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Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II
African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Christopher Z. Hobson
While Invisible Man's social vision extends beyond these specifics, it is rooted in and can only be fully understood in terms of them. Ellison's first intention for the novel, according to Jackson, was to write "an allegory of black American life that would resonate chiefly in the realm of politics" (Ralph Ellison 334). Much of this intention remains in the final text. Specifically, the novel's Harlem sections, implicitly set during the 1930s and World War II, portray its protagonist's political education and transition between political philosophies. (7) Here Ellison describes distinct phases in the work of his fictitious radical organization, the Brotherhood, that knowledgeable readers would associate with shifts in the work of the Communist Party during those years, and he incorporates other elements of plot, description, and atmosphere that reflect the evolution of many African American leftists away from the Communists and toward independent radicalism during the war. (8) These aspects of Invisible Man, especially the latter, give the novel's second half its specific focus, tone, and overt sociopolitical content.
Though the latter development is ultimately crucial for the protagonist's outlook, Ellison's portrayal of the Brotherhood provides its point of departure. The Harlem chapters sketch three periods in the organization's work. In the first (chaps. 13-16) the Brotherhood is pursuing an initial change in orientation, against semifactional resistance, from a more theoretical to a more popular style of agitation. Here, for example, we see Jack flatter the protagonist by contrast with Brotherhood speakers: "With a few words you have involved them in action! Others would have still been wasting time with empty verbiage" (289). Jack and others speak of the need for new methods in "the coming period" and excoriate "sideline theoreticians" (311, 351). The heyday of the new orientation (chaps. 17-18) is a period of increased presence in Harlem, mass actions, popularization of the Brotherhood's message, and alliances with community leaders: the organization challenges Ras's nationalist grouping for influence in the streets, conducts a march to City Hall, and creates a multiracial "Rainbow" poster that, Brother Tarp testifies, Harlemites "[tack] to their walls 'long with 'God Bless Our Home' and the Lord's Prayer" (367-77, 379-80, 385-86). Finally the leaders engineer a second reorientation (chaps. 20-23) in which they downgrade Harlem work in response to "a new program which had called for shelving our old techniques of agitation. There was, to [the protagonist's] surprise, a switch in emphasis from local issues to those more national and international in scope, and it was felt that for the moment, the interests of Harlem were not of first importance" (428-29). As Brother Hambro elaborates, "We are making temporary alliances with other political groups and the interests of one group of brothers must be sacrificed to that of the whole" (501-02).
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