T.C.
İstanbul Üniversitesi
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü
Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Anabilim Dalı
Amerikan Kültürü ve Edebiyatı Bilim Dalı
Yüksek Lisans Tezi
Identity Crisis of the Post-War Hero in J.D. Salinger’s, Ken Kesey’s, and
Ralph Ellison’s Novels
Erdem Atik
2501090085
Tez Danışmanı: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Kudret Nezir Yunusoğlu
İstanbul, 2012
ÖZ
Bu tez, İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasında yazılan J.D. Salinger’ın The Catcher In The Rye
(1951), Ralph Ellison’ın Invisible Man (1952), ve Ken Kesey’nin One Flew Over The
Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) adlı romanlarındaki kahramanların yaşadığı kimlik bunalımı ve bu
bunalımın çözümlenmesi üzerine odaklanmaktadır. Savaş sonrası dönemde Amerikan
toplumunu etkisi altına alan tektipleşme sürecine bir tepki olarak kaleme alınan bu
kahramanların yaşadıkları tramvanın temelinde, içinde bulundukları toplumun
kendilerine kalıplaşmış kimlikler dayatma çabası yatmaktadır. Tezde, kahramanların
bireysellik kazanma uğraşları ve bu bağlamda toplumla olan çatışmalarının
çözümlenmesi, Jacques Lacan’ın kuramsallaştırdığı kimlik oluşumu süreci temel
alınarak irdelenmektedir. Bu doğrultuda, kahramanların, benlik algısının temellerinin
atıldığı imgesel düzenden, kişinin sosyalleşmeye başladığı ve içinde yaşadığı toplumun
bir parçası haline geldiği sembolik düzene geçiş yolculuğu analiz edilerek, nihayetinde
öznel ve toplumsal kimliklerini harmanlamış bireyler haline gelişleri incelenmektedir.
ABSTRACT
This dissertation focuses on the identity crisis and its resolution regarding the heroes of
J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye (1951), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952),
and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), which were written in the
period following the conclusion of World War II. At the root of these heroes’ traumas,
who were created as a reaction to the conformist lifestyle which dominated the Post-War
era, lies the society’s insistence that they should adhere to pre-conceived notions of
identity. In this thesis, the heroes’ efforts at attaining individuality and their struggle
with society on this issue will be examined based on the process of identity formation
that was formulated by Jacques Lacan. The heroes’ journey from the Imaginary register
(during which the ego is first assembled) into the Symbolic register (where a person
begins to transform into a social being by accepting his role as a part of the society) will
be analyzed as they gradually become individuals who are able to blend their personal
and social identities together.
iii
PREFACE
First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my teachers at the
Department of American Culture and Literature for a much cherished literary experience
during my undergraduate and graduate years as a student. I am also indebted and
eternally grateful to my thesis supervisor Asst. Prof. Dr. Kudret Nezir Yunusoğlu,
without whose support and invaluable observations, counsel and much appreciated
criticism this thesis would not come to light. I would also like to express my gratitude to
Prof. Dr. Ayşe Dilek Erbora for the sound pieces of academic advice she provided me
over the years. Lastly, I want to thank my family for their unending understanding and
love since, as a wise author once remarked, they endured.
iv
CONTENTS
Page
Öz / Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………iii
Preface …………………………………………………………………………………..iv
Contents ………………………………………………………………………………….v
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………...1
Chapter 1. The Catcher In The Rye …...…………………………………………………8
1.1. Mourning the Loss and Filling the Void …………………………………..9
1.2. Holden’s Defense Mechanisms …………………………………………..12
1.3. The Oedipus Complex ……………………………………………………19
1.4. Holden and the Death Drive ……………………………………………...32
1.5. Resolution through Phoebe ..……………………………………………...37
Chapter 2. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest ………………………………………...43
2.1. Chief Bromden and His Psychological State ……………………………..43
2.2. Emasculating Females ……………………………………………………48
2.3. McMurphy the Liberator …………………………………………………55
Chapter 3. Invisible Man ……………………………………………………………….80
3.1. The Dilemma of Being an Invisible Mirror ………………………………81
3.2. Dispelling the Reflections ………………………………………………107
3.3. Recreating Identity through Speech and Words ………………………..127
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………….140
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………..144
v
INTRODUCTION
The United States witnessed rapid changes in social, political and economical
spheres of its national infrastructure following the conclusion of the Second World War.
The war had taken its toll on the psychology of the survivors, and the initial years of the
post-war era produced a nation seeking peace and serenity from the harrowing
experiences of the past decade. The search for tranquility, combined with an
unparalleled economic growth led most of the public to accept imposed values, dictated
to them underhandedly by a government that was growing suspicious of dissident voices
among the people in the wake of the Cold War period. Erik V.R. Rangno describes the
era in these words:
The America of the 1950s was a nation of conformists. Suburban
neighborhoods were erected in which the houses were little boxes “made out of
ticky tacky . . . Little boxes all the same.” Corporate America enforced conformity
in workers—in their appearance and in their attitudes. And mass media, including
television and film, led to the creation of what many perceived as an empty,
homogenous culture in which creativity and diversity were not tolerated. (Rangno,
2006: 6)
Furthermore, the government propagandas regarding the Red Scare threatened to
label anyone, disregarding their social and political status, as communists if they did not
adhere to the prevailing ideals bred by the American culture. Repression of differences
and devotion to sameness became the norm. Christopher Newfield’s opinions on the
psychological battle taking place during the 50s are as follows:
The culture industries helped demonize Communists, homosexuals, and
other alleged internal threats to American life. But legal and political means were
also available to expose, stigmatize, prosecute, persecute, and punish such threats:
books, film, and television were also arguably most important for articulating the
positive ideals for which America stood. Cold War culture formed and reformed
American national identity, helping to tell Americans who they were as essential to
their knowing what they fought for. For the first half of the 1940s they had fought
1
Nazism and fascism: now they were fighting the apparent opposite, Communism.
This new fight had not only to express foreign policy viewpoints and economic
theories but the nation’s consciousness of its historical destiny. Critique and
propaganda were not enough. The Cold War period excelled at the construction of a
powerful – though highly restrictive – vision of the American citizen and the
American mission. (Newfield, 2010: 77)
On the one hand Americans were expected to renounce ideas and practices that
were deemed “un-American”, and on the other they were secretly forced to uphold a
pro-American lifestyle. The suburbs, championed by the newly forming white middleclass families, became the epitome of the conformist era. Consumerism fueled the
public’s craving for acquisition, as mass-production made the purchasing of previously
hard to obtain commodities possible. Individual choices and self-expression were shoved
to the background, and people slowly became carbon copies of each other.
However, as Rangno asserts, America was as rebellious and diverse as ever, and
it was not long before the outsiders and the rebels began to assert themselves (Loc. Cit.).
