MODERNISM:
The Modernist Period in English Literature occupied the
years from shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century through roughly
1965. In broad terms, the period was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks
with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world.
Experimentation and individualism became virtues, where in the past they were
often heartily discouraged. Modernism was set in motion, in one sense, through
a series of cultural shocks. The first of these great shocks was the Great War,
which ravaged Europe from 1914 through 1918, known now as World War One. At the
time, this “War to End All Wars” was looked upon with such ghastly horror that
many people simply could not imagine what the world seemed to be plunging
towards. The first hints of that particular way of thinking called Modernism
stretch back into the nineteenth century. As literary periods go, Modernism
displays a relatively strong sense of cohesion and similarity across genres and
locales. Furthermore, writers who adopted the Modern point of view often did so
quite deliberately and self-consciously. Indeed, a central preoccupation of
Modernism is with the inner self and consciousness. In contrast to the Romantic
world view, the Modernist cares rather little for Nature, Being, or the overarching
structures of history. Instead of progress and growth, the Modernist
intelligentsia sees decay and a growing alienation of the individual. The
machinery of modern society is perceived as impersonal, capitalist, and
antagonistic to the artistic impulse. War most certainly had a great deal of
influence on such ways of approaching the world. Two World Wars in the span of
a generation effectively shell-shocked all of Western civilization.
In Modernist literature, it was the poets who took fullest advantage
of the new spirit of the times, and stretched the possibilities of their craft
to lengths not previously imagined. In general, there was a disdain for most of
the literary production of the last century. The exceptions to this disdain
were the French Symbolist poets like Charles Baudelaire and the work of
Irishman Gerard Manley Hopkins. The French Symbolists were admired for the
sophistication of their imagery. In comparison to much of what was produced in
England and America, the French were ahead of their time. They were similarly
unafraid to delve into subject matter that had usually been taboo for such a
refined art form. Hopkins, for his part, brought a fresh way to look at rhythm
and word usage. He more or less invented his own poetic rhythms, just as he
coined his own words for things which had, for him, no suitable descriptor.
Hopkins had no formal training in poetry, and he never published in his
lifetime. This model – the self-taught artist-hermit who has no desire for
public adulation – would become synonymous with the poet in the modern age.
This stereotype continues unrivaled to this day, despite the fact that the most
accomplished poets of the Modern period were far from recluses. Even though
alienation was a nearly universal experience for Modernist poets, it was
impossible to escape some level of engagement with the world at large. Even if
this engagement was mediated through the poetry, the relationship that poets
had with their world was very real, and very much revealing of the state of
things in the early twentieth century.
SYNOPSIS:
The narrator
begins telling his story with the claim that he is an “invisible man.” His
invisibility, he says, is not a physical condition—he is not literally
invisible—but is rather the result of the refusal of others to see him. He says
that because of his invisibility, he has been hiding from the world, living
underground and stealing electricity from the Monopolated Light & Power
Company. He burns 1,369 light bulbs simultaneously and listens to Louis
Armstrong’s “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” on a phonograph. He says
that he has gone underground in order to write the story of his life and
invisibility.
As a young
man, in the late 1920s or early 1930s, the narrator lived in the South. Because
he is a gifted public speaker, he is invited to give a speech to a group of
important white men in his town. The men reward him with a briefcase containing
a scholarship to a prestigious black college, but only after humiliating him by
forcing him to fight in a “battle royal” in which he is pitted against other
young black men, all blindfolded, in a boxing ring. After the battle royal, the
white men force the youths to scramble over an electrified rug in order to
snatch at fake gold coins. The narrator has a dream that night in which he
imagines that his scholarship is actually a piece of paper reading “To Whom It
May Concern . . . Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.”
Three years
later, the narrator is a student at the college. He is asked to drive a wealthy
white trustee of the college, Mr. Norton, around the campus. Norton talks
incessantly about his daughter, then shows an undue interest in the narrative
of Jim Trueblood, a poor, uneducated black man who impregnated his own
daughter. After hearing this story, Norton needs a drink, and the narrator
takes him to the Golden Day, a saloon and brothel that normally serves black
men. A fight breaks out among a group of mentally imbalanced black veterans at
the bar, and Norton passes out during the chaos. He is tended by one of the
veterans, who claims to be a doctor and who taunts both Norton and the narrator
for their blindness regarding race relations.
Back at the
college, the narrator listens to a long, impassioned sermon by the Reverend
Homer A. Barbee on the subject of the college’s Founder, whom the blind Barbee
glorifies with poetic language. After the sermon, the narrator is chastised by
the college president, Dr. Bledsoe, who has learned of the narrator’s
misadventures with Norton at the old slave quarters and the Golden Day. Bledsoe
rebukes the narrator, saying that he should have shown the white man an
idealized version of black life. He expels the narrator, giving him seven
letters of recommendation addressed to the college’s white trustees in New York
City, and sends him there in search of a job.
