IM Reading Questions: Chapters 10-12

Chapter 10

Ellison says that beginning with chapter 10, the novel begins to rely heavily on expressionism. In very simple terms, expressionism uses concrete objects to attempt to objectify abstract inner feelings. Therefore, objects in the novel function as complex multifaceted symbols. Remember that chapter 10 and 11 are not to be perceived as realistic, but rather as expressionistic.

1.     Consider the racial connotations of Liberty Paints. Think about the company name, trademark, slogans, government contracts, and Optic White. What do you think the company symbolizes?

I believe that the company symbolizes a place of pure racism and patriotism. The company symbolizes the support of what some people think the right/ pure America SHOULD be.

2.     Why has the company been hiring Blacks?

So that they don’t have to pay union wages.

3.     Think about how Optic White is manufactured. What do the 10 drops of “dead black liquid” symbolize?

I believe that the 10 drops could symbolize the idea that although whites don’t admit it but the need of having the blacks in order to do something, in this case the 10 drops are need to make the white paint perfect. However, when the paint and the 10 drops of black are mixed the black is invisible.

4.     Note that Lucius Brockway works deep in the basement of the factory, hidden from view. Is this symbolic? How is Brockway like Bledsoe? How is he different?

This shows the oppression that whites had over blacks. The irony that the company promoted that white was right and that they only accepted white but then again they had blacks working, doing all the hard work, being the ones that are actually the main engine of the company. Brockway is similar to Bledsoe because they are both sort of important to the company or the school; they are both equal to white men but controlled by them. They are different in the way they think, Bledsoe is more arrogant and highly believes he is in control and that he owes everything. Brockway is insecure about having his stabilized work position.

5.     How is Brockway himself like the 10 drops?

He is like the 10 drops because he is invisible, people don’t know he is there not unless they have to meet with him. The white people need him to continue and keep the company running but no one know of him, he is mixed into the white paint, becoming invisible.

6.     After the explosion on p. 230, the narrator is thrust “into a wet blast of black emptiness that is somehow a bath of whiteness. How does this immersion of a Black man into a world of whiteness continue the expressionism of the chapter?

The narrator

Chapter 11

The expressionist images of chapter 10 are black and white. Here they are death and rebirth.

1.     What images of this chapter echo the Battle Royal?

When the narrator is put in a therapy machine that was electrically shocking him. The professional people were enjoying the narrator go through pain and losing his identity.

2.     The doctors at the factory hospital shock the narrator until he enters a warm watery world. Look for other images of the womb and birth.

-The narrator cries when he receives shocks, just like babies cry when they are born.

-“My mind was blank as though I had just begun to live”

3.     Afterwards, the narrator is a blank slate with no memory or identity. How do the doctor’s questions develop this image of rebirth?

He doesn’t remember anything about himself. He has lost his own identity; he can’t even answer questions the doctor asks him.

4.     Why has the narrator been reborn? What aspects of his old identity have died?

His past has died and the person that he was. People are mostly known from who they are and where they come from and therefore IM forgetting where he came from is important because it has made him become reborn again as a new person. I believe he has been reborn because it is a start of a new beginning where narrator can go away from trying to become visible and ignorant.

5.     Buckeye the Rabbit is the same as Brer Rabbit. Remember the reference to the Tar Baby in chapter 10? In realizing that he is Buckeye the Rabbit, the narrator finds the wit and strength to escape from the machine. How is the machine like Trueblood’s clock? How does Buckeye the Rabbit embody the folk wisdom of the narrator’s childhood? How has he been reborn into the identity he at first denied upon arriving in New York?

The machine is similar to Trueblood’s clock. They both want freedom from society.

The narrator has been reborn and he is now aware of how the world is divided by race.  He isn’t trying to seek to be visible anymore.

6.     What lesson has the narrator learned?

He has learned that people aren’t trust worthy and that he shouldn’t be afraid because he shouldn’t expect anything good from important men.

Chapter 12 (transitional bridge between the two halves of the novel)

1.     In what way is the narrator childlike?

Behaviors: He is like a child because he isn’t independent anymore. Mary is the one that is caring for him.  There was also a scene in this chapter in where he encounters someone that looks like Bledsoe and pouring something on him.

2.     How does he permanently close off the link with his old aspirations and dreams?

He loses his ambition on these dreams and aspirations when he moves out of the Men’s house and into Mary’s.  He also stops listening to the voices in his head and wants to begin a new life.