Blindness In How To Read Literature Like A Teacher By Ralph Ellison
To be blind can mean many things. The effects of those who are not literally blind, but who cannot see through the haze of perspective concepts developed by society, such as the issue of discrimination or social status, are often negative and cause misguided behavioral actions by individuals. Authors, such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison, use the motif of blindness that makes their literary characters prejudice, and indicates a lack of understanding which binds them to set fates of death, downfall, and destruction, outlining the effect that divided society has on an individual.
In Thomas C. Fosters novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, he talks about the reasons behind authors purposes of choosing to use blindness as a long lasting motive in their works of literature: “Clearly the author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond the physical. Moreover, such references are usually quite persuasive in a work where insight and blindness are at issue” (203). Authors want to use this theme of blindness as a way to enhance the misunderstanding that readers often have towards the identity of characters.
The ability to see is the parallel to blindness, sight being what so many …show more content…
characters lack in literary works. The unnamed narrator in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is not seen by individuals in society, in either the black community or the white. People refuse to see him, and that is what causes him to be invisible (Ellison 1). No one can seem to see past the color of his skin, and because of their prejudice in this instance. Even other black men in the novel, Dr. Bledsoe for example, wanted to shield the world from the reality of black lives, so he tried to hide things about the black community. The invisible man discovers that people are blind to seeing him, a black man, as more than that. They do not see the real him. At one point he encountered an accidental interaction with a white man, and he was called insulting names, so this caused him to react with violence (Ellison 4). Ellison emphasizes how oblivious the narrator truly was to the racism in society, and this is what caused him to feel the need to be invisible since he couldn’t actually fit into society.
Authors also take the theme of sight and blindness in other ways. Pecola, a black female character in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, believes that all of her negative physical attributes are a result of her race. She is blind to the fact that having blue eyes is not what makes someone pretty, and being black is not the cause of someone being classified as ugly. A character by the name of Maureen Peal is introduced to emphasize how deep the matter of skin color goes. Maureen had light skin, and because of that she wasn’t treated as badly as Pecola. (Morrison 47-48). This just goes to show that racial standards go so far that people become blind to the fact that race isn’t everything.
Often, characters who are blind, are that way as a result of others and the lack of knowledge that they have obtained. Knowledge of how to live life every day and how one should act is knowledge of how to die, according to Richard Wright’s character Bigger in his novel Native Son (424). Native Son is one of many works that expresses the effect that racial boundaries have on individuals in a society. It not only addresses the mental and physical effects that it has on the African American community, but the behavior of the white community as well. Many times Bigger speaks about how separated his race is from the whites: “Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail” (Wright). Thoughts and feelings like these are often the same thoughts and feelings shared between the entire race. Wright uses Bigger as an exaggeration of the entire race as a whole, to get a stronger message across to his readers.
To Bigger, the white community did not care about anyone but themselves. In reality, most of them were just like he was. Initially they were established with the knowledge of how life was for their individual race and their race alone. They grew up thinking that they were more important than blacks, of higher value than them, which in fact made them blind to the reality of the situation at hand. Can a reader truly determine if the actions of the whites, who were born into, what was back then, the natural way of society, were intentional? This is exactly what authors try to portray to their audience. Blindness can be obtained without a person even acknowledging that they are in fact blind.
James Nagel’s analysis of blindness and sight in Native Son mentions that blindness functions as a metaphor of white society’s myopia (qtd. in Bryant 263). The whites lack intellectual insight because they do not understand that their way of living and their view of the world is not necessarily what is today considered inhumane. Bigger says that they just do not know that they are pawns in a blind play of social forces, and they are hateful because they fear changing of the norm (Wright 390). Again, this fear comes with their blindness, because they are not even willing to attempt to have some sort of change in society. They want to continuously contain the power that they have, so they do not want to give any chances to the blacks.
These issues of societies divide sprouts Bigger’s initial start to his downfall. The roles Bigger adopt are because of societies conflicts against him, which cause it to be complicated for him to establish any stable identity for himself (Elder 32). Society expected Bigger to do the wrong things in life, and that was already setting him up for failure. Instead of doing the right things in life to prove that the stereotypes set out for blacks are not necessarily true, bigger took the opposite route. By letting these stereotypes guide his mind and all of his decisions, he let society guide his own fate.
Even as “…Bigger has apprehended the structure of reality in his insight, he has remained blind to his own position within that structure, which has been already written” (Precoda and Polanah 37). Everything was based by the thoughts and views created by the sum of people surrounding him. Bigger’s consciousness caused him to be divided and both pulled against himself in everything he did.
