Tonight's Blog Entry--two options:
1.) Is Kilpatrick a hero or a traitor? What is Borges saying about how we use the definitions of words? What is Borges saying about the relationship between history and fiction in this story?
OR
2.) Go to the following link and read the excerpt--comment freely on what you read and see. Are we all invisible men, people?
http://themasticator.blogspot.com/2007/03/jeff-wall-and-ralph-ellison-invisible.html
6 comments:
The moment the Invisible Man becomes invisible is when he decides to only live in one world. After becoming tired of continually having to conform to society, he decides to isolate himself and reside entirely in his mind, his mirror. The elimination the other world is what causes his invisibility, since to live, both worlds are necessary.
Mind + Experience=LIfe
When the invisible man enters into the state of invisibility, he confines himself to live within only the past memories which he has experienced. He cannot form new ones. In only living in the past, the Invisible Man loses his identity. Identity is a creation of the third world, since it is composed of both your mind (world 1) and your experiences (world 2). In living in only the 2nd world, the Invisible Man loses his sense of who he is; he erases his identity. “Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.” (Ellison, 577). When he enters into himself, he ceases living; he becomes invisible because his existence is entirely within. He has created his own wall, preventing him from entering the third world. The third world is a fusion of world 1 and world 2. In elimination world 1 from the equation, he fails to enter into the third world.
Eventually, the invisible man comes to realize that in order to not lose sight of the 1st world, he must enter back into society and form new experiences. “And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose site of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals. Thus, having never tried to give patter to the chaos which within the pattern of your certainties, I must come out, I must emerge” (Ellison, 580). In order to truly be living, he must be living within both worlds. The only way to move through the labyrinth, is by acting and learning from the dead ends which you run into and the only way to learn is by using your mind, the 2nd world.
So to answer the question if everyone is invisible…..
Everyone is invisible in moments in their life and some people may be invisible their entire life, if they decide to live in only the first or second world. Living only in the second world means that you chose to live entirely within your mind and isolate yourself from the world around you (like the Invisible Man). On the other side of things, if you chose to turn off your second world, so your life consists entirely of the first world, then you have also become invisible. Living solely in the first world, means that you are seeing without thinking. Your eyes are open, but your brain is closed. When you fail to perceive and think about all that you are taking in from the world around you, then you aren’t living. If all your actions are meaningless, then what’s the point of living? You are dead.
When you live only in your mind, your mirror has nothing to reflect. When you live only in the outside world, your mirror isn’t unique; it is only reflecting back the world exactly as it is on the surface. For the third world to exist, the mirror needs to reflect the outside world with a unique angle and depth.
This is a story that examines a man who could be considered both a hero and a traitor. Through the examination of his death, Borges reveals Kilpatrick as more of a hero. Using his words carefully Borges depicts Kilpatrick as a good-hearted conspirator, acting cooperative and even signing his own death sentence, having been betrayed by one of his closest comrades, James Nolan. As Ryan likens Kilpatrick to Julius Caesar, his character becomes instantly more heroic. In finding all of these similarities to be the possible circle of life, ‘the circular labyrinth,” in which we live, Ryan is able to conclude that in the facts and the proof that we have of history fiction is often present and the truth is often hidden. “Ryan suspects that the author interpolated them so that one person, in the future, might realize the truth”(127). I think Borges is trying to allude to the fact that fiction is a possibility in history because there are never facts to complete support the claims made. You have to rely on what you believe and sometimes read between the lines to get what may or may not be the truth, but either way it is never quite definite if history is fiction or not, because time is irreversible.
By calling Kilpatrick both a hero and a traitor Borges is asking evaluation of the definitions of these words in order to understand the outcome of the story. By calling him a hero, the story ends with Kilpatrick a sort of martyr, by calling him a traitor it ends with him being punished for his betrayals. Borges chooses to call him a hero and a traitor, because this is truly what he is, and this is the only explanation to the outcome of Kilpatricks life, shedding light on both the fiction of the story, and the truth that lies beyond the story. The choice of words can inevitably change someone’s entire view of something, just because of the set definitions of those words that are set in our heads. Just as the story Julius Caesar and the stories of other recognized assassinated figures show, one mans hero is another mans traitor.