Some of the most enduring and effective protests against post-war conformity were
unsurprisingly kindled among artists. Especially in literature, the writers focused on
criticizing and satirizing the corrupt, superficial and homogenizing values being
pressured upon the American society. Their disillusionment with the assimilating effects
of the mass-culture found expression in their works. Through their attempts, the antiheroic motif was revitalized in the post-war era and was altered to meet the demands of
the defiant counter-culture. The post-war heroes of the 50s and 60s were endowed with
anti-heroic qualities, which separated them from the conventional notion of the hero.
According to Lillian R. Furst, the archetypal hero has essentially outwardlooking orientation, has a role as a leader of men, and is ready to sacrifice himself for the
common good (Furst, 2012: 57), whereas the anti-hero’s malady(whom she identifies
with the romantic hero)“resides in a solipsistic self-absorption that holds him in a
vicious circle. The proud awareness of himself – rightly or wrongly – as an exceptional
2
being leads to a cultivation of his differentness and to a constantly renewed brooding on
his state to a depth of self-involution where his introverted sense of self completely
distorts his perception of outer reality with the result that he goes on to sink even further
into himself”(Loc. Cit.).
These descriptions share some of the characteristics of the dissident heroes of the
post-war period. For the heroes of the 50s and 60s, the constant self-absorption
emphasized in Furst’s words slowly leads to illumination, gradually bringing on a
feeling of disobedience against the outside world. David Simmons observes that the
rebellious nature of the post-war anti-heroes is based on “the questioning aspect of
rebellion that advances the figure beyond any point he would have been able to reach by
merely refusing to prolong his adherence to a system of oppression, be it physical or
ideological. By exceeding the boundaries established for him by his antagonist the antihero demands that he is treated as an equal. What may have originally been nothing
more than an adamant resistance on the part of the anti-hero against the oppressive
nature of ‘the system’ becomes the very personification of the figure as he begins to
value a humanistic self-respect above everything else, proclaiming that it is preferable
even to life itself” (Simmons, 2008: 6-7). The post-war heroes defy the system in order
to affirm and maintain their humanity. Unlike the classical hero who upholds social
values and becomes an object of admiration, the anti-heroic aspects of these characters
inspire them to achieve individuality in the face of such values enforced upon them.
Therefore, the writers of the 50s and 60s use the anti-heroic motif as a vessel for
criticism against conformist ideals. Their struggle becomes an embodiment of the
counter-culture’s endeavors to bring diversity and equality to a nation deprived of both.
These heroes and their creators follow in the footsteps of Albert Camus who declared:
“The tyrannies of today are improved; they no longer admit of silence or neutrality. One
has to take a stand, be either for or against” (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1991: 123).
3
In this thesis, my attention will be directed at three such writers and their works:
J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye (1951), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952),
and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). Each of these novels share
identical sentiments towards social repression, disillusionment and progressive
awakening to a new reality in regards to their protagonists. All three heroes go through
phases of self-doubt, self-criticism and identity crisis. This crisis stems from their
inability to reconcile their social roles (or more precisely what is expected of them as
social beings), with their freshly emerging self-image. As they are slowly becoming
aware that the roles prescribed to them by the society are not measuring up to their
desires and expectations, their dissatisfaction propels them to seek ways to define their
identities on their own terms.
Joseph Campbell describes the voyage of the hero as a process of “separation –
initiation and return” (Campbell, 2004: 7).The hero’s separation from his community,
his experiences in a foreign environment, and his return to his point of origin as a
renewed being forms the basis of Campbell’s formulation. The protagonists of the three
novels also embark on a similar journey; however their growth as individuals do not
result from knowledge gained in an unfamiliar land. The post-war hero’s struggle is first
and foremost a psychological one; their odyssey is introverted since they try to find who
they are in relation to the image that their society projects upon them. The formation of
their identity depends on their aptitude at reading and decoding the signs provided to
them by external forces. Interpreting the meaning behind such signs and images, in the
end, will guide them in the path of self-illumination. Their inevitable return to society
results not from their ambition to share some secret wisdom attained during their
adventures in a faraway setting, but to prove to themselves and to society as a whole that
their psychological journey has matured them enough to overcome social limitations.
In this dissertation I will excessively be dealing with the protagonists’
psychological journey, basing my analysis on a Lacanian reading of the hero’s transition
4
from the Imaginary register to the Symbolic register. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the
Imaginary register is the phase where a person’s ego is first constructed with the
intervention of the mirror stage. The image seen on the surface of the mirror becomes an
element of identification, the cornerstone of the ego’s formation. Through identification
with an outside image and its internalization, the individual feels a wholeness of identity.
Unfortunately, this wholeness is a façade as the internalized image is not a perfect
representation of the ego; it is only a transparent design. The only way to reach a true,
fulfilling identity is through the deconstruction of this imaginary identification. The
process of leaving behind the Imaginary order and moving onto the Symbolic (where the
individual learns the customs and laws of social life, acquires the ability to communicate
with other people and finally finds himself a position within society) entails
acknowledging the alienating nature of the mirror stage. What makes the transition from
one register to the next one problematic for the protagonists of the three novels is their
blind devotion to the image presented to them in the Imaginary order. They identify
themselves with the imposed representation in the mirror so deeply that an intermediary
concept is needed to sever the relationship between the ego and its constituent image.
Lacan calls this term the-Name-of-the-Father. The-Name-of-the-Father is a term
encompassing the function of directing the individual’s attention away from its mirrorimage to an outside world; it is a signifier that makes the ego realize the importance of
moving from the Imaginary into the Symbolic register. It separates the bonding between
the image and the ego, guiding the subject into the world of social reality that is
dominated by constantly shifting signifiers. In the three novels the function of theName-of-the-Father is manifested by mentor figures who try to help the anti-heroes by
making them recognize the futility of clinging on to and internalizing imposed images as
genuine identities. With their efforts the protagonists arise as fully aware individuals,
reconciling the personal with the social, reconstructing their egos through their
interactions with society.
5
For Holden in The Catcher, his identification with his deceased brother Allie and
his fantasies about being a catcher in the rye are prolonging his childhood and
preventing his growth as an individual. His angst against the “phony” adult life is based
on his feelings about loss and death. His arrested development is causing an identity
crisis, triggering further fantasies about suicide. Fortunately, he is able to resolve his
dilemma with the aid of his little sister Phoebe. As a child almost at the threshold of
puberty, Phoebe shows Holden that maturation is a natural process and “holding onto”
an image of a dead brother will not bring him back. At the end, following his sister’s
lead, Holden is able to see society in a different light. As he contemplates returning
home to his previous life he reminisces about all his old acquaintances, and admits that
he misses everybody.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest revolves around the symbolic rebirth process
of Chief Bromden. Having been reduced to a shadow of his former self in the asylum,
resulting from his agonizing experiences at the hands of the hospital staff, the Chief goes
through a stage of infantalization. The hospital’s brutal treatment of its patients makes
them scared of the authority figures, most notably embodied by Nurse Ratched. The
Nurse’s reign of terror slowly comes to an end with the introduction of McMurphy. The
Irish man, serving as a surrogate father figure for the Indian, helps the inmates in gaining
their self-esteem. The Chief undergoes a process of both physical and mental growth,
concluding his tale with his escape from the hospital and a promise to return to the lands
of his forefathers.
