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"A slightly different sense of time": palimpsestic time in Invisible Man
Twentieth Century Literature, Fall, 2003 by Marc Singer
Ironically, given Ellison's critique of Marxist and Hegelian modes of history, the Invisible Man learns to comprehend time by means of a dialectical process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis much like the Marxist model Ellison rejects. However, the Invisible Man's dialectical education differs substantially from the metaphorical dialectics advocated by the Brotherhood. The Invisible Man's temporal consciousness does develop through the interplay of antithetical models of time, despite Ellison's derisive characterizations of such dialectics as Jack's "double talk" (290) or Hambro's "antiphonal game" (501). This development, however, evades the deterministic imperative of the Brotherhood's historiography, thus avoiding the teleological aspect of Marxist theory that Ellison directly associates with mechanization and oppression. Similarly, while the novel indicates that traces of the past constantly resurface in the present, Ellison's representations of this resurgence--the palimpsest and the accelerated modernity articulated in "Harlem Is Nowhere"--do not mandate that all time should follow a pattern of cyclical repetition; indeed, they suggest that what might appear to be a repetition is instead a continuity between past and present. Invisible Man does not reject all dialectics, simply that version of dialectical history that Ellison attributes to the Brotherhood. (8)
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Clifton's leap
If Brother Tarp first plants the idea that the Brotherhood's view of history is flawed, then Tod Clifton nourishes it until the Invisible Man can think of little else. Clifton perceives the more sinister implications of the Brotherhood's philosophy earlier than the Invisible Man does, confiding in him, "I suppose sometimes a man has to plunge outside history" (377) in order to escape its influence. When Clifton later satirizes the Brotherhood's deterministic theories with his sale of the dancing Sambo dolls, the astonished Invisible Man calls his ironic protest a "plunge" and a "fall outside of history" (435, 434; Ellison's emphasis), later extending the plunge to include Clifton's death as well (439).
That death ultimately frees the Invisible Man's historical consciousness from the Brotherhood's narrow parameters. The Invisible Man's skepticism begins with his realization that history "is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are put down, those lies his keepers keep their power by" (439). In other words, he acknowledges that history is not an impartial, scientific process but a selective record maintained by institutions to preserve their power and authority. His contempt for this official history increases as he watches three young black men on the subway, men who are "outside of historical time" not only because they play no role in the Brotherhood's plans but also because they "didn't believe in Brotherhood, no doubt had never heard of it; or perhaps like Clifton would mysteriously have rejected its mysteries" (440). Robert G. O'Meally suggests that these three young men are representatives of
