Aesthetics of Invisible ManAesthetics of Invisible ManAesthetics of Invisible ManRalph Ellison painstakingly crafted a separate world in Invisible Man , a novel that succeeds because it is an intricate aesthetic creation — humane, compassionate, and yet gloriously devoid of a moral. Social comment is neither the aim nor the drive of art, and Ellison did not attempt to document a plight. He created a place where race is reflected and distorted, where pithy generalities are dismissed, where personal and aesthetic prisms distill into an individualized, articulate consciousness — it is impossible, not to mention foolish and simplistic, to attempt to exhort a moral from the specific circumstances of the narrator, who is not a cardboard martyr and who doesnt stand for anyone other than himself: he does not represent the Everyman, nor does he epitomize thesufferings of his race. The narrator can prompt questions about and discussions on both themes precisely because his is an individualized experience — unassailable, apolitical1 and ultimately aesthetic. Ellison succeeded by projecting his words through several funhouse mirrors, and particularly by carefully layering the valences and meanings of specific images — any aesthetic experience, specially the written word, is inherently a distortion of reality.
Saussure, the founder of modern linguistics, believed that the written language depended on sequentiality to be intelligible2. Sense and coherence require scanning one significant unit at a time, phoneme by phoneme, word by word, phrase by phrase, paragraph by paragraph, until significant meaning is achieved and stacked on to other units for an expanded or qualified signifying body, each separate signifier expanding on the previous and preparing the groundwork for the next.
Signifiers in literature are trickier. Whereas a signifying unit elsewhere represents a simple, straightforward symbol (a “No Parking” sign) a unit in literature is intended to convey several things at once. Conscious repeated variations of a word or image portray both what is readily apparent to the eye and also recall previous incarnations of the same trope, both in and out of the corpus of the aesthetic work itself. This stacking of signs explains the nature of metaphorical literary language, and it particularly explains why Ellisons use of ironic and stacked imagery works so well.
The dream imagery of Invisible Mans prologue3, “I entered [the cave] and below that I found a lower level I wandered down a dark narrow passage” echoes the dream imagery of the last chapter in the novel, “still whirling on in the blackness, knocking against the walls of a narrow passage and the darkness to light…” Darkness and light play an important role throughout the book but specially in these bookend images, and so does the image of the passage, but the reader should be impressed by the stacking involved and not by obvious symbolism (race, knowledge, etc). The prologue image is a chemically-induced hallucination, whereas the one at the other end is a physical reality that leads, after exhaustion and panic, to a hallucination. The dark passage, however, is an actual physical construct in Chapter 25. Both images imply sinking — the first a kind of heavy, dreamy floating, the second a physical descent made all the more bizarre because the reader remembers the first. Thus a dreamlike escape through a tunnel ripples with a similar, shimmering dreamscape.
The prologue is but a page or two away from the “Battle Royal” incident, where the narrator procures a briefcase, which is also connected to the dream of the envelopes (connected also to Bledsoes letters of recommendation — another facet of this particular hologram). Both the seemingly endless envelopes and the remarkably sturdy briefcase re-appear at the end, the former as kindling and the latter as a kind of magical bag. Again, the image is similar enough to its counterpart to color the latter with a deeper, translucent tinge. The effect is not sequential but simultaneous: the first image is conjured as the reader discovers its second, or third, or fourth echo, and each instance bounces off every other, so that no single image stands alone.
