Ralph Ellisons Protests Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Ralph Ellisons Protests It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by the tape recording of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity - W.E.B. DuBois, 1903 When discussing a text that is placed firmly into an accepted category of ethnicity, it seems reasonable to look for allegories, tropes, and symbols that hark back to the ancestral texts of that groups literary canon. Like a golden cord that catches the eye as it pokes up between the warp and woof of words, tradition knowledge can be traced from the earliest texts, causing a student to point to the page and say, The trope of the mask whereupon notes are scribbled in the margin and the shape of the text, how it fits into the giant picture of categorization, begins to take form. African-American literature has a enough tradition that exemplifies this concept From Equiano and Harriot Jacobs slave narrat ives to Nella Larsen and James Wheldon Johnsons passing from Phyllis Wheatley and Countee Cullens solemn classical poetic forms to the smooth anger of the 1960s Black Arts movement, the universal thread of discord and displacement influence the overall design of African-American literature. Then there is camouflaged Man. One of the most celebrated texts in African-American literature, Invisible Man has been interpreted as relying heavily on African-American folk tradition for its deep, rich resonance. But in essays about literature and the folly of literary critics, Ellison defends Invisible Man against simple categorization. It is more than a pitch blackness coming-of-age tale, more than a Negro picaresque psychological travelogue, and m... ...allow anyone to gloss over the distinction. Works Cited Callahan, John F., intro. Reflections out of season on race, identity and art. American Culture is of a Whole from the letter of Ralph Ellison. The radical Republic. 1 Ma rch 1999. DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folks. Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Ed. Henry Gates, Jr. New York Norton. 1997. 514. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. 1947. New York Vintage. 1995. ---. Shadow and Act. 1953. Slip the Joke, Change the Yolk. Twentieth-Century fictionalisation and the Black Mask of Humanity. The World and the Jug. New York Vintage. 1964. Howe, Irving. Black Boys and Native Sons. A World More Attractive A View of Modern Literature and Politics. New York Horizon. 1963. Hyman, Stanley Edgar. The Promised End Essays and Reviews 1942-1962. Cleveland World. 1963.