Power and Sex in Chapter Eight

In Chapter Eight, power is represented once again by Dr. Bledsoe. '... Recalled the heavy gold chain that hung between Bledsoe's vest pockets...' 'If Dr. Bledsoe could do  it, so could I.' As the Invisible Man continues to think about him, Bledsoe it shows that Bledsoe has a powerful influence even from afar.

The only sex I could find in this chapter was when the Invisible Man said that when he took the elevator he felt 'a sensation in my crotch...'
The Invisible Man felt like he'd felt like he left party of himself in the lobby.

Synthesis Post 1-7

Synthesis Post - Chapters 1-9 

Sex is a weapon in Invisible Man. It is a weapon that is used to further the power of the white men. The first instance of this occurs in the first chapter, and is foreshadowed in the prologue with the moment concerning the slave woman. The stripper in chapter one is being lorded over by the white men surrounding her until she is eventually attacked by them. The Invisible Man connects to her on page 19, saying, "I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me with her impersonal eyes." This symbolizes the connection that Ralph Ellison is making between the oppression of women and the oppression of black people. Both groups are under the power of the white men. This is proven when the white men around her attack her. She is also used as a weapon against the black boys in the room, because while she is a naked woman, they are not supposed to be attracted to her.

Sex is a demonstrated to be a weapon used by the white men against the oppressed groups, and this is demonstrated again in chapter two. The sexual misconduct that Jim Trueblood committed is being used as a weapon against him. It's being used to prevent him from ever letting go of a traumatic memory and a blemish on his and his family's history because the white men who come by his house are paying him to tell the story. The sin he has committed is being used to keep him, once again, underneath the thumb of the white man. He needs the money, and thus he must keep telling the story.

Finally, in the Golden Day, a hooker is offended by Mr. Norton, a white man. Not just a white man, however, he is the only white man in the situation. He rejects her and offends her and only the uninvolved black men in the scenario are the ones harmed. The sex that Mr. Norton had the power to reject threw the blame onto the other men in the Golden Day.

Sex and Power in Invisible Man

Chapter 7:

The motif of Sex appears when the Invisible Man boards an incredibly crowded subway, and is forced to press himself very close to a white woman. He is terrified that he will be accused of rape, as the two of them are so close "that simply by nodding my head, I might have brushed her lips with mine".

The motif of Power is most clearly exemplified by the letters the Invisible Man received from Dr. Bledsoe. Even when he is completely miserable, he still finds solace in his future as a servant for the White Man, and his means of achieving that goal are the letters. This gives Dr. Bledsoe power over him even from halfway across the country. This is best shown in the quote "I would work hard and serve my employer so well that he would shower Dr. Bledsoe with favorable reports".


Chapter 9:

The motif of power, once again, takes the form of Dr. Bledsoe. Even now that the Invisible Man is so far away from him, Bledsoe still exerts considerable influence over his life. The Invisible Man wonders about Bledsoe as he travels through New York, "Did Dr. Bledsoe stop at an expensive white hotel when he visited New York? Did he go on parties with the trustees? And how did he act?" The Invisible Man knows Bledsoe's influence far too well, and so knows that even here, Bledsoe would exert considerable power.

Sex does not appear in chapter nine.

Power and Sex in Chapter Three and Chapter Four

 

 

In Chapter Three, power is not only gained but also lost. In this chapter the attendant loses power when his patients attack him. The Invisible Man observes that, "Men were jumping upon Supercargo with both feet now..." This scene show the irony that Supercargo's large size and intimidating demeanor has little to do with his physical power. The image is just all for show.

Sex is shown very clearly in Chapter Three. The insane former soldiers are being 'treated' by prostitutes in a brothel. "Half dressed women appeared from the rooms off the balcony. Men hooted and yelled as at a football game." In this chapter, women are still being used by men for pleasure, which has been a common trend throughout the book so far.

 

 

 

 

In Chapter Four, Dr. Bledsoe embodies power entirely. Everything he does is something done that intimidates the Invisible Man. From how he looks at the Invisible Man to how he talks to him, Dr. Bledsoe only looks condescendingly at the Invisible Man. Not only because of his status in the school but also because the Invisible Man is African American. "Don't be kind, sir,...you can't be soft with these people. We must't pamper them." Dr. Bledsoe chooses to over react to the situation because of his racist opinions instead of treating the Invisible Man like any other white student in that scenario.

Sex is encountered in this chapter when a random girl approaches the Invisible Man and tells him to tell her boy friend a secret code. "Will you take a message to my boy friend for me?...Just tell him the grass is green...It's our secret code, he'll understand...The grass was green and they'd meet and she'd be sent home pregnant..." This short conversation even lead the Invisible Man to assume her message meant that she was letting her boy friend know that she wanted to have sex with him.

Sex and Power in Chapters 5 and 6


Chapter Five:

Sex is hard to find in Chapter Five, though it does exist. In the quotation on page 116 "Gradually she increased its volume, until at times the voice seemed to become a disembodied force that sought to enter her, to violate her, shaking her, rocking her rhythmically" Ralph Ellison uses allusions to sex to more accurately describe the vitality and intensity of the singer.

Though I have been told that Power is not in this Chapter, I would point to the Narrator's fear of expulsion by Dr. Bledsoe as indicative of the power that Bledsoe holds over the Narrator. This fear can be seen in quotations like "with such words fresh in his mind, I was sure Dr. Bledsoe would be far less sympathetic to my plea." on page 135.

