A Doctor and a little bit of craizyness

We find the narrator to loose consciousness with a doctor several times throughout Chapter 11, after he lost it in the previous chapter when he falls on top of machinery and stinking goo. He can't remember why he is the hospital and hears the cry of a woman in pain.

Afterwards they discuss about what they can do to him in regards to either continue to electrify him in a chair (ouch!) and others argue that they shouldn't be doing that to a university graduate. I'm not sure if the picture above has some relation to what was happening in the Invisible Man at the time, but it's certainly an interesting connection. They then realize that the electric shock would have the effect of a lobotomy, and that it would be better for the narrator to go ahead and electrify him. Someone else suggest to castrate him (why?) and as he gets shocked, one doctor sees how he moves and notes that ''they really do have rhythm''. Apparently, R&B had African Americans stereotyped with the rhythm and dance idea.

The doctor asks a couple of question to the narrator, who has serious trouble in answering them, and well they go on to mention Brer Rabbit, character of a Walt Disney film, Song of the South, which curiously hasn't been released in DVD or in television since the 80's, due to the fact that the movie took place at the time of Slavery in the south, and well you know some Disney executives consider the movie as ''politically incorect'' and ''racist''.

Is it me or does the book have to many references to African American social and historical issues?
Anyway if you want to see Song of the South, the movie is in Youtube.

The Romantics

''To promise to love the same woman forever is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry''- Percy Bisshe Shelley

This particular phrase that was spoken in clip of the BBC documentary of the Romantics,is one of the most interesting statements done by one of the Romantic poets who lived in London in the early 20th century, particularly set in the time period after World War I. Their view of a secular way of finding meaning to life, without God present, was one of the main topics of the documentary. Also, according to the documentary, these writers had an influence over the modern world, and show John Lennon, as one of the famous celebrities that were influenced by these writers. I'm not sure if it has to do with John Lennon's ''Imagine'' song, or if he was inspired by those poets to write the song. Niether am I sure if John Lennon was atheist, but that I guess is not really important.

What caught mostly my attention was about how these poets, who were atheists, seeked to find a quest of immortality, mostly by wanting to be remembered forever. This idea brought back to me a flashback of a conversation I had with a friend of mine back in 8th grade, who left that same year. He was also an atheist like these poets, and the main point of his conversation was about being remembered forever. I used to tell him that my life was pointed towards the direction of following my father's footsteps, and he said ''well yeah but in 100 years nobody is going to remember you'' and I said, do what? I don't really care about that, I mean, I have never cared about my personal fame or my popularity. He pointed out that he wanted to be remembered forever, just like these guys wanted to. Again, I'm not exactly sure if their is a connection or just a coincidence.

Forms of Extreme Inbreeding and Forms of Music I Hate

In all of the years that I have spent looking at pedigrees and family trees of various American and Canadian brood-cow families and Holstein Artificial Insemination bulls, none I think, have such a tremendous inbreeding as the one I saw on the book the Invisible Man, with one of the secondary characters, Trueblood, who ended up having his own daughter pregnant WITH HIM AS FATHER.
Heck, I don't think that even the mighty Round-Oak Rag Apple Elevation, (see here and here)had such a tremendous inbreeding as this!!

I guess that a great deal of what we see here, is the symbolism of the degeneration that many African Americans went through, both morally and ethically, due to the fact that they were discriminated for such a long period of time. This degeneration is something that is very present in American culture today, and I don't think its going away any time soon, particularly due to the excessive popularity that Hip Hop has today throughout the world (see this). Not to mention that these kinds of scenes like the ones in the Invisible Man, are common themes to several rap songs, clearly an influence marked by this time period and by previous ones. Quite frankly, I have never understood why people like it so much especially those songs whose lyrics are so degenerative, and I have grown to despise the genre after all these years. Country will always make my day, rap will always ruin it.

Anyway, backing from a hot topic that many will disagree, the story relates back to a statue of Booker T. Washington, one of the famous African American writers who had influence back in the early 20th, century, its easy to deduce that the story takes place in none other than Tuskegee, Alabama, city were Lionel Richie was born and the Tuskegee Airmen formed in World War II. The Invisible Man picks up just after the events of the latter and ends up telling a story precurssor to the Civil Rights Movement. It will be interesting to see how the story of the Invisible Man, has more relations to the history of African Americans.

Remembering the Civil Rights

Next year, it will be 50 years since the famous speech of ''I Have a Dream'' was delivered by Martin Luther King on Washington DC. 13 years before this event occurred, the novel of the Invisible Man, was released, and takes place as a central piece the racism that took place prior to the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. Particularly at the beginning of the novel, we see various stunning similarities with what would take place just a decade later. The scene in which the narrator gets in a fight with a group of white guys in a stripper place apparently, strikes as a foreshadowing of what was coming.

At first obviously, the narrator is faced with a common fight that made up the life of the United States, back when racism was far more present in the face of the African American and the White ethnicities. After getting severely beated up to the point that he as blood coming out of his lip, Our narrator is faced up with one choice, and that is to defend himself through speech. Curiously by the end, he seems to have gained respect from the crowd that beated him up in the first place and is congartulated.

This same technique that the narrator of the Invisible Man did at first, is something that curiously is seen again, but well in real life, as a way that African Americans protested for the rights they deserved to have ever since the Civil War had ended a century prior. And this time it worked to be praised by the US at the time, and change history forever. How would know this novel was kind of a premonition of what was about to come?

I'm the Invisible Man

Well, besides the fact that Queen's drummer got the inspiration to do the Invisible Man song after he read the book by Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man, takes off in the beginning of the book, explaining why he considers himself an Invisible Man:

''I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids-and I might even be said to posses a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.''Pg. 3

So, here we understand that this main character, has probably either been discriminated off some sort, which made him become ''invisible'' to a lot of people who refused to see him. We see also, as we read back, how the main character goes back to see and reflect some of the important moments in his life. One of them, proves to be the last words his grandfather told him before he died, which not even the protagonist understands exactly what it means:

''Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction.'' Pg. 16

We still don't know exactly where all of this is going, but this book has been the most interesting one we have read so far.

Transformation

This video is broken into two parts. Sorry for the nervousness, it's first time!

Sleepy!!

Someone seems to feel drowsy and troubled in the middle of church service. And no, it's not Mr. Bean!:

''A feeling of oppression and drowsiness overcame Edna during the service. Her head began to ache, and the lights on the altar swayed before her eyes. Another time she might have made an effort to regain her composure ; but her one thought was to quit the stifling atmosphere of the church and reach the open air.'' (Chapter XIII, Pg 74)

We see in this passage, how something as simple as having the feeling of sleepiness or drowsiness in church, which can happen to anyone really, is turned into a very detailed and complex imagery situation. At the moment she feels that she has to do something she would not normally do, and that is exit the church to get open air.

The way that Kate Chopin manages to describe this very simple scenes into very complex and detailed, is something that I am kind of used to seeing, particularly with all the stories my grandma tells. I'm not sure why my grandmother became a writer, but well, apparently, Kate Chopin did take her talents to some use.