Dr.
Schmidt
English
131
26
April 2012
Dreams of an Invisible Man
Dreams are an important motif in
the novel Invisible Man. They are clues about the state of the psyche
of the protagonist. They reveal his fears, his expectations, and his
interpretations of reality. It is in his
dreams that the protagonist allows himself to ask questions which he suppresses
awake. They explain the actions of his
waking life. They reveal the
contradictory feelings which afflict the protagonist. The dream he has in the prologue of Ralph
Ellison’s Invisible Man serves as a
summary of what will take place in the novel as well as serves to reveal the
ambivalence the protagonist experiences towards America and towards himself.
Experts suggest that dreams and
nightmares serve functional purposes, such as to warn us that something is
wrong in our lives and is hurting us. They
say, “Nightmares are your wake-up call to problems you need to solve in waking
life. They point out to you areas in
your life that need to be healed, or worked upon” (DreamEmporium). The invisible man’s reefer dream in the
prologue serves the purpose of warning the reader that something is wrong in
the mind of the protagonist. His dreams
are more honest narrators than even himself.
The dream he has during the prologue is a journey into his psyche. He says, “I not only entered the music but
descended, like Dante, into its depths” (Ellison, 9). The fact that he compares the depths of his
soul with Dante’s inferno shows that he is internally troubled and tormented. The first dream is an old woman singing a happy
and sad spiritual. This image reveals
that even at the most superficial
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level
is optimism and hope filled with realistic pessimism represented by the
spiritual “as full of Weltschmerz and flamenco” (9). It is the first internal struggle with
opposites and serves as an interpretation, not only to his dreams, but also to
his life throughout the novel: optimism is at odds with reality. Immediately, this vision shifts to one where
a Black woman, screaming like his mother, is being sold as a slave. This image represents how the protagonist
interprets his reality. Even as he hopes
and believes in the freedom of the spiritual, he is also aware of the
contradicting reality that is exactly the opposite of that hope- the reality of
the oppression of his people. These
dreams are a summary of what will occur to him in the novel. He starts off optimistic because he ignores
reality, but that reality refuses to be ignored and continues to haunt him
until the invisible man acknowledges it.
The battle between his optimism and his understanding of reality
introduces his first internal, dualistic struggle.
The protagonist also struggles with
conflicting ideas about who he is as a Black man, setting the stage for
upcoming events in the novel. The next
dream represents this conflict with the contradicting words of the preacher,
“Black is and black aint… Black will get you and Black won’t… It do and it
don’t… Black will make you and it will un-make you” (9-10), meaning that his
Blackness is in itself a contradiction.
Sometimes he knows that “Black is” and sometimes he feels that “Black
aint.” Throughout the novel, there are
times where he feels proud of being Black and many other times he is ashamed. Before he can figure out exactly what Black
is, his own mind prevents him from doing so by the shouting of the trombone
that tells him to get out of there before he commits treason. This vision is a foreshadowing of the guilt
and fear that the invisible man will feel later in the novel of betraying white
people by “yessing them to death” as his grandfather had done. What the speaker does understand, however,
about Blackness is that
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“in
the beginning… there was blackness… and the sun… was bloody red” (9). This allusion to the darkness that existed
before creation in Genesis means that the Black American experience was birthed
in struggle. He does not know what
exactly his identity as a Black man is, but he sure does know that whatever it
is, it has caused him much suffering.
Experts
say of dreaming, “Nightmares are usually your deepest fears symbolized by
frightening, horrifying images. The
images are symbols that help you figure out what you are afraid of ” (Dream Emporium).
The next vision serves that purpose: to
reveal the narrator’s deepest fears. He
encounters an old lady who tells him of her love and hatred toward her master
who gave her several sons. The master
represents white America, the old lady represents himself, and the sons
represent his ambitions and his bitterness.
She tells him, “I dearly loved my master, son,” and he replies, “You
should have hated him” (Ellison, 10). The
protagonist is struggling with guilt because he remembers how he also loved
“his master” and looks back now with shame at having done so. The lady loved the master because he gave her
several sons, who represent the things the invisible man was after:
opportunity, status, the American Dream; but because he never fulfilled those
pursuits, he now fosters bitterness. That
is why his experience is the same as that of the old lady who says, “I learned
to love their father though I hated him too” (10). The boy then states a phrase which accurately
interprets his dream and his life: “I too have become acquainted with
ambivalence… that’s why I’m here” (10), again revealing his internal conflicts between
love and hate for America, and ultimately love and hate for himself.
Comedian Chris Rock said that
America for black people is like that uncle who paid your way through college
but molested you (Bigger and Blacker). This joke is a good summary of the
protagonist’s contradictory experiences with America. The lady moans because her master was
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dead,
meaning that for the invisible man his American dream was dead. While she mourns that death, the sons rejoice
in it, which reveals again the dualistic struggles of the speaker. He is both relieved and disappointed that his
pursuits are gone. He is disappointed
because, just as the old lady loved her master, he also loved what America
could promise; but just like the old woman hated the master because she loved
freedom more, so did the invisible man realize that he needed to choose one or
the other but could not have both. As
the scriptures say, “You cannot love two masters, for you will hate one and
love the other” (Holy Bible, Luke
16:13). In this way, he loved freedom
more. Yet it is clear that he has never
known what freedom is. He has an idea
that maybe freedom comes from loving not hating, though he is unsure. He wants to know the answer so he goes back to
talk to the old lady and ask her what it is- but the lady is unable to answer
his question because she is a product of his imagination and he himself does
not know the answer. At least, the
answer he does know he is not ready to accept.
Earlier in the prologue, the
invisible man had gotten into a violent encounter with a white man and then
regretted it. In the dream, the sons of
the old lady are upstairs laughing and moaning as the old lady tells the boy that
they are prone to violence. “They woulda
tore him to pieces with they homemade knives” (Ellison, 11) she says to him. These “violent sons” are the bitterness and
resentment the protagonist has toward America and the White man (which are one
and the same in his mind). This explains
his earlier violent encounter. When he
approaches the lady to ask her what is freedom one of the bigger sons impedes
him. His bitterness and resentment
prevent him from finding out what freedom really is. He
cannot accept what the lady tells him about how freedom comes not from hate but
from love. The dream finally ends with him getting hit by
a speeding machine as he tries to cross over, representing his failed
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attempts
to heal and to forgive- to “cross back” to a normal life. The speeding machine- his anger and
bitterness- do not allow him to accept the freedom that comes from loving, a
summary of his life in the novel.
This scene in the prologue is
consistent with the novel’s importance of dreams. It is through these that the author reveals
the deep secrets of the protagonist’s psyche.
The reefer dreams in the prologue serve as a summary of the internal,
dualistic conflict with which the speaker will struggle throughout the
novel. Through this dream, the author
describes the speaker’s life and thoughts through symbols that reveal his
fears, confusions, and his ambivalent experience with America and ultimately
with himself.
Works Cited
Bigger and Blacker. Perf. Chris Rock. DVD.
Dreamworks, 1999.
Dream
Emporium. How to Interpret Dreams,
2010. Web. 24 April 2012.
Ellison,
Ralph. Invisible Man. 2nd ed. New
York: Vintage International, 1995.
Holy Bible: New
Living Translation.
CO: International Bible Society, 1984.
Copyright Benderas (2013)
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