Types of Power
Power is key theme throughout Invisible Man. Even in the very beginning - the prologue where the narrator descibes his life as an invisible man, he talks about draining power from the city and pouring it into 1369 lightbulbs in his little secret apartment. In this situation he's stealing power, from presumably white people.
The balance of power between the white people in charge and the narrator is made obvious in almost every interaction in the book. The scene where he has to box people for entertainment then gives a speech to this crowd which they barely pay attention to and laugh at, for example. Driving Mr.Norton around, interacting with the factory owners and other workers, etc.
Barbee and especially Dr.Bledsoe also have power. They're important figures in their community who people look up to. They're rich, etc... Yet this is not the same type of power that the white men the narrator interacts with have. This power is subservient to white people; although Bledsoe believes that he himself holds all the power, he still has to grovel and bow to keep it. In the beginning of the book the narrator admires this power; owning multiple cadillacs and being influential, yet over time as he experiences more outside of the college he seems to lose that respect.
Yet again Lucius Brockway, another important to his community black man, has a different sort of power. The factory can't get rid of him because he's the only one who knows how to run everything smoothly. This is interesting, since the fact that they can't really fire him in most situations should mean that he can do anything he wants, yet we only ever see Brockway in his own little basement world and so can't know how he actually interacts with the people in charge.
Invisibility could also be related to power. The narrator often describes his feeling of invisibility as being related to the fact that nobody seems to pay any attention to him or take his wants and opinions into consideration. With power this could change - people would be forced to acknowledge and include him. Yet only a certain type of power would allow his opinions to matter- not Bledsoe's, or Barber's, or even the Founders. To keep their power these men can't share opinions or do things opposing white people. This is power somewhat similar to Booker T. Washington's belief - power through hard work and prosperity - and it's interesting that this is the figure Brother Jack decided the narrator would aspire to be.
How does the narrator's goals fit in to this? Is he searching for power? Of a particular type? He might be looking for power through his speeches. They're the perfect way to make people pay attention to him, to make his ideas known. To make himself visible. Yet I think over time the type of power he admires and is searching for changes once he becomes disillusioned with people like Dr.Bledsoe.
One interest footnote to the role of power with Bledsoe and the college is an easily overlooked detail amid all that's going on in these chapters (I overlooked it the first 15 or so times I read the book!)--the college apparently includes an actual power plant, presumably generating electrical power for the surrounding community, and the narrator can hear it humming during the scene in the chapel. A "state college" having its own power plant is a weird and slightly surreal detail, a bit like a paint factory having its own hospital (and a staff committed to dystopian mind-control experimentation). It probably has something to do with these abstract issues of power, and maybe even with the narrator "stealing power" in the basement.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting however that being invisible, by the time that the narrator reaches the prologue, actually gives him far more power than before. While the initial reaction may be to say that he is not noticed and therefore not powerful, he seems to be very content in his position, and in fact is living a much more satisfied life, with food and power (as in, electricity). I wonder what the author is trying to say here - that being invisible in the narrator's society is better, an gives him more, than being seen by those that oppress him?
ReplyDeleteIt's really easy to forget about the narrator's reality in the prologue, so I like the conclusions you draw about his invisibility allowing him to gain real power without being controlled by white people. Bledsoe only has the power given to them by white people, and therefore have a limited scope of what he can do with it. Even Brockway, who is a vital part of Liberty Paint, does nothing with his power but sit there and make the paint base. But the narrator, being invisible, has freedom to make his own power without having to get it through white people. he has no social obligation to any white superiors because what they have done for him, unlike Brockway and Bledsoe.
ReplyDelete