The story of the narrator of Invisible Man takes the reader into a world
dominated by chaos and deception, in which the protagonist tries to find a stable
identity. His transformation from a naïve student willing to accept any stereotype
prescribed upon him, into a veteran storyteller whose perception and understanding of
his past experiences elevate him to a position of authority, paints the picture of a man
who becomes the master of his own identity. He goes through life without heeding the
6
instructions of his mentors; only after isolating himself in his little hole underground can
he comprehend the importance of decoding the messages of his advisers. His refuge in
the dark corners of the city’s sewers concludes with a realization that he has a social role
to fulfill along with a personal one. His journey ends as he decides to come out of his
hole and face the daylight once again, making his peace with social reality that he tried
to elude for so long.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate that this thesis primarily focuses on the
transition process of Salinger’s, Kesey’s, and Ellison’s post-war heroes from the
Imaginary register in which the ego is initially formed as a unified entity, to the
Symbolic register where the fragile, imaginary ego becomes fragmented, and then it is
reconstituted as the individual grows accustomed to the laws, traditions and prohibitions
of society, evolving into a social being. Their struggle for identity and self-affirmation
parallels the changes that took place during the post-war era in the United States. Just as
the immediate aftermath of the Second World War was dominated by a period of
conformism and crowd psychology which numbed down public response to political
events, followed by the 60s political activism that forced the nation to a rude awakening,
the heroes of these three authors go through phases of dormancy and eventual revival,
mirroring the generation in which they were conceived. Their efforts at making the
outside world acknowledge their individuality, and achieving that, joining their
community as reformed individuals reflect their understanding of the social role of the
post-war hero.
7
1.THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
The Catcher In The Rye is a multifaceted novel that deals primarily with the
difficulties of growing up, coping with social reality, and as a result, forming a stable
identity based on these experiences. Holden’s dilemmas regarding adolescence and his
problems involving the transition from childhood into adulthood is a major theme
molding the whole story together. What makes Holden’s search for the holy grail of
knowledge, which will ease the process of growing up, peculiar is his insistence on
resisting the whole ordeal of leaving childhood behind. At its root, what propels this
resistance is a fixation on an idealized past, and unsuccessful attempts at replacing this
idealized image with a more practical one offered by the society.
What Holden is going through here, from a Lacanian perspective, is an inability
to abandon the edenic imaginary order (where the infant and the mother are believed to
share a rapturous connection), which in turn makes it impossible for him to step into the
symbolic order (Lacan, 1978: 195). The symbolic order is the phase where the individual
starts interacting with the social reality surrounding him and forms his own identity. In
Holden’s case, the complication of triggering this phase is driving him into a psychotic
breakdown. The solution to this crisis, according to Lacan, lies with the resolution of the
Oedipus complex. As James M. Mellard also suggests in his Lacanian reading of the
novel:
He must complete the passage through the Oedipal phase encompassed in
Lacan’s concept of the register of the Imaginary in order to incorporate the register
of the Symbolic that underlies both Oedipus and Imaginary (1990: 199).
To achieve this, he needs the guidance of the paternal signifier (i.e. the Name-ofthe-Father), usually embodied by an actual father figure. Yet the mere fact that Holden
lacks a father figure in his life who will lead him in this path stalls his development as an
8
individual. Before going into detail how this crisis will be resolved, it is imperative to
understand why Holden is stuck in the imaginary order in the first place.
1.1.Mourning the Loss and Filling the Void
A close reading of the book will reveal to the reader that Holden’s mind is
occupied with a pattern that keeps torturing him throughout his odyssey. This pattern
involves his obsession with his deceased brother Allie and with what Allie actually
represents in Holden’s unconscious. There is no doubt that Holden cares for Allie
deeply; nevertheless this affection can be read on two levels other than brotherly love
one sibling feels for another.
On the imaginary level of mother and child relationship, the child always wishes
to be the sole object of the mother’s desire (Feher-Gurwich, 2003: 193-194). Firstly and
most importantly, Allie is an object of Holden’s mother’s desire and fulfills the role of
satisfying her. With his death emerges a void or rupture in this dual relationship What
Holden tries to achieve throughout the whole novel is replacing Allie and becoming the
sole object of her mother’s devotion.
Furthermore, being dead, Allie symbolizes for Holden a period in his life when
he felt perpetual happiness which can no longer be recovered. This is similar to Lacan’s
conception of the dyadic relationship between the mother and the child in the imaginary
order where the child feels “the initial state of blissful union” (Homer, 2005: 55). Allie,
with his premature death, acts as a link and a reminder for Holden of this enchanted
stage which he equates with the innocence of childhood.
9
During the course of the imaginary order, the child slowly recognizes that it is
not the sole object of its mother’s desire, and that her desire is directed someplace else.
This is the first time when the child realizes that it lacks something that it can provide its
mother with, and since the mother’s desire is also directed at an object other than the
child, the mother is also perceived as a lacking subject. Therefore the child will attempt
to recapture the mother’s attention, trying to become the center of her desire once again.
It is mentioned many times in the story that after Allie’s death Holden’s parents’
moods changed drastically and their attitude towards their remaining children were filled
with apathy. Holden’s wish accordingly, is to re-establish this broken bond, or at least
find surrogate parents who will ease his discontent.
When Holden tells the reader: “[M]y mother, she still isn’t over my brother Allie
yet” (Salinger, 1951: 201), or “She hasn’t felt too healthy since my brother Allie died”
(Ibid, p. 141) , it becomes clear that Holden wants what his dead brother has or what he
himself lacks; his mother’s desire. It is implied “[...] that in his eyes his mother is so
preoccupied with Allie that she continues to neglect Holden” (Miller, 2007: 75). No
wonder that Holden’s fixation on Allie and motherly figures occupy a central place in
Holden’s unconscious. Sanford Pinsker’s observation “[...] that Holden’s mind works by
association [...] and that, for him all roads have a way of leading back to his brother
Allie’s death […]” (1993: 36) is an astute interpretation.
First time Holden mentions Allie’s name, he portrays an idealized image of his
brother whereas he depicts himself as the underdog of the family:
He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times
intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing letters
to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their
class. (Salinger, 1951: 49-50)
10
This and all the other similar comments about his brother are important because
they implicitly point to Holden’s identification with, and hidden urge to replace Allie
within the Caulfield family dynamics.
