Wednesday, April 15, 2009
PUPPETS!
I guess I am still really moved by the scene of Clifton’s death. The irony and the tragedy of the scene left me really feeling some of the betrayal and confusion that the narrator lives with. I think Clifton’s death is really symbolic and intense because it shows that a very smart and capable young man can “plunge” into the bottom of society, become the very characture he is fighting against, so quickly. The doll exemplifies the worst of racist thought in being a dancing sambo, but more interestingly I think is that the narrator carries it around in his pocket. Because he now has the chain that was given to him and this sambo doll, which I feel like shows that he is still tied down (or “chained” down…) to this racist depiction of blacks. Also the dolls points out how dependent the narrator still is on the (I think) white organizers of the movement, and how both he and Clifton were just pawns (or puppets!) for Brother Jack and others. The puppet symbolizes not only the racist idea of all African Americans are entertainers (ie the singing scene) but also that Clifton and the Narrator are puppets of society and of the Brotherhood.
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Ellison undoubtedly uses the chain and Sambo doll in this novel as symbols for the racial struggle that is so evident in the narrator's life. The dancing Sambo doll most obviously symbolizes how blacks were viewed as puppets and mere entertainment for society. Emma mentioned the singing scene as evidence of this belief, but it also can be related to the beginning of the novel in the battle royal. The young black men were merely entertainment for the white society, and were manipulated (like puppets) by the lure of money.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the death of Clifton was a pivotal moment in the narrator's story because Clifton was really the first character with whom IM had become emotionally involved. Clifton's death really catalyzed the narrator to evaluate his own loyalties to the Brotherhood and to digest the morality of his own existence. Clifton was intelligent and knew that striking a police officer would be a death wish, but he did it anyway. The narrator is left to analyze this event and formulate his own answers as to why Clifton virtually committed suicide.