For the final blog of the month, I wanted to use
this space to take a deeper into some of the seminar notes I had come up with
my our group’s presentation on Clifton-Riots from Invisible Man, which I felt I wasn’t able to voice very well
due to time and well, a sore voice! Here, I want to look into the conversation,
rather a key line, between Brother Jack and the Brotherhood against the
Invisible Man following his speech at Clifton’s funeral, which is critical in
bringing out some of Ellison’s finest commentary on the essence of the struggle
between power and control. IM finds himself facing off against Brother Jack and
the theoreticians of the Brotherhood, and in trying to explain himself to them
Jack simply states, “If so, listen to me: you were not hired to think” (pg
469). Brother Jack’s words to IM are critical in understanding the nature of
Ellison’s portrayal of manipulation and domination across the novel, which in
essence is characterized by blind submissiveness. By saying that it is a blind
submission and adherence is critical as well, as the idea of sight and
blindness is also a key recurring thematic motif in the novel as well for this
very reason. Looking at blindness in the novel, one only has to think of the
two most prominent, the blind Reverend Barbee and the half-blind Jack, who find
themselves literally impaired in their vision of what lies before them.
However, with the IM, his blindness is found on a much more metaphorical level,
as it is something that is impressed upon him by Jack and the Brotherhood, who
would keep him blind to the outside world by making him out to a piece of clay,
able to molded and sculpted into whatever they deem most fit or necessary for
their circumstances. By IM saying that he is starting to think is, in the perspective
of the Brotherhood, an attempted maneuver to undermine their authority and
domination in IM’s attempt to try to mold himself and his own identity instead
of having it all done for him by the Brotherhood. If one were to put it in more
visual terms, IM is “Sambo the dancing doll, ladies and gentlemen. Shake him, stretch
him by the neck and set him down,-He’ll do the rest. Yes!” (pg 431). IM is
nothing more than a doll to the Brotherhood who by speaking out during the
funeral essentially tried to voice his own opinion and pull his own puppet
strings. Not only this, but it was IM’s attempt to bring himself out of the
blindness of thought and to try to see for himself, something that the
Brotherhood noted as being quite dangerous. From a historical standpoint, this
is the greatest caution and fear within a communist government, as uniqueness
of thought is an immediate deviation away from the Marxist doctrine that is
supposed to be followed and obeyed with religious piety. This was why Stalin
purged out millions of his own people during his early 1930s collectivization
of Russia and why he held the Great Purge Trials of upper level Politburo
members, a fear of an undermining of authority. Those in power will do whatever
it takes to maintain that role of reality for them, willing to provide whatever
illusion for the common people to believe and accept as their petty truth so
that they may stay in control. Until now, IM has believed that Brotherhood
illusion to be his own personal reality and self-identity while Jack maintains
supremacy, but in truth, Jack’s powerful line to IM is a shattering moment of
realization for IM, when he finally gets it, that he is but the servant, and
Jack the master.
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