The narrator travels
to the bright lights and bustle of 1930s Harlem, where he looks unsuccessfully
for work. The letters of recommendation are of no help. At last, the narrator
goes to the office of one of his letters’ addressees, a trustee named Mr.
Emerson. There he meets Emerson’s son, who opens the letter and tells the
narrator that he has been betrayed: the letters from Bledsoe actually portray
the narrator as dishonorable and unreliable. The young Emerson helps the
narrator to get a low-paying job at the Liberty Paints plant, whose trademark
color is “Optic White.” The narrator briefly serves as an assistant to Lucius
Brockway, the black man who makes this white paint, but Brockway suspects him
of joining in union activities and turns on him. The two men fight, neglecting
the paint-making; consequently, one of the unattended tanks explodes, and the
narrator is knocked unconscious.
The narrator
wakes in the paint factory’s hospital, having temporarily lost his memory and
ability to speak. The white doctors seize the arrival of their unidentified
black patient as an opportunity to conduct electric shock experiments. After
the narrator recovers his memory and leaves the hospital, he collapses on the
street. Some black community members take him to the home of Mary, a kind woman
who lets him live with her for free in Harlem and nurtures his sense of black
heritage. One day, the narrator witnesses the eviction of an elderly black
couple from their Harlem apartment. Standing before the crowd of people
gathered before the apartment, he gives an impassioned speech against the
eviction. Brother Jack overhears his speech and offers him a position as a
spokesman for the Brotherhood, a political organization that allegedly works to
help the socially oppressed. After initially rejecting the offer, the narrator
takes the job in order to pay Mary back for her hospitality. But the
Brotherhood demands that the narrator take a new name, break with his past, and
move to a new apartment. The narrator is inducted into the Brotherhood at a party
at the Chthonian Hotel and is placed in charge of advancing the group’s goals
in Harlem.
After being
trained in rhetoric by a white member of the group named Brother Hambro, the
narrator goes to his assigned branch in Harlem, where he meets the handsome,
intelligent black youth leader Tod Clifton. He also becomes familiar with the
black nationalist leader Ras the Exhorter, who opposes the interracial
Brotherhood and believes that black Americans should fight for their rights
over and against all whites. The narrator delivers speeches and becomes a
high-profile figure in the Brotherhood, and he enjoys his work. One day,
however, he receives an anonymous note warning him to remember his place as a
black man in the Brotherhood. Not long after, the black Brotherhood member
Brother Wrestrum accuses the narrator of trying to use the Brotherhood to
advance a selfish desire for personal distinction. While a committee of the
Brotherhood investigates the charges, the organization moves the narrator to
another post, as an advocate of women’s rights. After giving a speech one
evening, he is seduced by one of the white women at the gathering, who attempts
to use him to play out her sexual fantasies about black men.
After a short
time, the Brotherhood sends the narrator back to Harlem, where he discovers
that Clifton has disappeared. Many other black members have left the group, as
much of the Harlem community feels that the Brotherhood has betrayed their
interests. The narrator finds Clifton on the street selling dancing “Sambo”
dolls—dolls that invoke the stereotype of the lazy and obsequious slave.
Clifton apparently does not have a permit to sell his wares on the street.
White policemen accost him and, after a scuffle, shoot him dead as the narrator
and others look on. On his own initiative, the narrator holds a funeral for
Clifton and gives a speech in which he portrays his dead friend as a hero,
galvanizing public sentiment in Clifton’s favor. The Brotherhood is furious
with him for staging the funeral without permission, and Jack harshly
castigates him. As Jack rants about the Brotherhood’s ideological stance, a
glass eye falls from one of his eye sockets. The Brotherhood sends the narrator
back to Brother Hambro to learn about the organization’s new strategies in Harlem.
The narrator
leaves feeling furious and anxious to gain revenge on Jack and the Brotherhood.
He arrives in Harlem to find the neighborhood in ever-increased agitation over
race relations. Ras confronts him, deploring the Brotherhood’s failure to draw
on the momentum generated by Clifton’s funeral. Ras sends his men to beat up
the narrator, and the narrator is forced to disguise himself in dark glasses
and a hat. In his dark glasses, many people on the streets mistake him for
someone named Rinehart, who seems to be a pimp, bookie, lover, and reverend all
at once. At last, the narrator goes to Brother Hambro’s apartment, where Hambro
tells him that the Brotherhood has chosen not to emphasize Harlem and the black
movement. He cynically declares that people are merely tools and that the
larger interests of the Brotherhood are more important than any individual.
Recalling advice given to him by his grandfather, the narrator determines to
undermine the Brotherhood by seeming to go along with them completely. He
decides to flatter and seduce a woman close to one of the party leaders in
order to obtain secret information about the group.
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ReplyDeletesomehow very interesting
ReplyDeletefor the overview of the text.......