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This is my page for African-American Literature.

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In a lapse of originality, I've taken up Mr. Mitchell's suggestion on my first post to continue the streak of comparing poetry to the books we discuss. The two pieces in question this time: Invisible Man and "Theme for English B."  I'll start by trying to unpack Theme first, then base the comparisons between the pieces on what we find in the poem. (It would be way too ambitious to do it the other way around and unpack everything in Invisible Man .)  The premise for Theme for English B is pretty straightforward  — our boi Langston explained it himself at the beginning: "The instructor said,      Go home and write      a page tonight.      And let that page come out of you—      Then, it will be true. " Then, Hughes spends the rest of the poem responding to the stated prompt. Simple enough, right? Well...   "I wonder if it's that simple?"    Based on the prompt, Hughes could have written just about ...
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who knows...

 ...but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? Yas Ellison. Love that ending king. Give us a spicy question to ponder 😍 As was pointed out in the notebook prompt from 10/12, this final question can seem like a turnaround from the initial tones and themes of the prologue. We go from a narrator caught up in his own invisibility and the peculiar facets of his experience to a narrator admitting, albeit apprehensively, that his entire tale which centers around surreal and unique circumstances could to some extent apply to anyone out there.  ...What happened?! This feels almost like a halfhearted attempt to connect with the reader last-minute, maybe after realizing that the audience needs an anchor to which the muddy, dreamlike information they have learned can be attached. And I suppose that part of me is tempted to criticize Ellison/the narrator/the nellison for ending in this way, uncharacteristic of the rest of the novel.  But another part of me says, I like this...
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Eatonville: a microcosm

Dramatic yet unsurprising changes take place in Eatonville as it grows. For good in-text examples, take page 47. Two details of recent changes are described, the new Starks house and the spitting pots, but along the way a lot more is revealed. Joe's new house, for one, is not just extremely fancy - it's the only large house in the village and it bears an uncanny resemblance to the house of rich white slave-owning landowners from pre-Civil War times. We're provided the spitting pot situation as an example of the frivolous luxuries Joe has procured with the wealth he's effectively diverted from the people of the town to himself with all his positions of power - Mayor, postmaster, landlord, and storekeeper. Essentially, it's clear as day that Joe is exploiting the people of Eatonville and is very corrupt. What gets the people in the town in particular, though, is that Joe Starks is black. As explained on p. 48, "It was bad enough for white people, but when one of ...
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