Content provided in partnership with

Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II

African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Christopher Z. Hobson

<< Page 1 Continued from page 5. Previous | Next

Ellison predicts, "The moment that I begin to speak and write like a man they'll use all their energy to jam me off the airways, because, like you, I'll be speaking on the wavelength of the human heart"--a reference to the closing paragraphs of Wright's "I Tried to Be a Communist" (Ellison, Letters, 18 Aug. 1945). (16)

More Articles of Interest: John F. Callahan, ed. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: A Casebook; Ralph Ellison's invisible man: invisibility, race, and homoeroticism from...; Eloquence and Invisible Man; The critical response to Ralph Ellison. - book review; Masquerade, magic, and carnival in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man - Critical...

Ellison may also have been influenced by contact with the Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James, whose biographer, Kent Worcester, states that in 1942-44 "Constance [Webb, later James's wife] and C. L. R. spent a great deal of time in the company of the ex-Communist author [Wright] and his wife, Ellen. The Wrights introduced Constance and her future spouse to ... sociologists Horace Cayton and St. Clair Drake, [future] novelists Ralph Ellison and Chester Himes, and others such as ... E. Franklin Frazier" (75). James, a figure of striking intellect and personal presence who was then an unorthodox Trotskyist, had already worked out some conceptions that might have appealed to Ellison, notably that the African American movement was not to be taken in tow by the trade union or socialist movements but was itself an independent factor in the struggle for socialism. He was beginning to develop the ideas for which he was later best known, notably that expressed in a 1948 document: "Organization as we have known it is at an end.... The task today is to call for, to teach, to illustrate, to develop spontaneity--the free creative activity of the proletariat. The proletariat will find its own method of proletarian organization" (117). Wright was familiar with James's ideas on the African American movement and tried to involve him and perhaps Ellison in abortive editorial projects in 1944-45; Ellison had some acquaintance with James through Wright for several years. (17)

In Invisible Man, the close of chapter 23, all of chapter 24, and the first part of chapter 25 reflect a transient viewpoint with some similarity to Wright's and James's. In these sections Ellison's protagonist moves rapidly from an aim of undermining the Brotherhood from within or without to one of seeking independent revolutionary possibilities in spontaneously-organized mass action--the gamut of tactics adopted by leftist critics of the Communist Party. On the night of Tod Clifton's funeral the protagonist returns to his apartment resolved to oppose the Brotherhood but seeing "no possibility of organizing a splinter movement.... There were no allies with whom we could join as equals ... we had no money, no intelligence apparatus ... and no communications with our own people except through unsympathetic newspapers, a few Pullman porters[,]" and the like (510-11). The protagonist appears to be broaching but dismissing the idea of organizing a left oppositional group to the Brotherhood and building support among African American workers. Instead, following his unsuccessful attempt to glean inside information from Sybil (chap. 24), he finds himself in Harlem, falling in with a group of men who have joined the riot-rebellion that is in progress (chap. 25). (18) It is the third night since Clifton's funeral. As this group and others exchange shots with the police, loot white-owned stores, and methodically evacuate and set fire to a tenement, the protagonist is more and more impressed with their determination and improvised organization. The group's leader seems "a type of man nothing in my life had taught me to see," and as the men work they are "like moles deep in the earth" (547-48)--a reference to Marx's paraphrase of Shakespeare, "Well grubbed, old mole," to describe the undermining of the old society. (19) As the flames shoot up, the protagonist is "seized with a fierce sense of exaltation. They've done it, I thought. They organized it and carried it through alone; the decision their own and their own action. Capable of their own action ..." (548). The phrases echo the Jamesian idea that spontaneously organized mass action can bypass vanguardist organizations and strike an effective blow against oppression. (20)

Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II

African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Christopher Z. Hobson

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Business

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference