want to get involved in that world. Instead, they expect the black man to tread softly and to not make much noise—and so that is what the narrator does, though he has suffered from the occasional outburst of violence.
The narrator’s journey of identity is shaped from beginning to end as a result of race. Prior to going to the university, the narrator is forced to fight in a battle royal for the amusement of the white elites in the South. This is his first big step in his life’s journey towards isolation…

Malcolm X and Ellison

Interracial sexual desire is depicted both in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and The Autobiography of Malcolm X Extreme social stratification and inequalities in social power play an important role in the depiction of interracial sexual desire in both Ellison's book and Malcolm X's autobiography, and also play an important role in the repulsion/attraction dynamic seen between the races. Both of these books leave little hope for humanitarian, loving relationships between the races, as they both often demonize white society. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, white men who desire black women are clearly manipulative and often racists, while in Ellison's Invisible Man such men are often simply well-meaning but misguided. Malcolm X and Ellison both see white women who desire black men symbolize the white desire to "slum" and the attraction of the women to the stereotype of black men as powerful lovers, while the men…

Civil Rights historian Steve Estes adds: "the ever-present threat of lynching for supposed sexual improprieties meant that their [Black male] survival could depend on their ability to mask their masculinity" (Estes, 2005). Being able to express one's sexuality and desire in an open, healthy fashion and not feel in danger of persecution, in Estes' view, is a critical, but often unacknowledged part of being a man.

Closely guarding the rights to claim the status of man is not particular to America's racial history. "The early modern Spaniards...also assumed that manhood was revealed, in large part, through a person's behavior," through what today might be called "machismo" (Behrend-Martinez, 2005). To be a man in Spain, included "keeping one's word, supporting one's family, heading a patriarchal household, demonstrating sexual prowess, sobriety, maintaining one's independence of thought and action, and defending family and personal honor" (Behrend-Martinez, 2005). Stressing the ability to keep one's…

So by embracing the underground, as the narrator eventually does, he is attempting to regain a sense of his own identity by remaining separate from the falseness of that which occurs above him. Clearly, it is significant that he spends his time stealing electricity, writing his story, and listening to Louis Armstrong's "hat Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue" on a phonograph. The first, obviously, is his attempt to subvert the works of mainstream society; but the second two stand as the symbol for what jazz represents in the American experience. Jazz is this sense of individuality; so much so, that the narrator is able to create his own identity through words as he listens to music. Today, the invisibility of jazz has been lifted, but its importance to the meaning of the words "America" and "democracy" remains the same as Ellison understood it to be.

orks…

invisible cities all over the world like Ahwaz in south of Iran, that suffer through horrible tragedies and the world won't pay attention to. They are the real life invisible cities. Through literature one is able to empathize to people and situations that otherwise would never be seen or known. Calvino's Invisible City explores the imaginative world of Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.

The book discusses the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book is put together as a conversation between the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, a busy man with many emperors who talk to him about the state of his expanding and vast empire, and Polo, the boundless explorer. The largest percentage of the book is of short prose poems describing 55 cities, narrated by the explorer Marco Polo.

Every five to ten cities, there are small dialogues that act as transitions between the…

Man ho as Not Shakespeare:

The Comedic and Tragic Life of Christopher Marlowe

One of the most famous and shadowy figures in the history of the Elizabethan stage is that of the playwright Christopher Marlowe. Unlike Shakespeare, whose plays tend to be quite character-driven, Marlowe wrote extremely rhetorical, highly poetical works with elevated language and elaborate feats of stagecraft. Marlowe was a university-educated man with complex ties to the government and politics of the period. In contrast, Shakespeare's father was a glove maker, although politically a fairly prominent member of his community, and Shakespeare never attended university, only the common school of his town. Marlowe's concern with power and society's elite is reflected not only in the language of his plays, but also in terms of his play's subject matter. This is reflected in his most famous works, such as "Dr. Faustus" and "Tamburlaine." Marlowe is often studied as an…

Man ho Shot Liberty Valance and the Brilliance of John Ford

John Ford's The Man ho Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a classic western with a few film noir elements included, is elegiac in the sense that its narrative strategy is that of eulogistic remembrance by now-Senator Ransom Stoddard, of horse rancher Tom Doniphan, who once saved Stoddard's life and changed it much for the better, and who was the real man who shot Liberty Valance. According to Robert Horton, "This may be the saddest estern ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose" ("Editorial Reviews"). Upon Tom Doniphan's death in the small fictional town of Shinbone (state unknown) Ransom and Hallie Stoddard arrive back in town to pay their final respects to Doniphan who sacrificed so much of himself, and so much of his own future happiness,…

