music, identity, lobotomy...

Sorry this is so long, I didn't realize it until I posted it!

After reading over half of Invisible Man, I thoroughly like the book because of the historical references, the symbolism, and the descriptive language. This story is a coming of age novel and also “a man on a journey” (a radio story term) story.

1. Throughout the story, the theme of music and reality vs. the dream world is present in the text. In the prologue, he describes listening to Louie’s jazz as a time stopping sort of out of body experiment (he’s high too). Music is also present in many forms during instances in which he is happy or struggling; the descriptive voice of music comes through and reveals the undertones of the situation the invisible man is in. When he enters Mr.Emerson’s office, which is the elaborate export company office, the exotic birds make shrill noises. This also reflects his mood; he is nervous in anticipation. Another example: As he is reflecting on his discovery of Dr.Bledsoe’s true intentions, he hears a man singing “O well they picked poor Robin clean…Lawd, they picked all the feathers round from Robin’s rump…” (193) In another instance, he was hearing Beethoven’s Fifth too (232). Music doesn’t only play a part in the mood though, it is part of his cultural identity. More specifically, Jazz music is through the Harlem Renaissance that is happening in New York City during this time. When he attends the meeting with Brother Jack, a drunk brother wants him to sing the ‘down south’ songs, revealing that to the outside person these songs identify him (this is on page 312).

2. While the references to music helped me to connect with the text, I was intrigued by the lobotomy performed on him while he was a science experiment for the doctors at the factory hospital. Last week, I listened to a radio piece in my Journalism class about a man who had a Lobotomy as a child… The procedure started off with the doctor sticking an ice pick (yes an ice pick) through the middle of the patients eyes… The link is at the end of the post, and it’s a true story. These procedures were said by those performing the procedure to fix the severely depressed and those with behavior problems. This man always felt there was something missing in his life emotion-wise.
This change in emotion was reflected in the invisible man’s initial reaction upon entering the hospital office and leaving the hospital. He was loopy and out of it, and his emotions were going every which way.

3. There is the constant search for identity. I thought he was closer to finding it after I read tonight’s assignment.. but he is still somewhat lost. It seems to me that the lobotomy symbolized a mental change (not literally though) and the literal change was his rise to action as the old people were being evicted. The following quote showed me that he is becoming a man with his own beliefs who isn’t stuck in the Southern way of obeying his power-hungry leaders. A show of his transition from humility to action: pg.291: “Oh, no, brother…You’re not like them. Perhaps you were, but you’re not any longer. Otherwise you’d never have made that speech…You might not recognize it just now, but that part of you is dead! You have not completely shed that self, that old agrarian self, but it’s dead and you will throw it off completely and emerge something new. History has been born in your brain.” But then he’ll flounder back again to his search as evidenced through his want to find purpose in his jobs: “What was I, a man or a natural resource.”
Lastly, he’s in a group full of white people who call him brother BUT something is still missing. “It was as though they hadn’t seen me, as though I were here, and yet not here.”
Here’s the link to the Lobotomy, it’s a sad story but worth listening to:
http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/my_lobotomy/