January+4-Chapter+Two+of+Invisible+Man-Lexie+S

For Your Entertainment  Stripper and Chapter Two Discussion Lexie Sparrow, January 6th, 2011 In the beginning of class, we decided to take a step back and look into more detail into the stripper scene in chapter one (pg 19). The question that fueled this discussion was:
 * Chapter 1**

**Why **Ellison ** describes the stripper in the manor he does in //Invisible Man//? ** 1. Can show how the Invisible man is conflicted. I quote that expresses how the Invisible man feels the urge to look, but tries to keep his eyes away is when he says “Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself.” (pg 19). He knew he shouldn't have been participating in this because of society reasons, and still he can't stop watching.

2. The stripper also symbolizes the **boundary between black and white people.**

3.During this time period, there was the racist idea that you can’t love a person with a different color skin. In this time period white woman were an object of beauty,  but men of color can’t obtain the white women. The ides of killing, spitting, and overall lust from the Invisible man is the reaction to the racism!  He is being **devalued.** He doesn’t even know he is reacting to it.

Very Important in the Beginning of Invisible Man- Make sure while reading in the Invisible Man that you notice that IM's has reactions to being oppressed, but then doesn’t give them a second thought. He suppresses all of his ideas of being devalued by racism. Hmmmm this sounds familiar maybe it's familiar because you can sense...

 A CONNECTION 

The conntection is back to the grandfather's curse . The IM squelching his feelings of oppression was exactly what his grandfather did all his life, and told the IM not to do with his! Make sure to be on the lookout for reoccurring symbols and connections.


 * Chapter 2**

The first question that came up was: What is the significance of Norton giving Trueblood the $100 at the end of his story?

<span style="color: #ef1232; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The white people are now using Trueblood as their form of <span style="color: #00ffff; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">entertainment <span style="color: #ef1232; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> like in Chapter one, when the white men in the smoker used the black men in boxing ring. And now the white community is doing the same thing with Trueblood. Indeed the whites do believe that the incest that Trueblood has committed is disgusting, but they are keeping him around because it makes all stereotypes of black people seem <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 180%;">real <span style="color: #ef1232; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">. With Trueblood around it makes the white people look more <span style="color: #ccef12; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">superior <span style="color: #ef1232; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 300%;">But Why? What is Ellison trying to do?


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ellison is trying to show us how the white people manipulate disturbing mistakes that black people do, in order to show that the whites seem higher in status. **

BACK TO THE READING -> This brings us to the revelation that Norton indeed is a racist.

In many ways from this reading, we realize that even when the IM seems to believe that he is verging an equal status with white, there is always a factor that comes into to play, that always shows the IM his "rightful" place in society.

<span style="color: #00ff00; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 310%; text-align: center;">A Connection to the Real World <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">If you think about it, this idea of keeping certain things in our life for pure entertainment happens almost everyday. I am sure that everyone has once compared themselves to a person who has had a taboo moment just to make themselves feel superior or better. This idea is not so foreign specially to teenager. I am sure that everyone reading this can think of a moment where they have picked on another individual mistakes and flaws. You can probably think of multiple. Then I started to think about how much society, has caused this issue to be the social-norm. Because of the societies before we have been subconsciously trained to make ourselves feel higher, while devaluing some else. So, basically just want to write a basic rule, that Mr. Manning said once in an all-school meeting. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Be Nice. Treat people they way you want to be treated. I know this idea of comparing yourself to others to gain a sense of higher quality is not just easily going to vanish. Just take one step at a time, and with every nice gesture, maybe generations after us will put an end to this concept that is so visible throughout the //Invisible Man//.

And the next scribe is Sam Raphael...