Blending pop psychology with cognitive science, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons write about perceptual biases and inattentional blindness in The Invisible Gorilla. Sparked by a now-famous experiment the authors performed, The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us is not as much about intuition as the subtitle of the book suggests. Rather, the book describes six ways our brains are fooled by illusions. Recognizing and understanding the illusions can prevent people from making critical mistakes in judgment. Those mistakes can sometimes be egregious, as when cops presume a black man is a criminal or when drivers overestimate their ability to multitask on the road. Salesmen and stage magicians count on the brain’s susceptibility to illusion to be successful. Memories of past events are reconstructions, rather than accurate recordings of the facts. Therefore, the main reason why Chabris and Simons translated their research findings into a popular book written for a…

Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

Character Analysis: Griffin and Kemp

The science fiction novel written by H.G. Wells called the Invisible Man is written about a talented scientist who is something of a rogue researcher. He represents a person who believes more so in the scientific methods than in humanity. These character traits are fully illustrated throughout the plot as Griffin undertakes many questionable activities. When Griffin was studying at the University of London he had a colleague named Dr. Kemp who has roughly an equal intelligence, yet some quite different character traits. Kemp also has a vast appreciation for science and the scientific method but these interests are utilized in efforts to help humanity progress and not necessarily for personal gain. This analysis will compare and contrast how the two individuals could have vastly different outlooks on life despite the fact that they both fully embrace and appreciate the…

Calvino's Invisible Cities is a different take on the novel. It disposes of the traditional chronological narrative and organizes the story according to themes such as cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and names, etc.… The novel's thematic organization allows Calvino to de-emphasize the traditional characteristics of cities, such as their material structure and their uniqueness from other cities.

Calvino uses this thematic narrative to emphasize what is common to all cities. Thesis: For Calvino, what is common to all cities is the role of human perception, colored by desire and fear, in creating those cities, which can exist for us only as myths. ecause our desires and fears persist no matter the city we are in, all cities are ultimately the same until we can live independent of desire and fear.

The Significance of Calvino's Juxtapositions

Dreams and Fears

Calvino posits that cities, like dreams, are made of…

Good Man is Hard to Find

For the purposes of this essay, I chose Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." "A Good Man is Had to Find" is an apt topic for research such as this, because the ambiguity of the story's position regarding a grandmother ultimately responsible for the death of her entire family leads to a wide variety of possible readings, each with its own adherents and defenders. Upon reading this story, I immediately questioned the grandmother's role in the story, and especially whether or not the story portrayed her in a positive or negative light, because although at points in the story she appears positive in contrast to the other characters, she is ultimately shown to be reactive, shortsighted, and altogether incapable of protecting either her family or herself. Using Google Scholar, I searched for academic essays and books discussing "A Good…

Any grieving father might hope the bitter wish that his departed "had not been" such a "cross" (XIII) could be excused under 'all life is error,' but then how to justify the self-indulgent catalog of lost attributes of his beloved two-year-old (III-XVIII)? How can the two, longing and blame, exist side by side if both are wrong? ithout an answer, why the complicated speech?

This is precisely Kochanowski's Stoic-fundamentalist, "Heracletian" (I) reading, if the reader can penetrate the referentiality: In fact any father who lost a daughter might likely sympathize with and understand the author's inability to bring her back and confusion at his own range of diverse emotion. This is in fact one possible author's-motive, to share his realizations (XIV, "hen you see others' lot / You accept your own") as he survives effectively an agricultural year of bereavement, until finally giving up on Reason as ineffective to explain…

It is what we know, because that which we understand from the experience of the vision quest finds no words to express it, and if we cannot express it, hear it said, we question and fear it. But we continue to long for the escape, to shed the body like the snake that sheds its skin.

