The Paper Puppet

Shake him, shake him, you cannot break him
For he's Sambo, the dancing, Sambo, the prancing,
Sambo, the entrancing, Sambo Boogie Woogie paper doll.
And all for twenty-five cents, the quarter part of a dollar…
Ladies and gentlemen, he'll bring you joy, step up and meet him,
Sambo the--

... representation of the narrator and of the struggles African Americans were facing at the time of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

In Chapter Twenty, the narrator finds Tod Clifton, a disappeared member of the Brotherhood, peddling the "obscene" Sambo dolls just before his violent death. The dolls, for one thing, are like the Jolly Coin Bank in that they are obviously symbols of racism and the stereotyped perceptions of African Americans. It is grinning and dancing for a crowd that takes pleasure in watching it perform, which we can see by their "chuckles" as it dances, and by the "indignant" looks the narrator is given (and an old lady's cry) when he interrupts the dance. Here's an image of what Ellison is writing about:

(it's "fun at parties" apparently...)

But beneath the racism, Ellison uses the doll to symbolize some larger themes. Upon more careful examination of the doll, the narrator sees that "it had two faces, one on either side of the disk of cardboard." This reminded me of Bledsoe and how he molds himself into an amiable subservient man before talking to Mr. Norton, after showing his true colors to the narrator (The only fault with this comparison is that both sides of Sambo's face are grinning. Any thoughts on what this suggests?). I also feel like this two-facedness is also representative of the grandfather, especially since Sambo's hands are said to be "doubled into fists," indicating some pent-up anger and rebellion that isn't shown on the face.

However, I found it most interesting when the narrator discovered that the doll could only dance when a person controlled it using a string. I feel like this puppet is a symbol of the narrator in this point in time because he is being made to dance for the crowds by the Brotherhood, who act as the hand controlling the "invisible thread." It seems as though the Brotherhood bought the narrator just like one buys a Sambo for "the brotherly two bits of a dollar." The narrator is absolutely repulsed by the dolls, and yet he still seems blind to their message.

Increasingly Visible

Since the first chapter, the narrator of Invisible Man has changed immensely. In class we have said that he is moving more toward the character we see in the prologue. But I also think that the narrator is becoming less invisible as time goes on.  Let me explain.

The narrator we see in the first few chapters seems extremely ordinary. He doesn't want to stick out from the crowd and his every action seems to be done in order to serve someone. During the battle royal in Chapter 1, the narrator doesn't try to win and even starts losing when he realizes he might please more of the white men if he does. When giving his speech, he is ignored by the listeners. Later, when the narrator is driving Mr. Norton around, he does exactly what he is told, "following the white line", but once Trueblood begins telling his story, the reader forgets the narrator is even there listening. This is a character that is straining to be heard and liked and yet is very forgettable. He is utterly bland and lacks personality other than being a subservient yes-man.

However, as we progress through the novel, the narrator is slowly evolving into someone more meaningful. Once he reaches New York, he seems to gain an identity. At first, as we see in the diner, he's just the "Southern boy", and he wants to shrug the label off. When he meets the cart-pusher in Chapter 9, the man makes the narrator think about his childhood and by the end, the narrator feels a sense of pride and disgust. The pride here is important because that it's that flash of pride that will grow over time. After the paint factory incident, the narrator rethinks the question of who he really is, and soon after, the reader sees him buying yams and thinking of the times when he would "squeeze the sweet pulp from the soft peel as we hid from the teacher behind the largest book, the World's Geography." Then he realizes: "What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?" For me, this is a moment when I can see the narrator clearly. No longer is he trying to push down his culture and his background.

While its true that how the narrator thinks is becoming more similar to the thoughts he has in the prologue, I wouldn't say he is becoming more like an "invisible man." Instead, he seems to be finding himself. He now has a tangible background and an identity that is so much more vivid than the character of Chapter 1. This, I think, makes him more visible than invisible. But with all that's happened in the book so far, all of that may be subject to change.

Present-day

When I was in Chicago this Labor Day weekend, I got to thinking about Native Son. Richard Wright provided the addresses of Bigger Thomas as well as the Dalton family in his book, so I decided to post a few pictures of what these sites look like today...

3721 (South) Indiana Avenue, Chicago, IL: Home of Bigger Thomas

4605 (South) Drexel Boulevard, Chicago, IL: The Dalton Household

Photos from Google Maps (couldn't get my parents to drive me to the actual addresses!) 

Im assuming that the actual houses/apartments that Richard Wright wrote of were fictional but seeing the locations makes the whole book seem more real. Hope you found this interesting!