Here is number two:
I was fortunate enough to read both Ellison's "Invisible Man" and Dostoyevski's "Notes from Underground" this year in AP English and this class respectively. I loved "Invisible Man" and as the blogger mentioned down below, Jeff Wall's photograph really had an impact on me after having read the book.
"Invisible Man"'s prologue and several scenes throughout the book closely relate to the scenes depicted in "Notes from Underground". Both main characters are anonymous throughout the story. This bothered me more so in "Invisible Man" because the character would get into social interactions with others and purposely not type anything that could give away his name or his identity. But this is to emphasize his true invisibility in society. Both characters had obvious flaws that were evident in their reactions with others. The stories were both intended to make the reader question the surrounding society. In "Invisible Man" the main focus was the on-going racial struggles in the country. In "Notes from Underground" it was a commentary focused on the dormancy and ignorance of society as a whole. They both used unique styles of narration. "Invisible Man" is unique because of the surreal way that it portrays society. During the major battle scene near the end of the story, downtown Harlem becomes a hell of flames and death. In "Notes from Underground" the narrator uses a stream of conscious style of narration that leads the reader in circles and down confusing paths.
In "Invisible Man" the main character is on a search for his identity in society as he struggles with the mounting racial tension in the country. The photograph by Jeff Wall perfectly captures the underground lifestyle that IM (as we liked to call him in AP) is now living as he is re-telling this story of his life. It is really the opposite of "Notes from Underground", IM has been a member of society and has now given up and gone underground for the past years of his life. He is invisible now as he reflects back onto his past, but in a way he has always been invisible. The photograph captures his frustration and tension regarding society. The one room basement that he lives in is a mess, as he sits there clearly deep in thought. IM is meant to be the reader and his feelings of hatred and frustration towards society are supposed to surge through us by the end of the book (and in a lot of ways they do).
So are we all invisible men? Well, yes. As of right now, I think that all of us are invisible, simply because we lack true identity. We are in high school and we are still sorting out the many elements of our lives. It is like the debate of wisdom verses knowledge. We all possess a lot of knowledge, but we are not yet as wise as we should be. I have lived for eighteen years and I have no idea where we will be in another eighteen. I know what I stand for and I know what I believe in, but that does not cure my invisibility, because I do not know if I will feel that same way in four more years. IM's way of trying to find his true identity was for fighting to help others and fighting for what he believed in. I found his fights and struggles to be more brave to me than anything I have read about King or Malcolm X, simply because I could relate to IM on more of a personal level. We are invisible because we have not yet found our ultimate path in life. Or to put it another way, we have not yet found our solution to the puzzle or our way out of the labyrinth.
I'll end with this:
"Is rehashing stories that exist only in our minds a mere cheap trick that gets our approval only because we're proud of ourselves for recognizing something we've read about?" No because just like writing, photography, art, etc are all other forms of expression. This photograph is not powerful to me simply because I think "oh, I know thats from Invisible Man'". It is powerful to me because it is one more way for me to better relate to the character of IM and his internal struggle. If I was to hear a song about the story or view a painting inspired by it, it is just one more way to connect to IM and the message that Ralph Ellison is trying to pass on to me.
While examining this picture, I find myself looking for ways to prove that I am nothing like this invisible man. “I don’t live in a ‘hole’”, I say, but then realize that it doesn’t matter. “My surroundings aren’t this cluttered,” I lie, knowing I’ve surrounded myself with mountains of more meaningless possessions than could even fit within the frame of this image. “At least I’m not this lonely,” I reason, but know that, sometimes, I am. Sometimes we all are. Finally, I look to the lightbulbs and the light, and this is when I know I’m invisible.
