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The issue of race and identity can be found in African American communities for many years. Such texts as Jazz by Toni Morrison, The Invisible Man by and Zora’s Their Eyes were watching god discuss this theme. This theme covers the three narratives and it is clear in the character’s voices and actions. This issue of race affected African Americans’ lives, self-perceptions, and identities. In this essay, I will discuss how racial discrimination and the constant search for identity are portrayed by the character’s storytelling in these three texts.
The issue of Identity in The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is portrayed in the narration and choice of words of the invisible man and his attempts to be seen as an individual in society. In the prologue and the first chapter, the nameless man narrates his story and how he got to this point in his life where he hides in an apartment basement in Harlem that has a hundred light bulbs inside it that are lit with stolen electricity. The main character struggles to understand his life and purpose, especially after the changing life events that caused him to question his identity. For example when he says ‘ you often doubt if you exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds … you curse and you swear to make them recognize you’ (Ellison, p.3) the narrator cares how people see him and what they think about him.
As the novel progresses, a group of white officials asks the invisible man over to deliver his speech. However, to his surprise, he is forced to engage in a fight with young black men for money and they are all blindfolded. After that, he is requested to share his speech and with a mouth full of blood, he accidentally makes a mistake saying, “social equality” instead of “social responsibility” The white men are in a rage after this mistake and the invisible man has to fix it. This action shows how black people are inferior in this environment where white rich men rule because
The White officials prefer the ideology of Booker T. Washington to Du Boi. In the novel the whites decide the fate of the black when the white officials grant him a scholarship at a negro college, They defined his future. and they even define the identity black people should have because as a result of racism, the invisible man’s identity is facing limitations although’ [He] was praised by the most lily-white men of the town. [He] was considered an example of desirable conduct – just as [His] grandfather had been (Ellison, p.14) he felt embarrassed and didn’t like the praise.
Moreover, Race in Jazz by Toni Morrison is a strong theme that we notice throughout the narrative. This theme is defined by the way white people and African Americans talk and treat each other. Not to mention that most of the characters in this narrative are African-Americans and each one encounters and narrates racism and identity conflicts along their lives. The narrative revolves around a married couple Joe and Violet who live together in Harlem but are unhappily married. When Joe meets a young black girl he falls in love with her and they start a discreet relationship. After Dorcus loses interest in Joe he shoots, her and this event changes the couple’s lives.
Toni Morrison shows how whites treat African Americans when Joe narrates about a fight that almost got him killed in a summer in 1917 with a group of white men. The white man’s action shows the hatred and racism Joe encounters. Another example is when skin color is an obstacle to African American safety. When Joe shoots his lover the people and Dorcus’s black friends at the crime scene do not call the cops. because they know the police will not help them. They do not feel that the white authority will help them so they rather be silent. Dorcus is an orphan girl raised without her mother and father. This problem of growing up without parental affection, authority, and support may cause the person to feel detached from identity.
The final text that discusses the theme of race and Identity is ‘their eyes were watching god’ by Zora Hurston. It’s a story about Janie Crawford, a black, beautiful woman, although being mixed race she is considered black. She returns to her hometown in Florida and she is retelling her tragic story and experiences to her friend Phoebe who supports her, unlike the townspeople. Janie faces an obstacle with her Identity when her husband Joe Starks imitates and follows the style of white men. By constantly banning Janie from speaking like ‘such trashy people'(Hurston,71) her voice as a woman is repressed and she ‘learned to hush'(Hurston, 95). So she is Forced by Joe and her grandma to imitate white women by keeping silent.
However, in the story, we notice how Hurston uses the dialect between the characters to emphasize that Janie is in control of her feminine voice and identity so she tells her narrative to her friend Phoebe, and with this, she stands against the people’s opinions about herself. Such as Joe’s opinion when she said ‘But I’m a woman every inch of me, and Ah know it’ (Hurston,106) She overcomes her abusive third husband who used to beat her up out of fear that she would leave him because he is dark-skinned. These ideas about race can be sensed in Tea Cakes’s voice and dialect as well ‘Ah beat her tuh show dem Turners who is boss'(Hurston,197)
In conclusion, Race as a theme is covered in the three texts and it is shown with storytelling by the characters. In addition, racial conflicts cause African American individuals to lose their self-perception as equal to whites. Thus, they face a constant search for their identity either individual or collective.
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