We try to share our experience, the knowledge that nature has imparted upon us -- but it is difficult, and often times seems to fall upon deaf ears. But we cannot pace others, only ourselves, and we cannot make them hear what they resist; perhaps they just are not ready. Enlightenment through nature comes to people at their own pace through life. Often times, I think, it is later in life, when the noise of youth subsides. It is then, for some, that the distant mountain beckons us to our individual vision quest, and…

The second paper discusses Ford in the 1930s. The beginning has a discussion of the prevailing political climate -- from the Smoot Hawley Act that spurred a reduction in trade around the world to the counterbalancing political forces of the day. Free labor unions were becoming political tools, for example working with Fascist organizations in Italy. The discussion then shifts to the conditions of the American worker during the late 1920s and early 1930s. American workers were wealthier and better-dressed than their European counterparts. They spent much more on their wardrobes.

The same can be said of diets -- workers in Detroit had varied diets that were more plentiful than workers in Europe enjoyed. American housing was also superior, where workers lived in conditions that in Europe were reserved for the upper middle class. Americans visited doctors and dentists, another luxury in Europe. Ford in particular had been providing for…

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison. Specifically, it will contain a brief biography of the author; address the topic of alienation as it pertains to the work, and include some critical reviews of the novel. Many critics consider novelist Ralph Ellison's "The Invisible Man" a classic in American literature, and a treatise on how blacks have been treated by white society throughout the decades. His story is a tale of alienation, prejudice, and the strength one man has to rise above these obstacles to become the best man he can be.

The Invisible Man - The Author, Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 1, 1914. His parents, Lewis and Ida Ellison, were from the South, but had moved to Oklahoma searching for racial equality they could not find at home (Watts 33). His father died when Ellison was three, and his mother raised her two…

The concept of
miscegenation is explored as an avenue which is suppressed in order to
sustain passability in white culture. The Hardin article denotes that this
invisibility, essentially, "is about passing as white, and the resultant
challenge to stable notions of race; however, at the subtextual level, this
notion also seems to be about passing as heterosexual." (Hardin, 103) In
this work, we can find a connection between the narrator's dedication to a
constantly shifting identity and his desire to obscure either a racial or a
sexual identity of any type of impact on those around him.
Ellison levies a pointed criticism at a racially exclusionary society
while simultaneously recognizing the willful decisions on the part of the
protagonist to adopt this disposition. The author illustrates that the
invisibility which he describes is not necessarily always derived from
within the subject. One sentiment on the novel points to an elected…

American Ethnic Literature

There are so many different voices within the context of the United States. This country is one which is built on cultural differences. Yet, for generations the only voices expressed in literature or from the white majority. Contemporary American ethnic literature is important in that it reflects the multifaceted nature of life in the United States. It is not pressured by the white majority anymore, but is rather influenced by the extremely varying experiences of vastly different individuals, as seen in the works of alph Ellison's Invisible Man, Gloria Anzaldua's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," and Cathy Song's poem "Lost Sister." American ethnic literature speaks for minority voices, which have long been excluded in earlier generations of American society.

American ethnic literature has developed enormously over the last few centuries, and especially within the context of just the last few decades. In today's literary world, it…

Strike has ethics, as shown in his behavior towards his 'boss' Roscoe, and his mentoring of the younger, more vulnerable young men. In a different social situation, Strike would likely have put his moral impulses to different and better use. Strike obeys the moral logic of his urban society with the same kind of adherence that an upstanding citizen might, who had been afforded ways to make a decent living in a law-abiding way. But Strike grew up in a neighborhood where the most noble and respectable persons were all drug dealers, and the person one could aspire to be like, at the highest level, was a criminal. Thus, although he does not wish to kill, and seeks an escape from the limits of his existence, because he has no role models around him (and unconsciously provides a bad example to younger members of his neighborhood) Strike becomes a dealer,…

One of Wright's major works was Black Boy and one of the most poignant sections of that book was Chapter 12 in which Wright described the experiences of two southern black boys exploited by the "five dollar fight." Working for an optician in Memphis, Tennessee, the protagonist (Richard) hopes that his experiences with white people in Memphis will be better than in the small town of Jackson, Mississippi "The people of Memphis had an air of relative urbanity that took some of the sharpness off the attitude of whites toward Negroes & #8230;"

However, Richard finds that white people are just as exploitative and abusive of blacks in the big city as in small towns. Some of the white men where Richard works pay another black boy a quarter at a time to let them kick him in his rear end and even when white men seem to be nice…

America is in the Heart is Carlos Bulosan's autobiography, which he uses to reflect the living conditions of immigrant Filipino workers in mid-twentieth century America. By doing so, Bulosan's effectively highlights the Filipino experience with an American society where democratic values had yet to overcome racial and class prejudices. Bulosan achieves this by documenting his experiences in a manner that is calculated to reveal the gap between the American promise of opportunity and the reality of a country where racial discrimination comes in the way of achieving success.

