Every Rose

[This post was written as a response to question posted by Mr. Franek on his blog regarding the book Invisible Man by: Ralph Ellison.] 

I have to admit I had the same feelings as Todde in regards to reading this book. I saw it as a 600 page novel that would probably tell me something that I could say in five words; Black people are treated differently. I saw it as 600 pages of reading that was taking up my time from studying for APs and writing my Term Paper, and to be completely honest after finishing chapter 9, my oppinion wasn’t changed too much.

While reading the first nine chapters I found it hard not to fall asleep and it took me forever to finish a page. With an opening line that reads, “I am an invisible man.”(1), I was grabbed thinking, sick! ghost story! I was throughly disappointed after reading the second line, ” No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of you Hollywood-movie ectoplasms.”(1) Well then I knew I was in for a long read. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my share of literature written around literature as much as the next person, but it’s completely different when it’s 600 pages of the same thing.

It wasn’t really until chapter 10 that I really got into the symbolism of the book. While working at the Liberty Paint company, the narrator mentions the mixing of white paint. Surprisingly, the two contents in the white paint are brown paint with exactly 10 drops of black. It seems strange that though both of the origional ingredients are so dark, the outcome is the “purest white that can be found”(202). It is alot like the way the world works, unfortunately. While it is the black people that do all of the work, it is the white people that get the credit for the outcome.

Hopefully with further reading the novel will continue to catch my interest, but at this point, I wouldn’t be throwing any awards its way.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 8:16 pm and is filed under English Class soundoffs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.