thoughts on Invisibility and Police Brutality (Invisible Man)

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Throughout invisible man, there are sections that seem surreal and dreamlike. In fact, a majority of the time it feels like the narrator is dreaming. However there is one scene in particular that stood out to me as feeling very real, almost too real. This would be the scene that Clifton gets shot. This scene feels so real because it feels like it could have happened just yesterday.

When I first read this scene it was very easy for me to imagine this vendor on the street, maybe not selling racist dolls, but Clifton’s calls and catch phrases sound like something you could still hear in New York today. The paragraph that stood out to me the most reads, “I could see the cop push Clifton again, stepping solidly forward in his black shirt, his arm shooting out stiffly, sending him in a head-snapping forward stumble until he caught himself, saying something over his shoulder again, the two moving in a kind of march that I’d seen many times, but never with anyone like Clifton.” It continues discussing in detail describing the movements of Clifton and the cop that sound just like motions in cases like Eric Garner, who was killed in 2014, and so many other recent cases. It is so typical in our society that it’s not usually publicized. Clifton’s arrest was for vending without a permit, and he was on his knees when he was shot. Today, black people still are shot by policemen regularly for trivial offenses. Unfortunately, this kind of abuse happens all time, which makes this scene feel eerily familiar and realistic.

Police brutality is all over the media right now, which makes Clifton’s death hit closer to home for the modern reader than more surreal scenes. This scene and the few that follow that handle the aftermath of his death are unsettling to the narrator, as well as the reader, because of how easily the Brotherhood and the police brush off Clifton’s death. When the narrator attempts to approach the cop who shot Clifton, he gets shooed away.

Possibly the most epitomizing line of the narrator’s speech at Clifton’s funeral is “His name was Clifton and he was black and they shot him.” The narrator attributes Clifton’s death to racism, specifically. The narrator repeats Clifton’s name, saying things like “His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton,” several times, his name which the Brotherhood tries to strip him of. Clifton’s name can be seen as a direct representation of his identity, that is struggling to stay visible. This reminded me of the protests after Trayvon Martin’s death, and several other Black Lives Matter protests particularly directly after shootings. From what I have seen, the victims’ names are a prominent part of these protests on signs, in pictures, and vocally. I was reminded of these protests while reading these chapters because both seemed to be trying to get rid of a certain anonymity or invisibility for victims of police brutality that would typically be brushed aside and forgotten immediately by drawing attention to them.

Identity vs. Freedom (Invisible Man)

In chapter 11, the narrator says “when I discover who I am I’ll be free.” But if the prologue is any indication of the narrator at the end of the book, he just becomes more invisible. He certainly seems to feel more free, but he explicitly says that “people refuse to see [him],” meaning that he has no meaning to other people and therefore no identity.

On the contrary, identity is very important to other characters in the book. Bledsoe has spent his whole life working to create his identity, and has one of the most prestigious identities in the book. His identity is so potent, that he is trapped inside of it. Bledsoe has little to no freedom because he must adhere to the expectations of his identity. The paint mixer has a very definite role and identity to everyone who works in the paint shop, but he in the lowest basement.

The more the narrator tries to get somewhere in the world by following the rules, to be someone and create an identity for himself, the less free he is. In the beginning of the book he allows himself to be tossed around, and all aspects of his life are determined by people other than himself. This is literally symbolized in the battle royale scene where other people are pushing him from one thing to the next, purely for their own benefit.

The vet has a very little identity. We don’t know much about how he got to where he is now, but he is able to say nearly whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. He has freedom of speech and little consequence if he acts out, and is essentially free.

When the narrator is “reborn” in chapter 11, he realizes his identity is essential to his freedom, at least subconsciously.  After his identity is literally zapped out of his brain and he can’t remember who he is anymore, he is free in that he stops following the rules like he did in the beginning of the book. Instead of total compliance like in the battle royale, the narrator plays games with the doctor in the hospital, and dumps a spittoon on the leader of the men’s house. The freest the narrator has even been is when he has completely lost his identity, which shows that freedom in this book comes from a lack of identity.

Native Son blogpost

There is no doubt that Native Son is filled with a feeling of inevitable doom, as if Bigger is cornered. From the very first scene of the novel. While the reader is not yet aware of it, the rat in Bigger’s home that he entraps and murders is a paradigm for his life in the rest of the book. At the very least, it certainly set the tone of inevitable tragedy. These occurrences that hint of tragedy continue throughout the novel. Later in the beginning of the book, Bigger sees a poster of Buckley has “You Can’t Win” printed on it. Bigger feels as if the eyes on this poster follow him as he moves, much like the reader feels a sense of doom follow them throughout the book. Every choice is the wrong choice is the wrong choice for Bigger; they all lead to a disastrous fate. He tries to pick the benevolent job over joining the local gang heist, but still ends up getting in the same amount (if not more) trouble.

There is no right choice because everything eventually leads to execution. There is something very ironic about this fact. Whenever Bigger tries to do the “right” thing, it ends up going poorly for him. For example, he puts the pillow over Mary’s face to keep her quiet and to keep them both from getting in trouble, but ends up murdering her which is much more problematic. Also earlier in the novel with the gang, he did the “right” thing by saying he didn’t want to kill anyone, even though he ended up doing just that anyway, twice. Not to mention that during both of the murders he carried out, he had a gun in his pocket that he almost never touched. Similarly, Bigger is working with relatively a very liberal white family, which one would think would be beneficial for him as a black man, but ultimately only muddles him. Mary and Jan try to befriend Bigger but in turn they are ignorantly being more racist.

Bigger is set up as a very logical character. To the reader, he seems to always do the only, right thing in his situation, however ironic it may be. So in the reader’s mind, there is no doubt that Bigger’s circumstances are due to something greater than Bigger himself. The impending doom that fills this novel symbolizes how the system of white supremacy is set up to doom even very logical people like Bigger. This shows that Bigger is entirely a product of his environment, because he is set up to be a fairly benevolent person but his circumstances cause him to commit terrible crimes. This idea that Bigger is forced to react this way because of his environment follows the naturalist worldview. This novel serves as an example of situations for people to see how white supremacy imposes upon black men.