Bulosan's work, however, should not be interpreted as an indictment of American society. On the contrary, he shows a touching faith in the promise of democracy and equality. Therefore, his objective appears to be more in the area of a plea to all Americans that true democracy lay in extending the promise of a land of opportunity to all social classes and…

political representation of African-Americans in the southern United States. The author explores many different theories as well as the ideas of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King to explore the under presentation of Blacks politically. There were eight sources used to complete this paper.

African-Americans have come a long way since the nation's inception. From the days of slavery, to the present time many bridges have been crossed and many battles have been won. Gone are the days that Blacks were required to sit at the back of the bus.

No longer can Blacks be told they must eat at a certain restaurant. Black and white children go to school together daily, they grow up on the same streets and they marry into each other's race with increasing frequency. It is becoming the America that the founding fathers envisioned at the time the nation was created. One of the reasons…

movie, quote directly paraphrase proof film. To paraphrase describe scene point making memory words .

Jack Merrick's suicide

Jack Merrick, the central character in David Lynch's "The Elephant Man," is meant to express a series of feelings, most of them related to marginalization and seclusion. Merrick's principal role in nineteenth century London was that of entertaining people by allowing them to see his physical disabilities. It is not difficult to understand society made him feel about himself, considering that mostly everyone perceived him as a freak of nature. John Hurt, the actor playing Merrick, managed to present viewers with an astonishing performance, particularly considering the fact that he had to wear a mask while acting. The general plot of the film introduces the audience with the concept of hopelessness, despite Treves' determination to prove otherwise. Merrick's suicide is an act of liberation and viewers are most likely to sympathize with…

opposite of a superpower, invisibility refers to the condition of not mattering, not qualifying, or not counting in the eyes of the dominant culture. Invisibility is the quality imposed upon by the oppressor and experienced by the oppressed. Those who do not conform to a white patriarchal standard are rendered invisible, and they may float through life never fitting into a social circle and never gaining access to the means whereby they can change their status. Invisible is what Miss Lily Bart experiences as she subverts gender norms in Edith harton's The House of Mirth. Invisibility is certainly what the narrator of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man experiences as he navigates his way through early 20th century America. The disenfranchised are rendered invisible when they are positioned at intersections of race, class, gender, and power.

For the invisible man in Ellison's book, invisibility is ironic because a black man is very…

They were followed in 1936 by the Harlem River Houses, a more modest experiment in housing projects. And by 1964, nine giant public housing projects had been constructed in the neighborhood, housing over 41,000 people [see also Tritter; Pinckney and oock].

The roots of Harlem's various pre 1960's-era movements for African-American equality began growing years before the Harlem Renaissance itself, and were still alive long after the Harlem Renaissance ended. For example:

The NAACP became active in Harlem in 1910 and Marcus Garvey's Universal

Negro Improvement Organization in 1916. The NAACP chapter there soon grew to be the largest in the country. Activist a. Philip Randolph lived in Harlem and published the radical magazine the Messenger starting in 1917.

It was from Harlem that he organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car

Porters. .E.B. DuBois lived and published in Harlem in the 1920s, as did

James eldon Johnson and Marcus Garvey.…

The only reason to continue living is to accept and transcend the absurdity with personal scorn and strength. Camus is overwhelmingly concerned with the impact of his ideas on everyday life -- coping with the severe and confusing realities of everyday existence. Based on all of this, Camus asks, in the face of such defeat can a person be actually be happy? It is possible. It is the only reality that a person has. In this world, an individual must confront the limitations of knowledge.

I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms... I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether…

Ring of Gyges: A Retelling

Once upon a time, long ago, long before H.G. ells penned his science fiction classic, The Invisible Man, long before Tolkien created his epic saga of the one ring that would rule them all, there lived a shepherd by the name of Gyges. Now, this Gyges was a humble man in the service of a king, a mere shepherd whose only desire was to tend his flock and live peacefully. But one day, while tending his sheep and their lambs, Gyges' world was shaken by a great storm that opened up a huge crack in the earth.