What triggers this particular comparative characterization is an incident where he
is asked by his roommate Stradlater to write a descriptive essay about an object. The
first thing that comes to Holden’s mind is Allie’s catcher mitt. The mitt itself is precious
because it is covered with Allie’s poems that he wrote when he was still alive. However,
what is more crucial is Holden’s mention of Allie’s death soon after:
I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and
all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don’t blame them. I really
don’t. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddamn windows
with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the
station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything
by that time, and I couldn’t do it. (Ibid, p. 50)
This passage explains a few things. Before anything else, since Allie’s mitt is a
sacred dysfunctional heirloom because it belongs to a dead person, Holden’s act of
mutilating his own hand on purpose serves as a bonding process with Allie. As Holden
tells the reader he can no longer make a proper fist, we get an impression that Holden’s
broken hand and Allie’s mitt are representatives of a deeper, unhealable wound.
Furthermore, as Edwin Haviland Miller points out, “because he was hospitalized he was
unable to attend the funeral, to witness the completion of life process, but by injuring
himself he received the attention and sympathy which were denied him during Allie’s
illness”. (Loc. Cit.)
In conjunction with the mitt, another object that forms a link between the two
brothers is Holden’s red hunting hat, or in Holden’s words his “people shooting hat”.
Holden tells us that Allie had red hair, commenting on it through a story where he
explains he could spot it a hundred and fifty yards away in a golf course through a
fence(Salinger: 50). What makes this story memorable is that Holden purchases the red
11
hat just after he notices he has lost all the fencing foils of the school’s fencing team
(Trowbridge, 1990: 77). Thus, a memory from his childhood concerning his brother’s
hair color turns out to be the veiled reason why he buys the hat in the first place; as a
consolation prize for failure (Loc. Cit.).
What is more, the mitt and the hat together serve to complete a recurrent symbol
in the novel; that of Holden as a catcher. Holden says that he likes to wear the hat with
the peak facing backwards (like catchers do in baseball), and with the evidence of the
mitt acting as a bonding mechanism between Allie and Holden, Holden’s desire to be or
to replace his deceased brother via the catcher image becomes all the more
apprehensible.
1.2.Holden’s Defense Mechanisms
As much as Holden tries to unite with a past that he finds appealing through the
figure of his dead brother so that he can be appreciated by his parents, deep down inside
he is aware of the impossibility of such a task. So in order to feign he is mentally stable
and that he is not affected by his past turmoils, he has adopted certain defense
mechanisms. Among these repression devices, what Holden most frequently prefers to
exercise is invoking fantasies.
In the psychoanalytic field, fantasy can be described as “an imagined scene in
which the subject is a protagonist, and always represents the fulfillment of a wish (in the
last analysis, an unconscious wish) in a manner that is distorted to a greater or lesser
extent by defensive processes” (Homer: 85). What this description points to is that we
fantasize about certain things because fantasies act as a projection of our secret longings
and satisfaction of our desires, but we construct them in such a cryptic way that they
need to be decoded in order to provide us with any meaning.
12
Holden’s fantasies are mainly a tool for him to protect himself from the harsh
realities of the outside world and to come to terms with concepts like death, loss and
harshness of growing up.
Two memorable fantasies he conjures up regarding the issue of death take place
right after his sense of security has been threatened by external forces. The initial one
occurs following his embarrassing confrontation with the elevator attendant Maurice and
the prostitute Sunny. The other fantasy where he imagines his own funeral follows his
unsuccessful attempts at communication with his girlfriend Sally Hayes and Carl Luce,
an acquaintance from his former school.
The episode with Maurice the pimp and Sunny the prostitute is significant in that
Holden’s belief that an edenic past can essentially be recovered is shattered. Holden has
just left Pencey Prep School and boarded in a cheap motel. The elevator guy Maurice
offers Holden an opportunity to experience sex in exchange of money. Holden, not
realizing the seriousness of the whole ordeal, agrees. Yet when the prostitute Sunny
shows up at his door the grave aspect of reality causes him to have second thoughts. He
is unable to fulfill the deed that has been set before him. The reason behind this is that he
identifies with Sunny. As Clinton W. Towbridge asserts;
His treatment of Sunny, for instance, is not just the result of adolescent
inexperience; he cannot treat her as a prostitute because she is too close to being a
pathetic image of himself, she so depresses him because his pity for her amounts to
self-pity, because she contributes to the gradually encroaching vision of himself as
the homeless wanderer, alienated from man and society. (Trowbridge, Loc. Cit.)
So when he gets cold-feet and tells Sunny he cannot have sex because he had an
operation on his “clavichord”, it is just a desperate attempt to avert the horrible situation
that he has put himself in. Sex, in the context of the whole novel, has been established as
an act belonging to the adult realm. Performing this act would be an initiation for
13
Holden to enter into the world of adulthood, of the symbolic order. What he wants on
the contrary is to stay in the comfortable zone of the imaginary.
Yet the threat to his self-image becomes inevitable with Maurice’s appearance.
Just as Sunny’s sexual advances had caused a stirring in Holden, indicating the
possibility of sexual maturation, Maurice poses another menace. After Maurice tries to
exhort money from Holden, he makes a gesture that is uncannily intimidating. Holden
explains;
Then what he did, he snapped his finger very hard on my pajamas. I won’t
tell you where he snapped it, but it hurt like hell. (Salinger: 135)
It is clear that Maurice snapped his finger at Holden’s penis, which was
unsettling. Considering what Holden wanted in the first place was to experience sex,
“the whole sad misadventure began with the penis, and that is where it – sadly, ironically
- returns” (Pinsker: 69-70). For Holden, preserving his virginity is an attempt to avert
stepping into the symbolic order where the penis has a much varied meaning and
function than he would like to admit. However, judging from his experiences in the hotel
room with Sunny and Maurice, this turns out to be a quest which becomes increasingly
difficult to maintain.
Right after Maurice and Sunny humiliate Holden and leave, Holden finds himself
fantasizing; “[…] to shield himself from the reality of what has happened to him by
acting out the role of a wounded hero from a movie, the sort of man who can be shot and
yet still be able to take revenge on his attacker and call his girlfriend over to bandage
him, smoking a casual cigarette as he does [...] and so Holden’s imagination temporarily
protects him from genuine emotional and physical pain” (Graham, 2007: 26). Yet when
the spell of the fantasy is broken, Holden’s real emotions resurface:
14
What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping
out the window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d
cover me up as soon as I landed. (Salinger: 137)
Holden’s failed initiation into the symbolic by means of sexual relationship has
triggered a fantasy about his own death. Each of his failing attempts to form a bond
between the idyllic world of the imaginary and the lacking world of the symbolic force
him to retreat into his little cocoon. Here, the incident with Maurice ends with him
contemplating suicide. His gloomy fantasies take another turn when his identification
with his brother Allie merges with his suicidal tendencies.
