This is my essay about Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and its influence on me. I wrote it for the Brown prompt which reads:
"Tell us about an intellectual experience, project, class, or book that has influenced or inspired you."
The limit was 500 words and I'm at 532 sadly. If you could point some things out that would help. Also, my main worry is about the overall flow. Do the ideas connect and make enough sense? Also, I'd like to shorten the education paragraph but don't know how. Ideas?
For me, the unassuming maroon façade of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man belies all the glory that lay within its five hundred and eighty three pages. Maybe that was the only way though. After all, what image could encompass the stirring streets of Harlem, early twentieth century racism, and ultimate betrayal all at once? The book follows a nameless protagonist as he leaves his Deep South home and journeys through the streets of Harlem in the midst of a racial revolution. Though the novel extends across an incredible range of themes like "blindness" and conformity, I've always been captivated by what it's had to say about individuality.
The novel altered how I address my education. The unnamed narrator happily attends a private college that is until the principal, Mr. Bledose, a man who the narrator deeply admires, expels him. During their confrontation, Mr. Bledsoe confesses, "Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of education are you getting around here?" (139). Though completely fictional, the incident still haunted me. Here stood a young man, high with ambitions to create societal change, being told that his role model and his education were trying to stop him. His teachings intended to not liberate but only further confine him and his identity. I feared possibly falling into the same position. As a result, nowadays I don't consider everything that comes out of my books and teacher's mouths as truths. Instead, I carefully determine the saliency of what is said based on my aspirations, refusing to let my education make me. That would only compromise my individuality.
Invisible Man also forced me to confront a truth that I had been avoiding. At the end, the narrator describes a gruesome dream in which his enemies castrate him: "They took the bloody blobs and cast them over the bridge" (569). Despite how unbearable, the narrator delights in his loss and says, "I now see that which I couldn't see" (570). The incident cemented to me the idea that great sacrifices would and will have to be made in order for me to retain my individuality. Though I most likely won't have to yield something of that extent, the narrator explains what will most likely happen: "I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest" (572). I will have to brave hostility from others to preserve my individuality and remain true to myself.
"Why all the hoo-hah over individuality if you end up becoming shunned out of society?" you might ask. True individuals are those who change the course of history. Deeming something to be wrong society, true individuals stand outside of it. True individuals are willing to be outcasts in order to change society itself, to carry it in a new direction when no one else dares to.
I now dance precariously with society and the reality that it has created for me, making sure to never succumb too much nor distance myself too far from it. Invisible Man became a how-to guide for me about having the influence on the world that I strive to create.
PS. Do I need the page numbers? hahaha
Great essay, I see nothing wrong with it, and the page numbers can't really hurt... my only two corrections would be:
"The unnamed narrator happily attends a private college that is until the principal, Mr. Bledose, a man who the narrator deeply admires, expels him."
"His teachings were intended to not to liberate, but only to further confine him and his identity."