Curious as to what lurked in the bowels of the earth, Gyges descended and found a hollow bronze horse with doors on its side. Inside the tomb of a horse was a naked body with a gold ring. Gyges was not wealthy, so he took the ring and…

Yarbrough quotes Ihab Hassan, who describes postmodernism as the "literature of silence" in that it "communicates only with itself," a reference that initially astounds the rational mind. Then, reading further in Yarbrough, Hassan is quoted as saying the term postmodernism applies to "a world caught between fragments and wholes, terror and totalitarianism of every kind."

In Vonnegut's novel, characters reflect the deconstruction of American society in the 1950s, during the period of paranoia dominated by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's fascist-like search for "communist sympathizers," which created terror and loathing and reflected how morally shallow yet potent the hammer of temporary totalitarian authority can be.

On page 96, Chapter 44, it is revealed that Horlick Minton had once been fired by the State Department for allegedly being "soft on communism" - but the only "real evidence" used to justify his dismissal, his wife announced, was a letter she wrote to the…

Sylvia Plath explores ambiguity from the perspective of a woman living in a man's world in The Bell Jar. Esther receives different messages about who she is and who she wants to be. Society tells her to be the good wife and mother but she never adapts well to this notion. She feels ambivalence toward most of the women she meets and ultimately feels pulled in different directions when it comes to expectations and desires. The conflict Esther experiences results from what society expects from "good girls." The article Mrs. Greenwood sends her exposes the hypocrisy she cannot ignore. The article explains how a "man's world was different than a woman's world and a man's emotions are different than a woman's emotions" (Plath 65). The notion of women being pure as the wind-driven snow and submitting to the will of their husbands becomes more of a burden than anything else…

OZ and Transition

The izard of Oz provides Americans with a text that helps them make the transition from the country to the city and sets the stage for the commodified American popular culture of the 20th century. This paper will show how, thanks to its pristine (Emerald) beauty and adventurous episodes, Oz makes "the city" much more appealing than the muted, old-fashioned of America. It will also explain why Dorothy returns to Kansas (someone has to take back home the message of how amazing "the city" is).

Baum's Oz shows that everyman can become a king if he pursues his own desires: thus, the Scarecrow is awarded leadership over the Emerald City, the Tinman leadership over inkie County, and the Cowardly Lion kingship over the forest. Each character, of course, rises to meet his own personal challenge -- but, nonetheless, these are clear examples of how the American Dream…

eintegration of Ex-Felons

Although the paradigms of public administration have undergone considerable scrutiny and some evolution, particularly over the past several decades, there is merit in considering the historical paradigms with respect to public administration as an academic and scientific discipline. Paradigm 2, The Principles of Administration, circa 1927 to 1937, serves as the springboard for this discussion. In Henry's words, "Thus the focus of the field -- its essential expertise in the form of administrative principles -- waxed [in the 1930s and early 1940s], while no one thought seriously about its focus. Indeed the locus of public administration was everywhere because principles were principles and administration was administration" (Henry, 1795, p. 380). By the time a decade had passed, Herb Simon had eschewed the traditional foundations of public administration and presented his own version of a new paradigm for the discipline. Simon seized on the idea that "there ought…

Black Experience in American Culture

This is a paper that analyzes the black experience in American culture as presented by Hughes, Baldwin, Wright and Ellison. It has 20 sources in MLA format.

African-American authors have influenced American culture as they have come forward to present issues that the society would rather have forgotten. Authors such as ichard Wright alph Ellison, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin have come under fire as they have written about the racial and biased experiences throughout their life [Capetti, 2001] and through their narratives they have forged a link between the past, the present (themselves) and their future (the unborn generation).

These literary works are an effort on their part to prove to their nations that regardless of the perceived realities their existence and lives have valuable. The slave past some of these authors have had created a void in their lives that at times left…

Yet perhaps no American author embraced the grotesque with the same enthusiasm as the Southern Flannery O'Connor. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," O'Connor uses the example of a family annihilated by the side of the road by an outlaw named the Misfit to show the bankruptcy of American life. Instead of an evil serial killer, the Misfit is portrayed as a kind of force of divine justice, who unintentionally allows the grandmother of the family to experience grace. She says that she believes the man is like one of own her children before he kills her. In O'Connor's stories, the characters do not fight for their insight, rather it is given in mysterious, often deadly ways, and it always originates with the divine, not with the human will.

