Group items tagged

Argument: Marxism in both reality and fiction typically represent African Americans as a lower class, ignorant, disrespected race. Claim: Ellison develops his characters, of dark ethnicity, as a person reaching outside of an animalistic portrayal, and exposes an intellect, developing a bridge between race. Evidence: Perhaps, Ellison's maritime experience, led him to..."took a moral responsibility for democracy" and who represented African Americans in a way that few had--"as a symbol of Man."

Argument: In using music as a symbol and motif in his novels and essays, Ellison contributes jazz artists not only as musicians who inspire and express Ellison's evolution as a person, but represent a social case that he personifies through their music. Claim: Ellison uses the motif of music to both represent evolution of a person, and the social distinction/respect a black man gains through music. Such musicians as Louis Armstrong, have unintentionally utilized their music to raise their social class and respect (an element of Marxism). Quote: "He was from a very poor family and was sent to reform school when he was twelve after firing a gun in the air on New Year's Eve. At the school he learned to play cornet. After being released at age fourteen, he worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart...The band went through a number of personnel changes over the years but remained extremely popular worldwide. They toured extensively travelling to Africa, Asia, Europe and South America for the next twenty years until Louis' failing health caused them to disband. Armstrong became known as America's Ambassador."

Argument: DIsplay of power by a race determines the amount of respect they receive. Physical identity determines consciousness and creation of american culture. Claim: Seperation and 'diversity' of of races in the 1950's presented in Invisible Man and Shadow and Act, display a use of Marxism as a real satire to portray the mistreatment that some races face, even though these races are people, and they are American. Evidence: What once looked tame or apolitical in Ellison's work--his emphasis on identity, freedom, and the vast potential for diversity in American life--has come to seem more radical than the political criticism that rejected it; this too has become part of our revised view of the postwar years. The key to Ellison's approach is his way of exploring his double consciousness, his sense of identity as a Negro and as an American. You cannot have an American experience without having a black experience.