Diving Into African American Literature

            After Janie’s first two failed marriages, when Tea Cake comes along, he might seem like the perfect replacement: someone who lets her be who she is and allows her to have a lot more fun, but is he actually that much better? I think, despite the fact that he doesn’t push her to do things she doesn’t want to, treats her with much love, and shows her lots of new fun things, he’s still kind of an asshole. It’s important to not gloss over his flaws and paint him as a perfect rosy replacement for his unappealing predecessors.             After the “mourning” of her previous husband Jody, she meets Tea Cake, and at first, he seems to be like a wonderful person. He doesn’t ask anything much of her and they have lots of fun experiences together that are new to Janie. They form a close connection and he shows her a very sincere love. However, in Jacksonville, an incident occurs where Tea Cake’s true colors really start to show through. Soon after the couple got married, Janie wakes

            In one of the very first chapters of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, our narrator attends a strange event and then receives a briefcase as a gift. He is taken to an event called the Battle Royal for the entertainment of white people where he is forced into violent fights with other Black boys and then he gives a speech at the end. Everyone laughs at him and thinks his speech is funny, but nevertheless, at the end of it, he is given a fancy new briefcase as a gift for giving his speech. He may not know it at the time, but this briefcase starts a new era and story for him.             After the narrator is sent to the North, he begins his adventures and new life in NYC with his briefcase, carrying only the letters from Bledsoe. He says, “many of the men carried dispatch cases and briefcases and I gripped mine with a sense of importance,” (164). As he walks around the new city speaking with potential employers, he feels confident with his business-like briefcase. His briefc

"You could cause us the greatest humiliation simply by confronting us with something we liked" One morning while walking the streets of Harlem, the narrator, still pretty new to the city, encounters a street vendor selling sweet yams, reminiscent of ones he used to eat at home in the south. While this scene does not immediately seem to have much direct significance to the plot, it’s really quite a beautiful scene that gives insight into our character and poses some interesting philosophical ideas. The narrator still feels very out of place in New York. He remains hyper-aware of the differences from his home in the south, and, whether he explicitly recognizes it or not, longs for the southern identity he has been repressing to fit in. So when he is confronted with this symbol of his past life, it comes as a shock and sort of awakening for him. He says, “I took a bite […] and was overcome with such a surge of homesickness that I turned away to keep my control,” (Ellison 264).

When I was reading the chapter where the narrator in Invisible Man meets Brother Jack and gets recruited to their so-called Brotherhood, I couldn’t help but think of Bigger and Jan’s interactions in Native Son. Both seem to be examples of self-proclaimed white liberals approaching Black men and asking them to join their cause that the men may or may not even know anything about or support.  One thing that stood out to me as a parallel between the two situations was the way that Brother Jack and Jan talked to the narrator and Bigger. Without ever having met them, they immediately spoke in overly friendly tones and made claims about being “on their side.” Brother Jack repeatedly referred to the narrator as “Brother,” which made him very uncomfortable and uneasy. Jan spoke to Bigger in similar ways, demanding that Bigger call him Jan and not “sir,” and pretending to be his friend. We can see a trend of white leaders of some sort of liberal organization approaching black men and immed

Native Son by Richard Wright is divided up into 3 books rather than the conventional style of shorter chapters. The first book is titled “Fear,” and when reading the novel for the first time I did not really think much of it, or really even remember what it was called. However after finishing the book it is clear how fitting of a title “Fear” is and how Bigger Thomas, the main character, is completely controlled by fear in almost every aspect of his life.   One of the first big instance where we can really see the impact fear has on him is near the beginning of the book when he is with his friends. Bigger talks about how he and his friends have robbed various black people, but that they had never robbed a white man before. They had talked about robbing Blum’s, a store owned by a white man, and were debating whether or not to go through with it. When they all get together and decide they might actually do it, Bigger gets scared. He was relying on his friends to say no to going throu