If O'Connor represents the most extreme version of grotesque American literature, Ralph Ellison represents perhaps the most balanced use…

Mannoni's belief that colonial racism is different than other kinds of racism Fanon dismisses as utterly naive: "All forms of exploitation are identical because all of them are applied against the same 'object': man" (88). He next turns to Mannoni's statement that a minority can only have experiences of dependency or inferiority toward the majority (92-93). Fanon spends the remainder of the chapter disproving this claim by engaging with various aspects of Mannoni's argument. He concludes that Mannoni's lacks foundation for his claims.

Fanon focuses this chapter on the observation that only in interaction with the white man is the black man compelled to "experience his being" (109). He argues that, contrary to other claims, this condition is not reciprocal; only the black man suffers from a 3rd person view of himself. Fanon strives to find an identity for the black man outside the parameters of the white man's view.…

hile the winner gets a huge amount of money for supposedly being the strongest human, in fact, the strongest human is merely the one that uses the greatest amount of self-centered cunning and brute strength. If one is going to define humanity, especially in the post-Darwinian age, then it would seem that humanity, to be set apart, would depend on altruistic feelings and use of intelligence rather than selfish feelings and use of brute force alone. In this respect, there is little to separate the producers of TV reality shows from Dr. Moreau, and, by extension, little to separate the participants from the man-beasts. hile it is certainly a cynical viewpoint, it would seem that those who participate in the reality shows might be assumed to be as dimly aware of their condition as the man-beasts after their reversion to the more animal state.

Graff compares Dr. Moreau to Mary…

ar at Home in Ellison, ar Abroad in O'Brien

The inhumanity of war is a common theme in literature, as brilliantly illustrated in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," a tale that functions as a short story but is actually an excerpt from his great novel about the Vietnam ar Going after Cacciato. In O'Brien's story, several soldiers fighting in Vietnam are defined by the objects they carry in their pockets, such as photographs of loved ones, as well as their military gear and outfits. Yet the battles of individuals oppressed by society, such as African-Americans, may be equally, if not more, soul destroying, when conducted on the home front of America, on daily basis. This fact is evidenced by the evisceration of the spirit of the young African-American men in an excerpt from Ralph Ellison's seminal novel Invisible Man, entitled, "Battle Royal."

In "Battle Royal," the best and brightest…

Janie in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes ere atching God and Celie in Alice alker's the Color Purple

The main character and narrator of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes ere atching God (1937), Janie, has much in common with the narrator and main character Celie within Alice alker's novel The Color Purple (1982). Each speaks authentically, in her own voice: the too-often ignored voice of an African-American female in a white male-dominated society. For both characters, however, authenticity of voice has come at great cost, and through the surmounting of numerous obstacles, the greatest of these being the fears and the lack of confidence within themselves. I will discuss several common characteristics of Celie and Janie within these two novels by female African-American authors.

As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. suggests, fear and hesitancy by African-Americans, male and female alike, to speak authentically, has deep roots: "For just over two…

Assembling Culture

Assembling Southern Appalachian Belief Culture from the Foxfire Archive

This project looks at the belief structure of people in the Southern Appalachian mountains as recognized through the Foxfire archival project, documentary evidence and artistic interpretation. Through an examination of belief systems it is believed that unique cultural aspects of this isolated group of people can be determined. The Foxfire project is an archive that documents how the people lived prior to the mass introduction of outside influences that happened concurrent to the ability of residents to electrify their houses which occurred from approximately 1935 and into the 1950's. Prior to this time the residents of these southeastern mountains were isolated due to the remoteness of villages, and they were able to remain relatively self-contained even though some sections were being encroached by industry. The belief systems in this examination include religion and healing, but mainly relate to how…

Emerson, he believed resistance to conformity and exploration of self, led to a kind of self-reliance that permeated the inner workings and imaginings of the human soul. What began as a simple analysis of self-explored concepts, took on the form of universal philosophy. This essay will examine Emerson's work, "Self-eliance" in a way that will not only analyze themes, but also provide a closer look into the context surrounding Emerson at the time as well as possible meanings behind the text.