The real problem is that Bigger’s sense of self is so based on everything else, that he does not even truly have his own identity at all, his identity is only theoretical, and he is overwhelmed by the single emotion of fear (Elder 32). Bigger is considered to be a stereotype representing the whole black race. He sees himself through the eyes of others, mostly through the eyes of the whites, and this consequents in him not being able to develop his own identity. He feared not being accepted while the whites feared change. He had to try and make the necessary changes in himself in order for him to be the opposite of what everyone else said he’d be. The white community needed to also face their own fears of change so that something could be done in effect for both sides.
Bryant expresses in his article “Richard Wright’s Nameless Native Son” that it is vital to bigger that he is recognizes and acknowledged that he is actually somebody (265).
Not being seen is also another one of his fears throughout the duration of the novel. At many points during the novel he is called “Mike” instead of his correct name; Bryant also cites Crites’ analysis of the importance of names. Without calling Bigger by his proper name, his identity is disregarded, because his name is a reflection of himself (264-265). This is just one of the many factors that drove Bigger to turning his fear and hurt feelings into violence against everyone and what made him become a
monster. Bigger hides the truth about murdering a white woman, instead of trying to fess up to the real crime that he had committed. His violent manner is developed due to the fact that society expects black men to naturally be violent. Again, he failed to prove that the extent of these stereotypes is not always true, and he was blind to this fact. Wright proves that people cannot depend solely on the society around them to change for themselves. Waiting for things to be done will only delay the inevitable.
As previously stated, Bigger talked about how he wanted to have more freedom in the world like the whites, more freedom to be who he wants to be rather than who he has to be. In his mind he figured that it was already too late to obtain that freedom, even when he could have bettered himself and his life on his own. While receiving the job at the Dalton home was a good step in the right direction, he unknowingly got wrapped up in the chaos that involved Mary Dalton and her death.
Mary Dalton was naturally blind in her own way also, causing to her own downfall and death. Being white and holding the social status that she has held all of her life, it is easily known that she is privileged and because of that she is shielded from the things that are not so perfect for the other race in society. When she took Bigger with her male friend Jan, she was oblivious to how uncomfortable he was around them. While she believed that she was helping Bigger by showing him that not all white people are the same, she was blind to the reality that she had no say in making him believe her. Mary tries to be sympathetic towards Bigger, unaware that he has his own emotions and thoughts, and the she and Bigger were so far away from each other in society, that there was no way they could ever understand.
In Thomas C. Fosters novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, he talks about the reasons behind authors purposes of choosing to use blindness as a long lasting motive in their works of literature: “Clearly the author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond the physical. Moreover, such references are usually quite persuasive in a work where insight and blindness are at issue” (203). Authors want to use this theme of blindness as a way to enhance the misunderstanding that readers often have towards the identity of characters.
The ability to see is the parallel to blindness, sight being what so many …show more content…
characters lack in literary works. The unnamed narrator in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is not seen by individuals in society, in either the black community or the white. People refuse to see him, and that is what causes him to be invisible (Ellison 1). No one can seem to see past the color of his skin, and because of their prejudice in this instance. Even other black men in the novel, Dr. Bledsoe for example, wanted to shield the world from the reality of black lives, so he tried to hide things about the black community. The invisible man discovers that people are blind to seeing him, a black man, as more than that. They do not see the real him. At one point he encountered an accidental interaction with a white man, and he was called insulting names, so this caused him to react with violence (Ellison 4). Ellison emphasizes how oblivious the narrator truly was to the racism in society, and this is what caused him to feel the need to be invisible since he couldn’t actually fit into society.
Authors also take the theme of sight and blindness in other ways. Pecola, a black female character in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, believes that all of her negative physical attributes are a result of her race. She is blind to the fact that having blue eyes is not what makes someone pretty, and being black is not the cause of someone being classified as ugly. A character by the name of Maureen Peal is introduced to emphasize how deep the matter of skin color goes. Maureen had light skin, and because of that she wasn’t treated as badly as Pecola. (Morrison 47-48). This just goes to show that racial standards go so far that people become blind to the fact that race isn’t everything.
Often, characters who are blind, are that way as a result of others and the lack of knowledge that they have obtained. Knowledge of how to live life every day and how one should act is knowledge of how to die, according to Richard Wright’s character Bigger in his novel Native Son (424). Native Son is one of many works that expresses the effect that racial boundaries have on individuals in a society. It not only addresses the mental and physical effects that it has on the African American community, but the behavior of the white community as well. Many times Bigger speaks about how separated his race is from the whites: “Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail” (Wright). Thoughts and feelings like these are often the same thoughts and feelings shared between the entire race. Wright uses Bigger as an exaggeration of the entire race as a whole, to get a stronger message across to his readers.
