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Three Books Within the conceptual framework of this research, we will be elaborating on three outstanding social novels The Invisible Man, Sula and Another Country. I call those novels social because they describe different social issues and attempt to convey certain messages to the general public. The authors of those three works illustrate what being different means to people and to society at large. By discussing those novels, we will see how hard it actually is to be different. The characters in the novel at issue are in a way fighting to achieve compatibility with the rest of the society, and become not similar with this society, but at least accepted by it. Of all the major characters discussed from the three books at issue, none is able to achieve this compatibility.
The novel, The Invisible Man, by Ellison, is a great example of how many secondary characters use invisible man like a doll. The invisible man has no real control over his life and his decisions throughout most of the novel. It is only when a companion and colleague selling ridiculous dolls on the street is it seen how closely related invisible man is to the doll. The invisible man plays the doll to more than one person in the novel, he plays this doll character for the others in the story, but they often do not realize that they are controlled, that they are someone elses manikin, until they are way in over their heads. Also, in some situations white people will be manipulated by black people in much the same way that white people manipulate black. This inconvenient position many times leads to an uncontrollable disaster.
The Invisible Man begins in a large gathering of men where he is to be put on display by reading a speech which he had written. There only to read his speech, he becomes quite confounded as to why he is now forced to participate in a fighting event against other younger people. He performs to his best ability to find that it is only for the amusement of the white executives. He is not amused. Of all the boys there, he was the most educated amongst them, and yet he played into the game set for him by the men of the party. His naivety led him to foolish actions just to please the men so that he may seem of some importance.
He thought that perhaps they would be overwhelmed by the words he spoke and offer him great things. Although his speech did make a great impression on the drunken men, he was still lured into their grand plan because they believe they will get more use out of an educated black man than out of a black man who received no education. Despite his speech's success, the white men still won in the long run. The events that take place at this party lead invisible man to an opportunity of a college education. The leader of this event offers IM a scholarship to an all black school in the south. They believe that by sending him to this school they will have one more black supporter if they ever needed the support.
Upon arrival at the school, he immediately wants to please all who are superior to him. He is overly exuberant to follow all commands given by Bledsoe, the college president. He takes the opportunity to try to prove to Bledsoe that he will achieve all challenges met. Bledsoe sends invisible man on an important and delicate mission.
This mission requires him to drive a trustee of the school through the countryside surrounding, until it is time for him to be in an executive meeting at the school with other trustees. Throughout the car ride this trustee, Mr. Norton by name, is continuously imposing on invisible man how important it is that he succeeds throughout life, because invisible mans success reflects his own success. Yes, you are my fate, young man (Ellison, p. 42).
Mr. Norton is using invisible man as an outlet, to try to make him feel that if he fails, Mr. Norton will fail as well. The car trip turns out disastrous and upon arrival back at the school, invisible man becomes punished by Bledsoe. Also invisible man is used by Brotherhood. He is one of the few black brothers in an organization which is trying to unite all types of people.
After some time has passed though he begins to see that this organization isnt for all people, it is to help the white people feel more secure about their position in the city. Before coming to this realization, the brotherhood uses IM to their best ability. They have him performing all tasks that they personally would never want to perform. Once the invisible man becomes successful though, they immediately begin to think that he wants the brotherhood to be his own, personal organization.
They wont allow a black man to seem more powerful than they are. They remove invisible man from the case, but he still does not see what the brotherhood is really about. It is only after they put down the work that he has done in Harlem, is it that he sees he is not truly considered a brother. Bledsoe, though, seems to use the white men in his games. He plays with their minds and is very deceiving. He tells invisible man, while in the conversation of punishment, that the only way to work well with these men was to make them believe that they are superior.
He informs invisible man that although the white men have the power, it is the black man behind the scene that makes up the real mind of the operation. Invisible man does not believe all that Dr. Bledsoe is telling him. He believes that the white people are good people and that they are there to help him succeed, not to push him down. Dr.
Bledsoe believes that all white people can be used for his own advantages. Invisible man also begins to realize that he can control the white men just as Dr. Bledsoe had stated. After the brotherhood decides that the Harlem section will no longer be important to their work, invisible man begins to follow the advice given to him by his grandfather. He uses this advice in hopes that the brotherhood will self-destruct due to the fact that it is no longer out to help unite all people. Thus I would launch my two-pronged attack (Ellison, p. 512).
The attack was to yes them to death. I started yessing the next day and it began beautifully (Ellison, p. 113). His plan seemed to be working just as he had hoped, and he had finally realized that he had complete control over the white people of the committee. Slowly the brotherhood starts to self-destruct, and a large part of the cause came from the actions of invisible man.
The invisible man never achieved compatibility with the rest of the society. Sula is a novel that speaks of a close-knit community. In the early nineteen hundreds, and still today, many African American communities are very small; everyone knows their neighbors, the kids grow up together, and the community is like a family. Living in a small community can have its strengths and weaknesses.
In the novel Sula, the Bottom is a small community, which has the benefits of the family-like closeness among its inhabitants. The Bottom also has a weakness in the fact that everyone knows their neighbors business and chooses to get involved. The character Sula experiences many conflicts throughout the novel. Sula is an only child who grows up without a father.
Sula lives in her grandmothers house, which is a house of many rooms (Morrison, p. 30). The house has many people who come through, from Eva's friends to people passing through the town. Sula wedged into a household of throbbing disorder constantly awry with things, people, voices and the slamming of doors, spent hours in the attic behind the roll of linoleum galloping through her own mind on a gray-and-white horse tasting sugar and smelling roses in full view of a someone who shared both the taste and the speed (Morrison, p. 52). Sula wants independence from her surroundings, where people are preoccupied with each other. Just like invisible man, Sula is not compatible with people that surround her. Sula's meeting with Nel is a turning point that helps her to find the comfort that she needs.
Their meeting was fortunate, for it let them use each other to grow on. Daughters of distant mothers and incomprehensive fathers, they found in each others eyes the intimacy they were looking for (Morrison, p. 52). Sula and Nel both long to escape the nature of their surroundings and through each other they could afford to abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their own perceptions of things. Sula and Nel grow up together protecting each other from the community.
Sula is exposed to many experiences that shape her life. Sula first experiences a separation from her mother. Sula overhears her mother telling a friend I love Sula. I just dont like her (Morrison, p. 57). After hearing this statement from her mother, Sula flees from the thoughts of her mother not liking her and goes with Nel to the river. At the river, Sula experiences the feeling of responsibility.
While playing with Chicken Little at the river, Sula swings him until he slips from her hands. Noticing that possibly Shadrack has seen what has happened, Sula runs to his house in fear. Sula is also known to be the type of person who could hardly be counted on to sustain any emotion for more than three minutes (Morrison, p. 53). Sula shows this side of her personality when she watches her mother burn to her death. The trait of the Peace women, the women of Sula's family as they were referred to in the novel, was that they loved men.
Sula's experience with sexuality shapes her life when she returns to the Bottom after attending college. Sula's return to the Bottom is marked by a plague of robins (Morrison, p. 89). The people of the Bottom fear the robins because they are not accustomed to them. Sula is not like the other women in the Bottom.
Sula is a woman who does not care for marriage and is really only interested in pleasing herself. Eva's arrogance and Hannah's self-indulgence merged in her and, with a twist that...
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Research essay sample on Sula And Nel Invisible Man