Today’s average world citizen cloaks himself in a self-created invisibility. We fear that we’re too small or powerless to make a difference, so we hide ourselves from the world we know we ought to change. We go to school, we go to work, we go on dates, we build houses, we take vacations, we get married, we find the time to make a few friends. But at the end of the day we are no more visible to the victims of a Kenyan war or the populace of an inner-city ghetto than a breath of wind. We become invisible when we understand that the world is crumbling at our feet but we turn our backs and turn off the lights and resume an everyday life.
“Working on that picture,” the creater of this image says, “I really learned about what Ellison's 1,369 lightbulbs means. You can only have a few on at a time.” Borges might call these lightbulbs books in the Library of Babble. We could learn everything from the information at our fingertips, but we close our eyes and refuse to read because we’re scared of what we’ll learn. We confine ourselves to the limitations of our small, immediate environments, remaining invisible to most of the world because we’re afraid that we don’t have the ability to do any real good in it. Only a few lightbulbs are turned on because we don’t want to see the whole earth, our fear and all, completely illuminated. We’re afraid that, if we lit every lamp, we’d be blinded by the reality we have refused for so long.
I look at this picture and know that I have allowed myself to be this man. What I must realize is that, while invisibility offers a temporary hideaway, it severs me from virtually everything my environment has to offer. Every time I write something that I’m scared to admit, I turn one more light bulb on. With time, and with bravery, I hope my eyes will adjust to the glow. Once this room is illuminated, I have I feeling that I’ll find I’m not alone in here.
I'm taking some personal liberties and combining the two questions into one crazy blog entry about the relationship between history and invisibility.
For history records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with whom and with what results; who fought and who won and who lived to lie about it afterwards. All things, it is said, are duly recorded -- all things of importance, that is. But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are put down, those lies his keepers keep their power by. -- Invisible Man, p. 439
There is a phrase that the anonymous narrator of Invisible Man uses to describe his downward spiral that leads him underground: he calls it his "plunge outside of history." He aims to work for the struggling people of the Harlem ghettos, and believes that this cannot be done when caught up in the pursuit of history; those who are "too obscure for learned classification...who write no novels, histories and other books" (443, 439). His former organization, the Brotherhood, only cares about being remembered alongside great leaders of the past like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Booker T. Washington. "When all the old answers are proven false," claims the leader of the organization, "the people look back to the dead to give them a clue" (306). Yet at the expense of this focus on the grand past, the Brotherhood "sacrifices" common individuals because "history has passed them by" (475, 291).
The Invisible Man has the moment of realization after the death of a fellow activist in the hot streets of Harlem. The two had lost touch, so the exact reason of his death remains unclear to the narrator. Now he bemoans the fact that the man who murdered him will be "his historian, his judge, his witness, and his executioner" (439). Borges brings a similar them to light in "Theme of the Traitor and Hero.." Nolan writes a book about Kilpatrick's death "dedicated to the glory of the hero." Whether or not he was truly a hero is insignificant to his assassin: he is only concerned that others perceive him as such. Thanks to the power of the written word as a lasting judgment of time, he will be.
I believe, however, that the Invisible Man is not as invisible as he would like to think he is. In recording his personal history, he has illuminated himself and those who share his struggle. He has chronicled his thoughts and actions for posterity. The moment he chooses to pick up the pen, he has made the conscious choice not to let people like the Brotherhood cast him aside; he will get the final say in his judgment. As Camus would say, has not "put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it." Thus the benefits of his novel are twofold: it vanquishes his invisibility and it takes him further down the road of his personal labyrinth - helping those who others have ignored.
"So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down?" asks the Invisible Man in his narrative's conclusion, "Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "file and forget" and I can neither file nor forget." If we allow our history to be recorded by others, than we will either end up misinterpreted, like Kilpatrick, or shoved into the back corner of the filing cabinet of history. No matter how trivial or painful the process of writing may be, it is our one chance we have to avoid the fate of invisibility.
Hi guys! I could not help myself; Meg alerted me to an Ellison blog! HAHA What great entries! I just want to say that I enjoyed reading them and keep up the great work.
--Mr. Sherbahn
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