After being rejected, or rather disillusioned by his interactions with Carl Luce
and Sally Hayes, Holden takes a walk in the Central Park looking for the ducks during
which he breaks a music record that he had bought for his sister Phoebe. This incident
causes a great deal of pain in Holden’s conscience, because the “Little Shirley Beans”
record is another metaphor for the innocence of childhood. By breaking it, Holden is
reminded once more of the impossible task of staying in the imaginary world of infancy.
He is suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of despair. In this melancholic state he
imagines his own funeral:
I thought probably I’d get pneumonia and die. I started picturing millions of
jerks coming to my funeral and all...What a mob’d be there. They all came when
Allie died, the whole goddamn stupid bunch of them...I wasn’t there. I was still in
the hospital. I had to go to the hospital and all after I hurt my hand...I felt sorry as
hell for my mother and father. Especially my mother, because she still isn’t over my
brother Allie yet. (Ibid. 201-202)
This passage projects many things that Holden usually finds hard to express. By
“imagining his funeral, he is at the same time imagining Allie’s funeral, which he could
not attend. His perception of his own death as principally a repeat of Allie’s (even in
terms of its impact on his mother) confirms how dominant a figure Allie is in Holden’s
life: he cannot understand himself without reference to his brother” (Graham: 29). His
15
guilt over not attending Allie’s funeral combined with his desire to replace him in his
mother’s desire result in the creation of a death fantasy which will enable him to fulfill
both of his wishes at the same time.
Still, fantasies involving death are only one aspect of Holden’s unconscious
desires. His most persisting fantasy, the one that is the namesake of the novel, involves
being the protector of innocence. By imagining being a catcher in the rye, Holden
achieves both a permanent connection to the imaginary order and prolongs his passage
into the symbolic indefinitely.
Although Holden’s intention of preserving what is pure and innocent is a
central theme in the novel, a closer examination of the circumstances of how the catcher
image actually manifests, and makes itself explicit in Holden’s psyche as a repressed
feeling is of importance.
Holden hears the phrase “the catcher in the rye” on the street from a six year old
child, following his encounter with the two nuns. What makes the moment peculiar is
(as readers we later learn), that Holden misunderstands the lyrics of the poem. The
nature of this “misunderstanding” is essential. By replacing the word “meet” with
“catch”, Holden changes the whole meaning of the poem. Burns’ poem deals with the
issue of sexual intimacy, whereas Holden’s interpretation of it is strictly about
conserving childhood innocence.
This in turn shows us how Holden’s unconscious defense mechanisms transform
a simple poem into an idealized image, harboring a quixotic quest that the protagonist
will try to measure up to. Edwin Haviland Miller explains plainly how the distortion of
the poem serves to project Holden’s fragile sensitivity:
Walking along the street, he sees a family coming from the church – “a
father, a mother, and a little kid about six years old”. Holden “sees” the family, but
only in terms of his own situation. Without evidence he initially assumes that
16
theparents are neglecting the boy who walks along the curb singing to himself, “If a
body catch a body coming through the rye” – or so Holden imagines. For it is
doubtful that the six-year-old, if he knows the poem in the first place, duplicates
Holden’s misreading of the famous lines. What Holden “hears” anticipates the
grandiose fantasy he will later relate to Phoebe in which he catches and saves
children. For a moment he is charmed with his fantasy of a self-contained kid
whose parents are at hand to protect him: “It made me feel not so depressed any
more”. (Miller, 1990: 137)
The implication here reaffirms Holden’s attempts at solving his personal
dilemmas by means of conjuring up fantasies. The significance of his “catcher fantasy”,
however, reaches a critical point when Holden goes home to visit his sister Phoebe. The
unraveling taking place during their conversation lays bare some of the more deepseated issues Holden is having in moving into the symbolic order.
Feeling more comfortable than he would have imagined when he gets home,
Holden finds his sister asleep on his older brother D.B’s bed. Safe and protected,
Holden’s façade of self-pity dissolves and the dialogue between the two siblings reflect
an authentic intimacy. However, in the course of the conversation, the character of
Phoebe comes to symbolize more than sisterly affection: “In this climactic scene Phoebe
plays a double role. About Allie’s age when he died, she is the sister disappointed in the
failures of her idealized brother, but she is also an under aged, undersized mother figure”
(Ibid, p. 139).
It is no surprise then when Holden gets home his parents are away. As always,
when he needs them the most they are absent. They only vaguely appear in the novel
because Holden mentions them as he sees fit. He has to fill the void left by their
negligence, to sustain the desire for parental love with surrogate figures. Phoebe proves
to be the prime candidate for this task.
Upon figuring out that his brother has been expelled from Pencey, Phoebe’s first
reaction is to playfully yell “Daddy’ll kill you” (Salinger: 215). As much as she seems to
17
be taunting her brother at this point, the implication of the utterance is crucial; what
Holden will receive from his parents is not support, but scorn. He shows that he is quite
well aware of the situation when he comments:
“No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do he’ll give me hell again, and then he’ll
send me to that goddamn military school. That’s all he’ll do to me [...]”. (Ibid.
p.217)
What this statement underlines is the inadequacy of the way Holden’s parents
deal with familial issues. Holden lacks and desires parental support and love. Instead he
is faced with rejection. His parents send him to boarding schools where he will be
deprived of their affection, and the prospect of further abandonment crushes Holden’s
resolve.
Phoebe, as she is taking over her parents’ role, is aware of Holden’s deteriorating
condition. That is why she asks her brother to name one thing that he likes (Ibid. p.221),
because she knows at the root of her brother’s psychosis lies fixation, whether it be
about an irrecoverable loss or yearning for maternal love.
His first reply to the question of naming one thing he likes, as can be expected, is
Allie. Phoebe, contrarily, refuses to acknowledge Holden’s answer. She is slowly
leading Holden to admit the actual problem, not some superficial excuse that will cover
up the real issue. At the end, Holden is forced to disclose his innermost desire by
describing the catcher fantasy:
“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this
big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big,
I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have
to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they are
running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from
somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the
rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know
it’s crazy”. (Ibid. 225)
18
Holden’s fantasy is one of withdrawal and retreat into a state of perpetual
innocence, statis and happiness. His wish is to dwell in the unchanging order of the
imaginary, to avoid the social realities apparent in the symbolic. By constituting the
fantasy of preserving the innocence of other children, he imagines he can prevent his
own fall from one state into another. Despite Holden’s efforts, though, the fantasy of the
catcher is only a temporary solution to his dilemma. The world of childhood innocence
may exist outside of adult society but the inescapable process of maturity will eventually
find all children becoming adult “insiders,” participants in the larger social context,
willing or not. (Steinle, 2009: 97)
Thus, as much as Holden wishes to avoid stepping into the symbolic order, the
inevitability of the fall makes his fantasies only fleeting sanctuaries. If Holden ever
wants to settle the issue permanently, the resolution of the Oedipus complex becomes
vital.