To Bigger, the white community did not care about anyone but themselves. In reality, most of them were just like he was. Initially they were established with the knowledge of how life was for their individual race and their race alone. They grew up thinking that they were more important than blacks, of higher value than them, which in fact made them blind to the reality of the situation at hand. Can a reader truly determine if the actions of the whites, who were born into, what was back then, the natural way of society, were intentional? This is exactly what authors try to portray to their audience. Blindness can be obtained without a person even acknowledging that they are in fact blind.
James Nagel’s analysis of blindness and sight in Native Son mentions that blindness functions as a metaphor of white society’s myopia (qtd. in Bryant 263). The whites lack intellectual insight because they do not understand that their way of living and their view of the world is not necessarily what is today considered inhumane. Bigger says that they just do not know that they are pawns in a blind play of social forces, and they are hateful because they fear changing of the norm (Wright 390). Again, this fear comes with their blindness, because they are not even willing to attempt to have some sort of change in society. They want to continuously contain the power that they have, so they do not want to give any chances to the blacks.
These issues of societies divide sprouts Bigger’s initial start to his downfall. The roles Bigger adopt are because of societies conflicts against him, which cause it to be complicated for him to establish any stable identity for himself (Elder 32). Society expected Bigger to do the wrong things in life, and that was already setting him up for failure. Instead of doing the right things in life to prove that the stereotypes set out for blacks are not necessarily true, bigger took the opposite route. By letting these stereotypes guide his mind and all of his decisions, he let society guide his own fate.
Even as “…Bigger has apprehended the structure of reality in his insight, he has remained blind to his own position within that structure, which has been already written” (Precoda and Polanah 37). Everything was based by the thoughts and views created by the sum of people surrounding him. Bigger’s consciousness caused him to be divided and both pulled against himself in everything he did.
The real problem is that Bigger’s sense of self is so based on everything else, that he does not even truly have his own identity at all, his identity is only theoretical, and he is overwhelmed by the single emotion of fear (Elder 32). Bigger is considered to be a stereotype representing the whole black race. He sees himself through the eyes of others, mostly through the eyes of the whites, and this consequents in him not being able to develop his own identity. He feared not being accepted while the whites feared change. He had to try and make the necessary changes in himself in order for him to be the opposite of what everyone else said he’d be. The white community needed to also face their own fears of change so that something could be done in effect for both sides.
Bryant expresses in his article “Richard Wright’s Nameless Native Son” that it is vital to bigger that he is recognizes and acknowledged that he is actually somebody (265).
Not being seen is also another one of his fears throughout the duration of the novel. At many points during the novel he is called “Mike” instead of his correct name; Bryant also cites Crites’ analysis of the importance of names. Without calling Bigger by his proper name, his identity is disregarded, because his name is a reflection of himself (264-265). This is just one of the many factors that drove Bigger to turning his fear and hurt feelings into violence against everyone and what made him become a
monster. Bigger hides the truth about murdering a white woman, instead of trying to fess up to the real crime that he had committed. His violent manner is developed due to the fact that society expects black men to naturally be violent. Again, he failed to prove that the extent of these stereotypes is not always true, and he was blind to this fact. Wright proves that people cannot depend solely on the society around them to change for themselves. Waiting for things to be done will only delay the inevitable.
As previously stated, Bigger talked about how he wanted to have more freedom in the world like the whites, more freedom to be who he wants to be rather than who he has to be. In his mind he figured that it was already too late to obtain that freedom, even when he could have bettered himself and his life on his own. While receiving the job at the Dalton home was a good step in the right direction, he unknowingly got wrapped up in the chaos that involved Mary Dalton and her death.
Mary Dalton was naturally blind in her own way also, causing to her own downfall and death. Being white and holding the social status that she has held all of her life, it is easily known that she is privileged and because of that she is shielded from the things that are not so perfect for the other race in society. When she took Bigger with her male friend Jan, she was oblivious to how uncomfortable he was around them. While she believed that she was helping Bigger by showing him that not all white people are the same, she was blind to the reality that she had no say in making him believe her. Mary tries to be sympathetic towards Bigger, unaware that he has his own emotions and thoughts, and the she and Bigger were so far away from each other in society, that there was no way they could ever understand.