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Why Sethe Did What She Did

John Brownridge

All of the events of the “present day” in Beloved revolve around one particular event. An event, that sparks a controversial decision that is so horrifying that is is difficult for many readers to even say out loud. This event is when the 4 horsemen come to 124, and Sethe makes the decision to kill her children. When reading this part of the book, not only was I shocked about the decision, and how Sethe spoke about it later, I was also shocked that I had read a poem with the exact same premise earlier in the quarter, completely unaware of its significance to Beloved. The poem I read was, “Whose Children Are These,” by Gerald Barax. In “Whose Children Are These,” the speaker comes across children that may or may not be his own, that he is unable to take with him on his escape from slavery. He does not want those children to be subject to slavery themselves, so he is left with the delema of whether or not he should put the children out of their future misery. This poem mentions Margare
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Why Does Janie Not Hate Tea Cake? (yet)

            At this point in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie has been through her fair share of marriages. Right now she is married to Tea Cake, and seems to be considerably more forgiving towards him than she was towards her previous husbands. How is it, that she can forgive Tea Cake, a man who stole and spent all of her money, and then beat her for no reason? Logan and Joe Starks were also bad people, so it makes sense that she was utterly appalled by them, but as far as we know, neither of them have ever physically abused her. An outsider looking in on the situation would no doubt agree that Tea Cake is the worst of Janie’s love interests, and yet, he is the one that Janie seems to be the most in love with, and so far, does not seem to be considering leaving him. Why is that? To answer this we must first look at Janie’s previous relationships. She was miserable with Logan Killicks. Logan Killicks and Janie were a part of an arranged marriage, and never really showed affection
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Types of Invisibility in Invisible Man

John Brownridge

       Ralph Ellison displays a multitude of different types of invisibility through multiple characters in Invisible Man. All of these types of invisibility are different and interesting, and important in helping the Narrator’s character arc of realizing his own invisibility.      The first type of invisibility displayed in Invisible Man is shown all the way back in chapter one. The Narrator’s grandfather, on his deathbed, gives the Narrator advice on how to survive peacefully in a white society. He says that the Narrator should “overcome ‘em with yesses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.” He is basically telling the Narrator to conform to the will of white people and let them control and manipulate him. With this type of invisibility, the Narrator would live without his voice and opinion about racism and social issues never being heard, but in return, would hopefully live a relatively peaceful life.
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Examples of Symbolism in Invisible Man

John Brownridge

Throughout Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison likes to use different forms of symbolism to represent what the Narrator is going through. Two of the most recent examples of this are the racist figurine he finds in his room, and the broken chain that is given to him by Brother Tarp. In this blog post, I will basically explain the significance of these physical representations of the Narrator’s current state. (This isn’t going to be an extremely coherent argument about Invisible Man and its symbolism, just me explaining what I think these two items represent.) In Chapter 15, the Narrator wakes up the day after taking his job with the Brotherhood, he wakes up and finds a strange object near his door which he had never noticed before. It’s an Americana coin bank, which was basically a racist depiction of black people that was fairly common during that time period. It is pretty safe to say that the Narrator is Not happy to see this. “Then near the door I saw somethi
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When is the Narrator of Invisible Man Happiest? (sorry I couldn't come up with a better title)

John Brownridge

          Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a unique story in that the reader knows the fate of the main character before being able to read the beginning. In Chapter 1 of Invisible Man , the narrator (I’ll just use “Narrator” to refer to him from now on), aspires to one day be an important member of society, and is completely unaware of how invisible he is in the eyes of others. In the Prologue, however, which takes place twenty years later, Narrator is painfully aware of his invisibility, and his knowledge of it has turned him into a crazy person, who refuses to conform to or even interact with society. In class last week, we were prompted to talk about what we thought about Jr. Mr. Emerson and whether he was helping Narrator by revealing the truth about Emerson’s intentions. At my table, this turned into a discussion of whether it was more desirable to live like Narrator did in the beginning of the novel or like he did in the prologue. In this post, I will explore this question an
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The Role of Fear in Bigger Thomas's Life

John Brownridge

When looking into the motivations of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son , it is difficult not to discuss the impact fear has on his life. Almost every single rash decision he makes in the novel can be attributed to fear in one way or another. The first specific instance of fear negatively affecting his decisions was when he violently attacked Gus for being late to meet up with the rest of the gang. They had planned to rob Old Blum, a white storekeeper who owned a gun. Bigger's reasoning for attacking Gus was that they had missed the window of time they had to rob the old man, but that wasn't true. Page 41 reads: "Yes; they would have had time to rob the store; in fact, they still had time. He had lied to Gus and G.H. and Jack. He walked on; there was not a policeman in sight. Yes; they could have robbed the store and could've gotten away. He hoped the fight he had with Gus covered up what he was actually trying to hide." Bigger is clearly afriad o
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