1.3. The Oedipus Complex
As mentioned earlier, Holden’s problems arise from not being able to fulfill his
parents’ desire, being aware that he is a lacking subject. He tries to overcome this by
pretending to replace his deceased brother whom he perceives to have won the affection
of his parents. Sadly, all the defense mechanisms he tries to exercise fall short in their
effectiveness because Holden fails to find an enduring solution to the problem at heart,
which depends upon the resolution of the Oedipus complex.
As Homer emphasizes, unlike the Freudian approach where the fear of castration
propels the child to renounce its desires for the parent of the opposite sex, for Lacan:
19
The Oedipus complex marks the transition from the imaginary to the
symbolic. Through the intervention of a third term, the Name-of-the-Father, that
closed circuit of mutual desire between the mother and child is broken and a space
is created, within which the child can begin to identify itself as a separate being
from the mother. Lacan calls this third term the Name-of-the-Father, because it does
not have to be the real father, or even a male figure, but is a symbolic position that
the child perceives to be the location of the object of the mother’s desire. It is also,
as we will see, a position of authority and the symbolic law that intervenes to
prohibit the child’s desire. (Homer: 53)
What Holden really needs is a competent father figure in his life that will guide
him through the transition from the abundant order of the imaginary (which Holden
identifies with the innocence of childhood), to the lacking order of the symbolic (i.e. the
adult world). Throughout his journey Holden comes across many figures who, by virtue
of their position in society are expected to realize this role, but who fail miserably at
practice.
The most noticeable example among these characters is naturally Holden’s
biological father. Absent from his son’s life physically and only appearing as an
apprehension with the power to punish Holden (i.e. Phoebe’s “Daddy’ll kill you”
phrases and Holden’s premonition that he will be sent to a military school following his
expulsion), all point to his ability to castrate Holden if he wills it. Yet as explained
above what Holden needs is a guide, not a castrator.
Holden’s view on his father’s occupation tells a lot about the relationship
dynamic between the father and the son. When Phoebe asks Holden if he would like to
be a lawyer like his father when he grows up, he answers;
“Lawyers are all right, I guess – but it doesn’t appeal to me,” I said. “I
mean they’re allright if they go around saving innocent guys’ lives all the time, and
like that, but you don’t do that kind of stuff if you’re lawyer. All you do is make a
lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look
like a hot-shot [...]”. (Salinger: 224)
20
Holden’s perception of his father is that of a fraud. According to Holden lawyers
are supposed to save innocent lives, which in this case is Holden’s own. However in
reality, just as lawyers are unsuccessful at protecting the innocent, Holden’s father will
be unable to protect his own son’s purity. He is destined to be a failure as a role model.
Apart from his own father, many other characters in the novel appear as possible
mentors and advisors to Holden who may be of help to him in resolving his transitional
crisis. These people include Holden’s old and scornful history teacher Mr. Spencer who
advises him that life is a game which needs to be played according to the rules (Ibid.
p.12), his older brother D.B. whom Holden labels as a “prostitute” because he chose to
write scripts for Hollywood movies rather than continue writing genuine literature, Carl
Luce, an old student advisor to Holden who pretends to be an expert on sexual matters,
and Mr. Antolini, Holden’s former English teacher at Elkton Hills. All these minor
characters share a common trait at the core: they are as ineffectual at counseling Holden
as his own father is on the subject of the resolution of the Oedipus complex.
Among these people who has the most influence on Holden is undoubtedly his
former teacher Mr. Antolini. What makes Antolini an important figure in Holden’s life
derives from an event which occurred in Elkton Hills Prep School. James Castle, a
student who committed suicide by jumping out of the window, is picked up by Mr.
Antolini following the incident:
He was the one that finally picked up that boy that jumped out the window I
told you about, James Castle. Old Mr. Antolini felt his pulse and all, and then took
off his coat and put it over James Castle and carried him all the way over to the
infirmary. (Ibid. p.227)
There are subtle hints throughout the book linking James Castle to Holden; he
was wearing the turtleneck sweater he had borrowed from Holden the night he
committed suicide, also his name was always right ahead of Holden at roll call. What
21
makes Mr. Antolini’s gesture of picking up James Castle after his death remarkable in
this regard is, as stated by Jonathan Baumbach, as follows;
Though Mr. Antolini is sympathetic because “he didn’t even give a damn if
his coat got all bloody”, the incident is symbolic of the teacher’s failure as a catcher
in the rye. For all his good intentions, he was unable to catch James Castle or
prevent his fall; he could only pick him up after he had died. (Baumbach, 1990: 65)
Mr. Antolini is the last substitute father figure Holden seeks guidance from,
however his failure is already prophesized in the James Castle incident.
“The fall” ending in death, alluded to in this episode is a total loss of meaning
and personality. If the symbolic order is the phase where meaning is achieved after the
dyadic relationship between the mother and the child is broken in the imaginary, death
becomes the archenemy of the symbolic. It destroys any possibility for formation of
meaning. The fall, as the anticipatory action before death in Holden’s case, is a process
which should be dealt with to enable a proper transition to the symbolic order. In this
sense, Holden’s fall is another way of approaching the resolution of the Oedipus
complex. Preventing the fall or landing on soft ground following the fall, will be the
equivalent of a successful Oedipal unraveling. Antolini explains Holden’s version of the
fall with salient insight when he says:
“This fall I think you’re riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible
kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just
keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some
time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment
couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply
them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even
got started”. (Salinger: 244-245)
Based on Antolini’s assertion, Holden’s fall is directly related to his lack of
desire. Being aware that he has to leave the imaginary order behind, that he has to
replace the joy of childhood with other signifiers belonging to the symbolic and step into
22
adulthood, Holden is in danger of wavering. That is why he desperately needs a guide to
make the transition possible.
Unfortunately Mr. Antolini, as much as his intentions are sincere, becomes yet
another disappointment in Holden’s eyes. From Holden’s perspective, by patting Holden
on the head in a homosexual manner and violating his privacy while he is asleep, he
crosses a border and defiles the sanctity of friendship. This act places him among other
unreliable father figures in the novel.
In addition to imprisoning Holden in the imaginary, another vital outcome of the
failure to resolve the Oedipus complex presents itself in the hindrance of sexuation.
Unlike the biological context where sexual difference is defined through anatomical
dissimilarities, psychoanalysis perceives sexuality as a construct defined firstly by the
child’s identification with its parents, which is then shaped further by the social context
the child is brought up in. In a sense, by following the arrows of the mother’s desire
toward the signs usually provided by the paternal realm (i.e. [the law]), the child will be
able to situate herself or himself as a girl or a boy in the social world. (Feher-Gurwich,
2003: 197)
Scrutinized from this perspective, since lack of paternal figures with whom he
can identify himself prevents Holden from forming a stable sexual identity in the
symbolic order, it is no small wonder that Holden’s attitude towards femininity,
perversity, homosexuality, and in general sex, reveals fundamental unsettled issues.
