Preparing for the AP with Invisible Man

As the reading of Invisible Man continues, one can identify different uses of syntax. When the invisible man takes Mr. Norton through the old log cabins and they talk to Mr. Trueblood, when Trueblood speaks, his words are different. Instead of writing “before they heard about what happened", the author writes " 'Fore they heard 'bout what happenen" (pg 52). By using this syntax the author highlights Truebloods lower status and gives him the characterization of a southern accent. It gives the reader an idea of the difference in social classes involved in the novel and how the character of the invisible man is considered above the other characters because he speaks correctly. Here one can see a difference in decorum. Trueblood’s story goes according to his social station as well as Mr. Norton who is nothing but appalled by the story.

Invisible Man

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is our next (and final) book before the Ap Exam. I have gotten to the end of chapter one and up to now, it’s pretty good. The writer uses an informal register and the tone is nonchalant up to now. The narrator is in first person and from what I have understood, is an African American living in the South in a place called Greenwood when he was “visible” and when he became invisible, relocated to New York.

The narrator’s diction is highlights that he is smart. When he gives the speech in front of the white men he is described as knowing “more big words than a pocket sized dictionary”, and he holds true to this by using words like extol and social responsibility. Maybe the words are not that “big” for the reader but to the rest of the characters he delivers his speech to, it is.

The syntax varies between the characters. The invisible man narrates clearly and when giving his speech, the order of the words is normal. The rest of the characters are also written out in this way but their diction is more vulgar because of the use of bad words and derogatory terms. The narrator must be have been given this diction to put him in a higher pedestal than the rest. Maybe showing his mental superiority and a distinction between what the author implies as good or bad.

The author used personification in the prologue when talking about death after beating up the man that insulted the invisible man: “Would Death himself have freed him for wakeful living?”(pg 5) This adds to the idea that to be awakened from such a nightmare of fighting something he couldn’t see, death, which is the ultimate slumber, would have been the one to awaken him. This kind of makes me question if the character will keep on bringing death because the personification stood out.

I think it is safe to assume that a theme in this novel will be racism. When the character brought up social equality and social responsibility in his speech, the other characters (who are white) reacted badly. As well during the whole first chapter the derogatory term “nigger” was used multiple times. It seems that this poses a challenge for the main character but he seems to have a lot of pull to keep pushing forward. Yet, having read the prologue, the reader questions what happened to the young man who was so bent on giving his speech but then turns into a man who is invisible and lives in a hole.

Hamlet: Theater Festival

Swimming Towards Freedom

In the end of the awakening, Mrs. Pontelier commits suicide. It's ironic that she does this in the place where she was first awakened because this is where she saw everything with new eyes and now, she is shutting them forever. Her awakening brought her to this decision because she was able to open her eyes to the reality of the society she lived in.

Mrs. Pontelier goes back to Grand Isle and there she decides to go for a swim but she prematurely knew this would be her last swim. She begins by describing in page 213 how "the sea is sensuous, enclosing the body in its soft close embrace", and with this we can imply that the fear she had at the beginning of the sea is completely gone. In this case she is not afraid of the unknown and welcomes the sea as an escape of what she does know. The sea is where she first realizes that everything she does know is not letting her live life to the fullest and she embraces the freedom that death will bring her.

Her mind at this moment is not about coming back to the shore, since that is where everything that keeps her trapped is, she is swimming out to escape it. She realizes that while it was expected that her duties to her husband and her children should be her top priority, she doesn't want them to posses her. She feels these duties have possessed her “mind body and soul" and the only way she feels she can complexly escape this is by swimming out far enough to reach a point where she will be untouchable in any of these aspects.

In the last page of the novella, Mrs. Pontelier is already growing tiered of swimming and realizes that no one would have understood her. She recalls Roberts’s letter and she realizes that even though they loved each other he wouldn't understand the woman she had become. That’s why Robert went away and didn’t wait for her. He wanted to stick to what was right in the society Mrs. Pontelier had learned to defy and he wasn’t going to it with her. It's interesting that she thought the doctor might have understood and this is probably because he is the only one that saw she had changed. He seemed to think she might do something like this but her mind was already made up by then and anyway" the shore was far behind her and her strength was gone." By saying this she acknowledges that what is on the shore would have just tried to reel her back into whom she used to be before her awakening and she rather die than go back.

The last paragraph is about Edna returning to a time when she was free. She recalls the memories of her Childhood and the people in itand this seems like the idea that our life flashes before us before we die and we remember the good times. It's interesting that she recalls these things rather than her husband and children. This demonstrates once again that they really are what ties her and holds her back. She pictures her childhood because it was back before she had a husband and children that she felt happy. Instead of describing the drowning of Mrs. Pontelier, Chopin chooses to mix it with her memories to go back to a happier time when Mrs. Pontelier didn't belong to anyone. At the beginning of this paragraph the terror Mrs. Pontelier felt towards the water comes back for one second but it quickly goes away. There is a little bit of fear towards death but it is also what will make Mrs. Pontelier free and freedom is what she decides for herself. This was all her choice and for once she is not expected to consider others in her decision and that is why her death was in a sense imminent from the beginning, it is the last decision a person can make for themselves since we choose to either stay in the shore or swim out and face our fears.

Two Is Better Than One

Blogging In My Jamies (and My Cat)

It’s Just PMS (In Fancier Language)

How would anyone react if their husband or wife thought they were crazy? It’s understandable for anyone to think you are crazy if you are actually doing something really off but cancelling you Tuesday meetings and letting the “keeping go to the dickens”, is not really a mental disease in my book. Mr. Pontelier goes to visit the family physician in hope of an explanation for his wife’s weird attitude and off behavior. It’s kind of weird that someone would go to the doctor when their wife is just not catering to their every need and in modern times this would be an extreme, but in the times of The Awakening, I guess Mr. Ponteliers concern is understandable.

We can look at Mr. Pontelier in two ways; one is that he is a close minded fool who just cares for his home to be run smoothly or a man who is really concerned about his wife. His only arguments are that she is not acting like a woman of the time. The physician gets really concerned when Mr. Pontelier mentions that Mrs. Pontelier is mentioning the eternal rights of women and mentions a circle of pseudo-intellectual women. Nr. Pontelier dismisses the idea but it is still appalling that they would find it appalling that there is talk about this. The tone when the physician mentions these women makes them sound malicious. The idea of people coming together to talk about the rights of women scares these two characters and as a woman, it feels as if there is no way out. That really caught my attention in this part and in a sense, let me put myself in Mrs. Ponteliers shoes. The fact that it is so wrong for you to want more for yourself and always being shut down is aggravating to me.

I give props to the physician for his advice of letting her be. He understands what a woman is like when he describes us as “a very peculiar and delicate organism” as well as saying that “most women are moody and whimsical”. Hell, I am both of those things. As a reader this just makes me think that what Mrs. Pontelier is going through is really just a phase, kind of like PMSing. And if her husband was being on top of her all the time maybe what she is trying to do is just show him that, just like he has his man space, she needs her woman space. Its unfair that when a guy does something its ok but when a woman does this, it isn’t. I think these are all the emotions Chopin wants to take out of her readers. That feminist feeling that makes us feel sick sometimes and makes others think we are crazy.

*Idiosyncrasies: a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an individual.