Masked Stories
During our
discussion of Invisible Man, we have
run into the recurring theme of a mask. In the beginning, our narrator is in a
battle arena where his eyes are covered with a white blind fold. The blind fold
represents how our narrator believes that what the white man says or does is
the righteous path. However, we see in the prologue that this “mask” is removed
to reveal a character that is strikingly different from the one presented in
the beginning of the book. We again see the mask in a more obvious way when the
narrator’s grandfather is on his deathbed. He advises to have a mask when
dealing with white folk but always have your own intensions.
Towards our more recent reading, we
notice the Dr. Bledsoe has this same attitude. Our narrator is startled by this
after believing in a certain white-people-pleasing persona. Dr. Bledsoe makes a
point to say that he secretly controls white people, they just don’t know it.
We may believe that this is the unmasked Dr. Bledsoe but we now know that Dr.
Bledsoe had different intensions for our narrator than those he presented in
his “unmasked” state. We see that in the letters addressed to potential
employers, Dr. Bledsoe makes it clear that our narrator must never return to
the college for he has committed a crime so unspeakable that it brings shame to
the entire black race.
In class, we have been talking about
how our narrator is so naïve that he doesn’t know how to portray this
advertised persona. However, I believe that our narrator does portray a
different version of a mask. During his interactions with white people our
narrator is very reserved and respectable, he doesn’t say what is on his mind.
Some would argue that that is common sense, but I believe that it is still a
form of a “mask.” This is justified when Mr. Emerson Jr. asks for their
interaction to be frank. Our narrator doesn’t understand this. I don’t believe
we have heard him speak what is on his mind to any of the characters. In a
sense, this is like an innate mask that has yet to be developed.
In the Invisible Man, there is a
strong theme of the mask, but this is also the case in Native Son. Bigger is forced to wear a mask (much like Dr. Bledsoe
does) after he murders Mary. In the beginning of the post-murder part of the
novel, Bigger is able to manipulate the situation while still presenting a
white-pleasing persona. This is something our narrator is too naïve to
understand however we will see how his attitude changes in response to Dr.
Bledsoe’s letters.
Great post! I definitely agree with what you say about the reoccurring theme of the mask, even in native son. However I don't really feel like Bigger was really in control of his situation even when he just playing along with a white pleasing persona. I do believe however that while this does present a slightly different version of the mask it is still an African American person being forced to try and please whites even if he doesn't want to.
ReplyDeleteAs Izzy said, I don't know if the mask Bigger wears is to please the whites but secretly hold an agenda. Bigger seems to also want to appease the whites, but just to save his skin and scrape by. He has no real focused agenda in defying the whites. He had wanted to stay mostly separate from the whites until he got the job and Mary dragged him around until her death. Your points about Invisible Man do still stand.
ReplyDeleteI feel like in the early chapters of Invisible Man, the narrator doesn't even think about things underneath the surface to say back to Norton and the white authorities in the South. Although it's sad to say, I don't see the narrator as a character with a mask in the early chapters. Pretty much everything he says, including sucking up to Norton and other white authorities is 100% him. I mean this is the same guy who wouldn't even dare call Bledsoe "Buckethead". With Native Son, I think Bigger in a similar way Bigger isn't exactly masked, either. Bigger isn't really self-aware for most of the book, and the most under the surface sort of thinking Bigger does is when he gets frustrated at Mary for being different from the other whites. Bigger just wants to get by, he doesn't have an ambitious ulterior motive in the same vein as Bledsoe.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of how common the mask imagery is in the book. And it's weird to think about what exactly it means to wear a mask. Does it always imply that there is an agenda underneath the mask, or does it just mean the mask is there for display, showing what people want to see? Because the narrator may, to a certain extent just be mindlessly following orders, but it's true that he does think things that seem to subvert what he shows. But in that sense, doesn't everyone wear some form of a mask? Anyways, good post!
ReplyDeleteNice post! If I could add on, I think the Narrator doesn't really have a mask until Emerson makes him read the letter since, before that moment, he would think the same way he would act towards white/powerful people: in awe and admiration. However after reading the letter, I think he starts to develop a mask and we are witnessing that development.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Nina! I would agree with Ayah in that as the people around the narrator are wearing their masks, he’s the one oblivious to the masquerade ball around him. However, when we get to his time in Harlem, the narrator is forced to make his own mask and make his way through the system.
ReplyDeleteThis is a cool post! I kind of agree that he seemed to be using a mask the whole time he was interacting with white people in the book. I think someone said this in class before me but I can't remember who (sorry), but it just seems like in the earlier chapters of the book there's nothing underneath the mask. The system that raised him created him that way. Later in the book he seems to start developing something underneath the mask, and this is where his methods start to resemble Bigger's way of interacting with white people more. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThis idea of Bledsoe and the grandfather wearing the mask made me think of the poem, We Wear the Mask, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The mask that Dunbar describes is one that hides the turmoil that's happening within and shows a smile and lies. Unfortunately Dunbar describes a person only in pain, while Bledsoe is playing the white race by having an ignorant and docile facade. Cool post.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that Ellison is directly alluding to that poem when he describes Bledsoe putting on his "mask" before going in to Dalton--even if "pain" is less apparent in his case than rage and indignation. But the idea of a compromise, of a true self being hidden by a mask in order to placate the powerful, is the same. And, just like Emerson, the narrator clearly hasn't gotten to Dunbar yet in his studies, as he seems blown away by the very existence of the "mask."
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