“Sex is something I really don’t understand” (Salinger: 82), he admits to the reader, and
his sexual adventures stand as a testimony to this statement.
As mentioned, at the root of his predicament lies his inaptitude to affiliate
himself with a more masculine approach to life.
Sally Robinson explains that
“masculinisation, in this context, means acceptance of mass produced norms of mature
23
manhood, modeled by Holden’s corporate attorney father and the various businessmen
who govern the prep schools he has attended” (Robinson, 2007: 73). Thus Holden’s
“fears of becoming just another Organization Man (like his father) and of getting sucked
into consumer culture (like D.B.)” (Loc. Cit.) manifest themselves in rejection of the
masculine values. His distaste for the hegemonic masculine role and disillusionment
with his own father for following such a path is laid bare during his conversation with
Phoebe; he thinks all his father does is play golf, drink alcohol and pretend to be an
important man. Contrary to most American heroes like Natty Bumppo, Ishmael, Huck
Finn, or Nick Adams, these attributes actually make him frightened of a frontier code of
masculinity. (Miller, Jr ve Heiserman, 1967: 33)
However, Holden’s agitation and discomfort regarding the gender role he is
expected to perform display themselves not only in parallel with his attitude towards his
father, but with all of his male acquaintances.
The first two figures with whom Holden gets a chance to weigh his masculinity
against are his dorm mates Stradlater and Ackley.
Whereas Stradlater with his
“yearbook outlook” represents the manipulative, even malicious nature of adults and sex
(Weesner,Jr, 2003: 39), Ackley is his antithesis with his “lousy” hygiene and
personality; a grotesque possibility of what Holden may become if his manhood is
similarly thwarted (Bryan, 2008: 10). When Ackley brags about his sexual exploits,
Holden comments: “He was a virgin if I ever saw one. I doubt if he ever even gave
anybody a feel” (Salinger: 49). These two characters who hound him throughout the
Pencey chapters become doppelgangers of Holden, each pointing to a different and
undesirable element of sexual experience Holden fails to relate.
Stradlater’s date with Jane, who represents for Holden uncontaminated romantic
love, serves to further emphasize their contrasting understanding of sex. Clive Baldwin
observes that:
24
In their markedly different responses to Jane the narrative contrasts Holden
and Stradlater. Stradlater’s approach to sex, genitally focused and emotionally
disengaged, typifies dominant notions of masculine sexuality: lust that must be
satisfied, disconnected from affection. Unlike Stradlater’s phallic obsession,
Holden’s summer relationship with Jane, characterized by companionship,
handholding and Jane’s stroking of Holden’s neck, is represented as touching and
sensuous, polymorphous in its engagement of multiple areas of the body. (Baldwin,
2007: 114-115)
Therefore Holden’s insistence that Stradlater ask Jane if she still keeps her kings
in the back row in checkers games becomes a metaphor for his wish to avoid confronting
sex. What he is hoping for is an indication that childhood innocence does not have to be
defiled by the sexual experience. In a wider sense, “Jane’s withholding her kings may be
said to symbolize the suspension of maturation typical of this adolescent period – even
as it typifies the static, sexually unthreatening relationship Holden has had with her”
(Shaw, 2011).
Ironically, although Holden’s intention is to preserve the romantic love ideal
epitomized by Jane, by lending his “Vitalis” hair gel and “hound’s tooth” coat to
Stradlater for his date (both of which are by nature of their implications symbolic of
male virility), he in a way empowers Stradlater to exercise his male dominance over
Jane. On this account, his unconscious desire to bond with Stradlater becomes apparent
during the bathroom scene where Holden starts “horsing around”, fascinated by his
roommate’s half naked body. Their ensuing wrestling match is loaded with Holden’s
simultaneous identification with and desire for Stradlater (Hekanaho, 2007: 94). This
dualistic disposition of Holden towards sex, being both allured and distressed by it,
keeps recurring all through the novel.
Yet when Stradlater returns from his date and implies that he has “given Jane the
time”, Holden’s infuriation with him points to his guilt for relating to Stradlater’s sexual
promiscuity in the first place. In fact he is so angry with himself that he engages in a fist
25
fight with Stradlater that he knows he cannot win. He gets beaten and is bleeding all
over as can be expected, but this “brief blood initiation is [...] a needful battle against
himself” (Bryan: 11).
His unwillingness to conform to the masculine norms of the society reveals itself
time and time again in his encounters endowed with sexual undertones. One such
occasion presents itself as Holden looks out of his window at Edmont Hotel and watches
people carry out unorthodox sexual acts. He sees a very “distinguished looking guy”
wear woman’s clothes and a couple squirting water out of their mouths at each other.
Despite his musings that he finds this kind of stuff “crumby”, he admits nonetheless:
Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn’t mind doing if the
opportunity came up. I can even see how it might be quite a lot of fun, in a crumby
way, and if you were both [he and his date] sort of drunk and all, to get a girl and
squirt water or something all over each other’s face. (Salinger: 81)
Consequently “he finds the sight of activities that represent a range of genders
and sexualities both alluring and abhorrent at the same time” (Hekanaho: 92).
This conclusion is helpful in understanding why Holden is attracted to and in
turn attracts men who are likely to be homosexuals.
Holden’s ambivalence about
aligning himself with “mature masculinity” (Robinson: 74) might be leading him to a
gender crisis. When he remembers what his old school counselor Carl Luce used to say
about flits (i.e. homosexuals), he both panics and feels charmed:
He said it didn’t matter if a guy was married or not. He said half the
married guys in the world were flits and didn’t even know it. He said you could turn
into one practically overnight, if you had all the traits and all. He used to scare the
hell out of us. I kept waiting to turn into a flit or something. The funny thing about
old Luce, I used to think he was sort of flitty himself, in a way. (Salinger: 186)
Indeed, his fear of “turning into a flit or something” compels him to project his
anxiety onto others. His assertion that “I know more damn perverts, at school and all,
26
than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around” (Ibid.
p.249) (emphasis not mine) is further proof that his phobia is probably self-conjured.
Soon as he meets with Carl in the bar, Holden’s first reaction is to bring up
homosexuality as a conversation subject;
“Hey, I got a flit for you”, I told him. “At the end of the bar. Don’t look
now. I been saving him for ya”. (Ibid. p.187)
Carl’s reply, asking Holden if this is going to be a typical “Caulfield
conversation”, after being interrogated by Holden about his sex life is enlightening. It
shows that, despite his angst, Holden has always been genuinely interested in learning
about people like Carl whom he labels as possible homosexuals.
It is in this light that the Antolini episode should perhaps be re-evaluated. It has
already been discussed how Antolini served the role of a failed father figure for Holden,
and how his disenchantment with his old teacher’s lack of success at guiding him
intensified Holden’s depression. However, Antolini may represent for Holden more than
a disappointing mentor. He is, in effect, a possible portrait of what Holden may become
in the future.