alph Waldo Emerson wrote an 1841 essay titled "Self-eliance". An American essayist and transcendentalist philosopher, Emerson provides his most thorough statement of one of his ongoing themes: the avoidance of false consistency and conformity. Meaning, Emerson preached for people to follow their own ideas and instincts instead of relying on society's imposed rules and standards. His famous quote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by…

Some artists, such as Aaron Douglas, captured the feeling of Africa in their work because they wanted to show their ancestry through art. Others, like Archibald J. Motley Jr., obtained their inspiration from the surroundings in which they lived in; where jazz was at the forefront and African-Americans were just trying to get by day-to-day like any other Anglo-American. Additionally, some Black American artists felt more comfortable in Europe than they did in America. These artists tended to paint landscapes of different European countries. Most of the latter, however, were ostracized for this because many black politicians felt they should represent more of their African culture in their work (Campbell 1994, Powell and Bailey).

Whatever the case, most African-American artists during this period of time had a similarity that tied them together. Black art was often very colorful and vivacious; having an almost rhythmic feel to it. This was appropriate…

It has been used as an argument for the erection of the welfare state -- and for its dismantling. . . . From at least the mid-nineteenth century, American social commentators have been announcing the death of the black family and administering last rites.

Thus this work does much to illustrate many of the challenges that black families had in the projects of NYC and represents one of Ligon's more respectable ambitions.

However, the Gay Treasures work that Ligon produces is one of his more controversial creations. He portrays "well endowed" black men in the nude that some have argued is to create a divide in the races by illustrating images that would play to the fears of other races. Ligon elaborates on this problem in his accompanying essay to A Feastof Scraps (DeLand, 2012):

Pornographic images of black men usually fall into a narrow range of types: black men…

The refusal to extend the vote, as well as all of the other rights prohibited to ex-felons, really denies them the chance to begin their lives again as fully integrated citizens of their city, state and country. The irony is that while the disenfranchisement laws negate the application of some rights for the ex-felons, the laws don't negate other obligations that are a part of citizenship.

For instance, ex-felons who do take the initiative to become employed are still obligated to pay taxes even though they are denied the benefits usually attached to those duties. A good example would be the right to take part in the election of their congressperson and senators or to have a say on policies that will control their lives.

Wasn't it a couple of hundred years ago that we fought some kind of minor skirmish over taxation without representation?

We push ex-felons to the…

Diversity Consciousness

Expanding Diversity Consciousness

Diversity can be viewed in many ways and it can be experienced in both outer and inner phenomena. We find that diversity of people is present in our dreams, feelings, states, religions, thoughts, ethnicities, ages, political views, sexual orientations and physical abilities. A life can become more sustainable and richer through these differences. We all know that there is not one kind of vegetable, person or point-of-view. In simple words diversity can be defined as a welcoming attitude and an integration of diverse people and elements. This research paper is based on learning, identifying and evaluating diversity practices in any place. I want to explore how the environment and places help people to create and compare their intended purposes.

Expanding Diversity Consciousness

Introduction

Every state or a country has some ethnic minorities. These minorities are basically the groups that differ in their language, religion or…

Short story -- A brief story where the plot drives the narrative, substantially shorter than a novel. Example: "Hills like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway.

Allusion -- A casual reference in one literary work to a person, place, event, or another piece of literature, often without explicit identification. It is used to establish a tone, create an indirect association, create contrast, make an unusual juxtaposition, or bring the reader into a world of references outside the limitations of the story itself. Example: "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot alludes to "Paradise Lost" by John Milton.

epetition -- The repeating of a word or phrase or rhythm within a piece of literature to add emphasis. Example: The story of Agamemnon in The Odyssey by Homer.

Blank verse -- Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents, most closing resembling the natural rhythms of English speech. Example: "The…

Religion

Most of the world's religions have many common thoughts and underlying beliefs, including commonalities in beliefs about developing good character and the importance of love and compassion. This essay will attempt to create a new religion (called the Harmony) that is inspired by the commonalities seen in many world religions. Rituals, commandments and beliefs will all be examined, and where applicable, outlined for this new religion.