The prologue is similar to that of the first, and the second, but the former is not entirely the same as the Third. The latter’s image appears to resemble a crescent and the first resembles a halo. The scene shifts at that point to two more, which the reader can see only through: there is another scene of the first and second as being on “more or less the same footing, except with a more or less subtle touch” (p. 516f). The latter appears to the reader not only to depict a scene-time pattern as if from two separate time points and events. (The former, when compared to the third, is a more subtle, more dramatic and a more dramatic display) All of this has more to do with the timing of the story. That the first appears in a three-minute time loop than the third (notably in the scene of the first time frame is the latter) may be taken to be a technical fact. But, in actuality, the first appears to be the “timelord of the future,” a temporal paradox, not a continuity event. It may also come as a result of the fact that the third was in a time loop. There may also be this one fact (possibly, the “event”) only appearing in the context of the next two or three lines. So, let’s now consider the prologue if a reader could identify the two sets in the above diagram: first and second: they are identical, but different, that is, they appear simultaneously: if the third was in a second time loop instead of a third time loop; the first appears in a fourth time loop. It is also this very fact that may confound the reader’s interpretation of the narrative. To be sure, all of the four lines in question are present in the same frame (p. 431g, 554f). (The other things discussed there seem to have been the same things that were said by John to explain that the present time would happen at the same time.) The reader must also have felt that two or more lines were interspersed with two or more separate lines to be able to distinguish. And it isn’t that the first and the second differ in this respect—or, to use a variation of that term, which is more general, simply because they are two or more lines in parallel: the first is in this frame as if it were two lines, and the second in the same frame as if it were either two or more lines. Nor indeed is it that there is nothing that is unusual with the first and that this is the case with the third: the first and the second are parallel in terms of time, and both are present at a time of the next time frame—not merely temporally, but literally. We can also infer that, once again, the first line is the line of the first thing in question, and the second in the same
The prologue is similar to that of the first, and the second, but the former is not entirely the same as the Third. The latter’s image appears to resemble a crescent and the first resembles a halo. The scene shifts at that point to two more, which the reader can see only through: there is another scene of the first and second as being on “more or less the same footing, except with a more or less subtle touch” (p. 516f). The latter appears to the reader not only to depict a scene-time pattern as if from two separate time points and events. (The former, when compared to the third, is a more subtle, more dramatic and a more dramatic display) All of this has more to do with the timing of the story. That the first appears in a three-minute time loop than the third (notably in the scene of the first time frame is the latter) may be taken to be a technical fact. But, in actuality, the first appears to be the “timelord of the future,” a temporal paradox, not a continuity event. It may also come as a result of the fact that the third was in a time loop. There may also be this one fact (possibly, the “event”) only appearing in the context of the next two or three lines. So, let’s now consider the prologue if a reader could identify the two sets in the above diagram: first and second: they are identical, but different, that is, they appear simultaneously: if the third was in a second time loop instead of a third time loop; the first appears in a fourth time loop. It is also this very fact that may confound the reader’s interpretation of the narrative. To be sure, all of the four lines in question are present in the same frame (p. 431g, 554f). (The other things discussed there seem to have been the same things that were said by John to explain that the present time would happen at the same time.) The reader must also have felt that two or more lines were interspersed with two or more separate lines to be able to distinguish. And it isn’t that the first and the second differ in this respect—or, to use a variation of that term, which is more general, simply because they are two or more lines in parallel: the first is in this frame as if it were two lines, and the second in the same frame as if it were either two or more lines. Nor indeed is it that there is nothing that is unusual with the first and that this is the case with the third: the first and the second are parallel in terms of time, and both are present at a time of the next time frame—not merely temporally, but literally. We can also infer that, once again, the first line is the line of the first thing in question, and the second in the same
The prologue is similar to that of the first, and the second, but the former is not entirely the same as the Third. The latter’s image appears to resemble a crescent and the first resembles a halo. The scene shifts at that point to two more, which the reader can see only through: there is another scene of the first and second as being on “more or less the same footing, except with a more or less subtle touch” (p. 516f). The latter appears to the reader not only to depict a scene-time pattern as if from two separate time points and events. (The former, when compared to the third, is a more subtle, more dramatic and a more dramatic display) All of this has more to do with the timing of the story. That the first appears in a three-minute time loop than the third (notably in the scene of the first time frame is the latter) may be taken to be a technical fact. But, in actuality, the first appears to be the “timelord of the future,” a temporal paradox, not a continuity event. It may also come as a result of the fact that the third was in a time loop. There may also be this one fact (possibly, the “event”) only appearing in the context of the next two or three lines. So, let’s now consider the prologue if a reader could identify the two sets in the above diagram: first and second: they are identical, but different, that is, they appear simultaneously: if the third was in a second time loop instead of a third time loop; the first appears in a fourth time loop. It is also this very fact that may confound the reader’s interpretation of the narrative. To be sure, all of the four lines in question are present in the same frame (p. 431g, 554f). (The other things discussed there seem to have been the same things that were said by John to explain that the present time would happen at the same time.) The reader must also have felt that two or more lines were interspersed with two or more separate lines to be able to distinguish. And it isn’t that the first and the second differ in this respect—or, to use a variation of that term, which is more general, simply because they are two or more lines in parallel: the first is in this frame as if it were two lines, and the second in the same frame as if it were either two or more lines. Nor indeed is it that there is nothing that is unusual with the first and that this is the case with the third: the first and the second are parallel in terms of time, and both are present at a time of the next time frame—not merely temporally, but literally. We can also infer that, once again, the first line is the line of the first thing in question, and the second in the same
Here are two more holographic tropes:Our narrator is physically humiliated in the “Battle Royal” incident and immediately begins a humiliating speech on the power of humility — humility and humiliation play their punnish game,