December+14+-+INVISIBLE+MAN+DISCUSSION+-+Natiah+Camillo

==== //**Invisible Man— C **////**hapter 2 **// ** We began this discussion with clarification questions that lead to theses ideas: **  TrueBlood’s Dream— Trueblood is dreaming/fantasizing of a white woman, ends up raping his daughter (doesn’t realize until he has awakened) ====
 * published in 1947... book brings up issues and topics that are usually “pushed under the rug” during this time period— interracial relationships taboo at the time and frowned upon
 * Was Trueblood’s story of fantasizing about a white woman a lie to justify himself and make an excuse for the horrible thing he’s done to his daughter?
 * pg59 “I’m too surprised to move. She’s cryin’, ‘Daddy, Daddy oh Daddy,’ Just like that. And all at once I remember the ole lady. She’s right beside us snorin’ and I can’t move ‘cause it happenend when I was asleep– although maybe sometimes a man can look at a ole pigtail gal and see him a whore..”
 * “That would be worse than sin. I’m whispering to Matty Lou, tryin’ to keep her quiet and i figurin’ how to git myself out of the fix I’m in without sinnin’. I almost chokes her.”
 * if he moves=sin (having sex/rape)
 * if he doesn’t move he believes it may not be a sin because he was “asleep”
 * seems like “he knows what he was doing”— Ellison writes this section in a way so that the reader has no idea whether he is lying or telling the truth... the reader has to come up with their own interpretation of the incident

 Why include this scene at this moment?
 * example of the idea of a “hidden” motive of the white people
 * =====Ellison is interested in exposing different types of racism...=====
 * =====Ellison is questioning the type of racism Mr. Nortan has. Mr. Norton seems to be “throwing money” at the problem/situation when he gives money to TrueBlood. He seems to be “throwing money” at the problem to rid of the racism he has deep within. Giving the money seems to be his “okay”.=====
 * =====Trueblood reconfirms Norton’s stereotype of black people=====
 * Tuskegee College (Alabama)— purpose was to help ex-slaves learn trade after coming out of slavery (for people of color and founded by people of color)... funded by people who were white (like Mr. Norton)

Tuskegee College
 * Ellison saw Tuskegee college as a curse for Men of color (another agent of slavery and keeping people oppressed)
 * Description of statue (on campus of Tuskegee Institute) called “Lifting the veil of Ignorance” page 36
 * “...and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.”
 * one person in the statue is seen as subservient (slave) and the other is in a position of authority or higher power (Booker T. Washington— founder)

[[image:bookert2.jpg width="182" height="299" align="left" caption="Booker T. Washington"]]
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 * ====Is the authority figure in the statue covering up or lifting up the veil?====
 * ====Booker T. Washington want this college to “lift the veil” of slavery and educate the slaves to make them self sufficient====
 * ====Ellison describes this as an agent of change or oppression (maybe another form of slavery)====

 Things to think about ====
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What about Tuskegee College is Ellison so critical of?
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ellison constantly puts the narrator at a point of rage but “Invisible Man” always ends up repressing it thinking that it’s “bullshit”.... taking his grandfather’s advice by repressing others from his own anger

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Key Symbols (didn’t finish talking about them)
> =====Stripper=====
 * object and a symbol of the generation of society— (degregating her white men instead of respecting)
 * pg.18-19 “....my knees knocked.” frowned upon for black men to look or think of white women in such ways (Story of Emit Til getting beat to a pulp for whistling at a white woman). Being black in a room full of white men with a white woman stripper was very dangerous at this time
 * her hair was yellow like a kewpie doll —possibly foreshadowing circus scene

[[image:3345112504_e721dd870b.jpg width="148" height="160" caption="Kewpie Doll"]]

 * ====Electronic mat====
 * ====Grandfather’s “curse”====
 * ====The blinded Boxing Match====
 * ====The Speech====
 * ====The Diploma====

The next scribe is Tyler Myrick.