Stand up comedian George Carlin's comedy routine "Complaints and Grievances" reflects a great many North American's attitudes about faith and sex. The premise of his discussion of the Ten Commandments is that Ten Commandments are an artificially inflated number designed to invoke authority, and that the commandments should be revised down to a minimalist number that are more logical and workable. At the end of his discussion, Carlin gives his list of two commandments. They are, 1) "Thou shalt always be honest and…

foreign immigrant groups California share similar struggles quest American citizens

Following the development of western countries in the nineteenth century, there emerged a prolonged immigration of Asian communities into the American society. Iran had a shock in their culture. Individual personality such as language proficiency, learning level, and job skill influences their ability to adapt. Immigration is a key life challenge, although well thought-out to be stressful, particularly for women coming from environments with observance to traditional gender roles, through the exposure, organizations of these societies disintegrate.

Shared struggles of Iranian & Mexican immigrants

Economic factors like financial resources, loses and gains in social status intimidates the immigrants. The attitude of the host country with the level of similarity of the two cultures is also an influential factor. Individual factors such as character strength, decision-making skills, declaration of feeling of loss, and the ability to endure uncertainty about gender roles…

Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud and the Search for Hidden Universes," Richard Panek argues that both Einstein and Freud cut across the barriers of science in their time and, through scrupulous observation not only did they produce a revolution in their respective fields of research but, most importantly, they prompted a "revolution in thought" by using as instruments of research not so much mathematical formulas, but more, the tool of imagination which conjures a new, different world for the XX st century.

The notion of the "invisible century" expresses just that. It is not necessary an era of invisible technologies, but one in which questions are answered by triggering flows of speculations based on information or facts which cannot be physically proven yet there is no doubt about their validity. The term "invisible century" points to a historical environment in which one can answer questions such as "what are dreams," "what…

Opponent to Gay Marriage offer Illusory Arguments

The book The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Chabris and Simons truly makes a strong case for how six different types of illusions (or beliefs) truly disserve the human population. The six common illusions that the book discusses are the illusion of memory, the illusion of confidence, the illusion of knowledge, the illusion of cause and the illusion of potential. Chabris and Simon argue that one can see these illusions at work in a range of human interactions and current events. Sometimes these illusions demonstrate the fallibility of the human mind; sometimes they just demonstrate the need of human beings to impose meaning or order upon things or events which lack both.

A current issue that demonstrates several of the six illusions that Chabris and Simons discuss is the debate over gay marriage. Those who oppose gay marriage often demonstrate…

Accordingly, the Garrison Commander would like to honor the SARC and VA of the Fort Belvoir community for their outstanding service and their compassion in helping those who are affected by sexual assault and sexual victimization. heir work is essential for victims and their loved ones to recover from their experiences and overcome them. Please join Commander ____ and the rest of the Fort Belvoir community in acknowledging and thanking our dedicated SARC and VA personnel for their crucial work in this area and for helping victims recover and overcome their experiences as victims of sexual assault, victimization, and violence.

ake Back the Night

Date: April 19

ime: 1700

Location: he Woodlawn Village

One of the most important layers of the prevention of sexual assault by strangers is increasing the safety of our community environment. Please join our ake Back the Night event where three guest speakers will address the…

Ellison/Shakespeare

There are many characters in Shakespeare's The Tempest that could fit the characteristics of being the "little man behind the stove." The Tempest has a strong degree of dramatic irony, and Shakespeare even incorporates the breaking of the fourth wall in the final scene of the play. This means that the audience itself serves as the "little man behind the stove." However, there are clearer characters that represent the little man. For example, Caliban is "little" in the sense that he is a sort of subhuman creature. As the son of Sycorax, Caliban is portrayed as being a little bit odd and different. He is not like the spritely Ariel, who can also be considered as a "little man." Both Caliban and Ariel play roles that could be construed as being similar to that of Ellison's "Little Man at Chehaw Station." Caliban's role is even more like that of…

Recognizing that the film's title functions on both of these levels is important because it reveals how Alfredson deploys common vampire tropes in novel ways which serve to elevate the emotional content of the film, so that the "rules" surrounding vampires become metaphors for the emotional development both characters undergo. Thus, following Hakan's death, Eli goes to Oscar and he invites her into his room at the same moment that she implicitly invites him into her life, revealing to him the first explicit hints that she is something other than a twelve-year-old girl. From this point on, the two work to protect and comfort each other while providing each other with the confidence and companionship they need in order to be happy. Oscar confronts his bullies, and after a period of initial unhappiness, Eli gains a friend who accepts her as a vampire.

Though Eli initially has far more agency…