Chapter Six:

Power is highly evident in this chapter, as it concerns the meeting between two people, one of whom has the power to decide the other's fate. Specifically, Dr. Bledsoe gives a very enlightening monologue where he explains how he has the true power in the college, because of his influence over the white folk, and their inability to see him as human. This is most evident in this quote "I's big and black and I say 'yes, suh' as loudly as any burrhead when it's convenient, but I'm still the king down here" on page 142.

I've searched long and hard for the Sex motif in Chapter Six, and the closest I've come is the quote on the first page of the chapter, page 136, which says "Lights began to appear in the girls' dormitories, like the bursting of luminous seeds flung broadside by an invisible hand". This quote implies Sex with the imagery of the seed, an organism that ensures recreation.

Invisible Man Vocabulary (Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2)

1. Trifle (n): anything that is of a small amount
"But his muscles relaxed a trifle beneath my pressure and I breathed, 'Seven?'" -Invisible Man, p. 25
Forms: trifled, trifling (verbs), trifler (noun)
From Old French "trufler" - "to make fun of"
Synonyms: Fritter (to waste something), bauble (anything gaudy and cheap), toy (something of no importance)

2. Streamlined (adj): compact and designed for efficiency
"...today, dressed in one of the smart, well-tailored, angular, sterile, streamlined, modern outfits you see in women's magazines, she would appear just as ordinary as an expensive piece of machine-tooled jewelry and just as lifeless." -Invisible Man, p. 43
Forms: unstreamlined (adjective)
From 1936 in the extended sense of "simplify and organize"
Synonyms: sleek (smooth and new), up-to-date (modern, contemporary)

3. Nuance (n): Something very subtle and often subtextual, especially with regards to differences between things
"All had to be said, each memorized nuance considered, rendered." -Invisible Man, p. 30
Forms: nuanced, unnuanced (adjectives)
From: Vulgar Latin, nubes - "cloud" + ance
Synonyms: Subtlety (something hard to notice), nicety (a fine point or specific), hint (a less-than-explicit clue)

4. Rendered (adj): Something that has been created or shown off
"All had to be said, each memorized nuance considered, rendered." -Invisible Man, p. 30
Forms: render (verb), renderable, unrenderable, unrendered, well-rendered (adjectives), renderer (noun)
From: Latin "reddere" - "to give back"
Synonyms: give (to voluntarily impart), contribute (to add to an existing pool), demonstrate (to reveal)

5. Wrought (v - past tense): To have been fashioned and molded
"'And it has been my pleasant fate to return each spring and observe the changes that the years have wrought." -Invisible Man, p. 39
Forms: interwrought, self-wrought, superwrought, underwrought, unwrought (adjectives)
From: Middle English "wroght", metathetic variant of "worht", past participle of "worchen" - "to work"
Synonyms: worked (something that has undergone effort of any kind)

Sex and Power in the Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2

The Prologue
Power in the prologue of Invisible Man is easy to find. The Invisible Man beats up a white man, almost killing him, in an attempt to gain some sort of power over him. He says, "...and I yelled, 'Apologize! Apologize!' But he continued to curse and struggle..." Any fight is a struggle for power, and this one perfectly encapsulates this motif in Invisible Man. 

Sex in the prologue is a little harder to find, but it is there. During the dream sequence on page 9, the narrator describes a scene, "...and beneath that lay a still lower level on which I saw a beautiful girl the color of ivory pleading in a voice like my mother's as she stood before a group of slaveowners who bid for her naked body..." This moment appears to be something of a precursor the stripper who shows up in chapter one, as they are both white women who are being taken advantage of by white men, and they might even be the same person.

Chapter One
Power shows itself in chapter one in the form of the white men. Everything they do throughout the chapter radiates the power and influence that they have. Later in the chapter, however, the Invisible Man has a moment where he attempts to take back the power from the white men. He says, "I feared the [electrified] rug more than I feared the drunk, so I held on, surprising myself for a moment by trying to topple him upon the rug." This small moment is an incredible power struggle, because this white man is taking part in torturing the Invisible Man, and for a moment the Invisible Man tries to take power from the white man by turning the torture upon him.

Sex shows itself incredibly quickly as the chapter begins. A stripper dances for the entertainment of the white men and the horror of the black boys who watch her. The Invisible man takes almost a whole page to describe her. He says at the end of his description, "I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or to go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the others with my body...I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me with her impersonal eyes." The Invisible Man is obviously attracted to her, but he shouldn't be, isn't allowed to be according to the rules of society, because she is white and he is black.

Chapter Two
Power in chapter two takes the face of two people: Dr. Bledsoe and Mr. Norton. They both wield power over the Invisible Man in two different ways. When the Invisible Man burps while driving the car for Mr. Norton, he immediately worries about the repercussions of an incredibly natural actions. "'I'm awfully sorry, sir,' I said, worried lest he report me to Dr. Bledsoe, the president, who would refuse to allow me to drive again." The Invisible Man fears the figures of power in his life and the control they have over him.

Sex is once again quite obvious in this chapter. Jim Trueblood raped his daughter, simple as that, and Mr. Norton wanted to do the same to his daughter before her death. Mr. Norton demands Jim tell his story this way, "'You did and are unharmed!' he shouted, his blue eyes blazing into the black face with something like envy and indignation." Mr. Norton desired to commit the greatest sin with his daughter, but did not, while Jim did, and got out unscathed. Mr. Norton is jealous of Jim for the sexual sin he was able to commit, the power he had that Mr. Norton did not.

Introduction 

Sorry for being late! We had some unfortunate technical difficulties. No matter, the blog is now up and running. The members of this group are Lyle, Cori, and Stella, and our motif are 'sex' and 'power'. Unfortunately, we are unable to post a selfie of the three of us together, but here is a selfie of me (Stella):

We are in Mr. Miller's 2B class period, and are looking forward to working on thisproject