What if he wanted to sing though?
The
novels Invisible Man and Native Son are seemingly written in
conversation. Scenes throughout Invisible
Man feel like responses to the events and ideas of Native Son. One example which is most obviously a response to Native Son, however, and one which we
discussed in class, was the narrator’s meeting with the brotherhood.
In Native Son, when Bigger is in the car with
Jan and Mary, they ask him to sing “his people’s” songs and talk about how “his
people” love singing. The scene is extremely uncomfortable, especially for
modern readers. Ellison’s scene is almost the inverse of this. When someone in
the brotherhood asks the narrator to sing, and insists that, “all colored
people sing,” he is carried off, and they apologize profusely for his behavior.
However, the narrator is still left wondering how the “asking someone to sing”
dynamic works between the races.
These two scenes contrast the reactions to asking a
black person to sing a spiritual. On one hand, it can feel patronizing and
uncomfortable, as shown in the scene with Jan and Mary. On the other hand, the
policy of “never ask a black man to sing” seems limiting in a different way. As
“race-blind” as the brotherhood tries to be, the singing incident shows one way
in which they are not. They want the narrator to commit to not being a
stereotype, and he can therefore never be asked to sing, eat a yam, or stay in
touch with his family down south, even if he really wants to.
I completely agree with you that the novels seem to be written in response to eachother. One thing that stood out to me in both situations, is that the white people asking the narrator/Bigger to sing did not seem to see them as "people", if that makes sense. In both moments, the white people only saw the black characters for their race, nothing else. Even during the moment in Invisible Man where it seems like the brotherhood is "post racial" by saying you should never ask a black man to sing (which inherantly seems to already dehumanize the narrator/ black people as ALL people can sing) (side note: I am sure this some how connects to minstrel shows, but because of my limited knowledge of them, that is all I will say) , they are seeing him only as his race, and frankly the stereotypes that go along with it. This is more evident by one of the white people saying something around the lines of, "not that your people are not amazing at singing". Confirming the stereotype of black men, while attempting to not default to it. Just a thought :)
ReplyDeleteJan & Mary and the brother asking Bigger and the narrator to sing is really uncomfortable. To add on to when the narrator was asked to sing, Jack got super upset and kept saying "the brother doesn't sing". What's upsetting about that is that they didn't let the narrator say anything even though he should be, they both talk over him and about how he should act/feel without letting him have any input. I like how you mention that the Brotherhood want the narrator to commit to not being a stereotype, but they twist it so that the narrator has to commit to their mold. Also both Jan & Mary and the Brotherhood claim to look past race, when they don't really.
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