In conjunction with the above statement, Holden had also been linked to James
Castle earlier, who serves the purpose of showing an alternate fate. Both Antolini and
James symbolize Holden’s loathing of hegemonic masculinity and its restrictions. In his
narrative James Castle’s association with Holden becomes clear, as this ‘skinny little
weak-looking guy, with wrists about as big as pencils’, after being bullied by other
students jumps to his death (Hekanaho: 95). So James comes to embody a “frightening
example of failed, non-hegemonic masculinity: a shy and fragile boy who dies when
abused by dirty bastards” (Loc. Cit.). Holden’s own story is filled with his struggles
against such adversities of masculine oppression, personified in characters like Stradlater
27
and Maurice. Yet James Castle’s demise is a proof that giving in solves nothing.. Suicide
is an admission of defeat, “such a solution would be the equivalent of flight or
deliverance” (Camus, The Rebel, 1991: 7). If Holden wants to prevail in his personal
struggle the answer lies not in passive acceptance, but in participation.
Following this train of thought the comment Carl Luce utters, before leaving
Holden in the bar all alone and crushing his spirit, sums up Holden’s situation very well:
“I couldn’t care less, frankly” (Salinger: 192). As Ted Weesner Jr. remarks, “[t]here
could not be a better headline for Holden’s experiences with most fellow human beings”
(Weesner,Jr: 46). Holden needs to find another route to cope with issues regarding his
manhood if he does not wish to end up like James Castle; he needs to find someone who
cares.
Concerning this issue, Antolini serves as the bastion of hope and a role model for
Holden. Like Carl Luce, Antolini is having a relationship with an unattractive woman
older than himself whom he makes a great show of kissing in public, which is highly
suggestive of his sexual orientation (Baumbach: 66). During his misadventures Holden
likewise feels attracted to mature women; Mrs. Morrow, the three tourists from Seattle
he meets at the bar, Faith Cavendish, the hat-check girl and the nuns are just a few of
these figures. This parallelism foreshadows what kind of lifestyle Holden might have if
he prolongs his infatuation with older women.
Antolini’s advice to Holden as a mentor and his last act of patting Holden on the
head then, as Hekanaho suggests, may have peculiar suggestions:
Holden’s interest in all aspects of anti-normative sexuality is always present
in his narration, and he seems to find pleasure in his voyeuristic tendencies, too,
enjoying the role of onlooker. The crucial act of recognition – or misrecognition –
occurs when Mr. Antolini addressing Holden as a ‘handsome’ and ‘very very
strange boy’, recognizes him, correctly or not, as a fellow queer. ... In spite of the
ambivalence of these recognitions, they may well open new interpretative horizons
for Holden: new possibilities of being and becoming. Mr. Antolini’s advice to
28
Holden is rather ambiguous in tone, and to a queer eye it could be read as survival
kit designed to help a queer kid. (Hekanaho: 96)
She also quotes a passage from the novel belonging to Antolini to support her
claim;
“Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you
are right now. Happily some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn
from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer,
someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.
And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry”. (Salinger: 246)
In spite of Antolini’s efforts, his physical gesture and its implications speak
louder than words for Holden and scare him:
“Boy, I was shaking like a madman. I was sweating too. When something
perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff’s
happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can’t stand it.” (Ibid. p.251)
It is not till after leaving Antolini’s home in a panic Holden wonders if he
overreacted. He realizes that Mr. Antolini might indeed be gay and yet still be a caring
person with integrity and understanding (Hekanaho, Loc.Cit.). At any rate, Holden’s
experience with male exemplars of masculine hegemonia and its deviations leave a deep
scar in his psyche. It is not surprising from this perspective then, if Holden may be said
to possess feminine inclinations and familiarizes himself also with female figures as the
story develops.
With Holden’s reactions to and interactions with female characters “[...] in terms
of sexuality and mothering – it becomes evident that Holden is strongly identified with
the feminine and the maternal. Thus, while Holden may appear to hold conventional
attitudes to women, his identification with the feminine expresses an ambivalent attitude
to the dominant model of masculinity” (Baldwin: 110).
29
Since males are considered to be the aggressors or the initiators of sexual
activity, Holden’s refusal or inability to participate in this performance points to him
siding with the victimized females. Although Holden talks about Stradlater’s sexual
prowess and cunning with awe, admiring his “technique” in swooning girls with his
“Abraham Lincoln voice”, when it is his turn to get “sexy with a girl” he recoils,
claiming;
The thing is, most of the time when you’re coming pretty close to doing it
with a girl – a girl that isn’t a prostitute or anything, I mean – she keeps telling you
to stop. Most guys don’t. I can’t help it. [...] The trouble is, I get to feeling sorry for
them. (Salinger: 120)
Holden therefore, unlike most guys, feels sympathy for the girls he dates. The
same principle applies to his relationship with Jane Gallagher. As Clive Baldwin puts it;
“[...] he expresses concern for Jane through his use of the checkers
metaphor. Recalling the games he played with Jane the previous summer, Holden is
reminded that she wouldn’t move any of her kings, which she kept in the back row.
This signifies an unwillingness to take risks and, attempting to warn Jane against
Stradlater, Holden tells his friend to ask her ‘if she still keeps all her kings in the
back row’, implying she should stay guarded”. (op. cit., p.114)
Holden’s empathy for females who are taken advantage of sexually extends from
Jane to Sunny, the prostitute he meets at the hotel. Holden, a virgin himself, understands
the defiling nature of sex. It is an experience with no return, once it is realized he knows
there is no turning back to a previous, innocent state. For all his avowed “sexiness”, says
Jonathan Baumbach, he is an innocent, and his innocence-impelled fear dampens his
desire (Baumbach: 69).
Furthermore, Holden clearly declares his identification with the prostitute when
he observes that she is around his age. Both Sunny and Holden feel uncomfortable from
the whole ordeal; yet while the prostitute tries to get over with it as soon as possible,
Holden wants to avoid it altogether by engaging Sunny in a conversation. He imagines
30
her going into a store and buying the dress she is wearing without anybody knowing that
she is a prostitute, the thought of which makes him even more depressed.
Holden’s refusal to have sex with her can be read as an act consistent with his
need to combine sexual contact with emotional connection. Sunny’s resistance to his
efforts of communication may be interpreted as a limit of their relationship. At last,
drawing on these reflections Holden declines the emotionless sexual adventure the
prostitute offers (Baldwin, Loc. Cit.). Unfortunately, like the Stradlater episode, his
dissent in participating in sex provokes punishment from masculine authority, this time
from Maurice the pimp. In both cases Holden is punished for his innocence. (Baumbach,
Loc. Cit. )
Holden’s affection and fondness for maternal figures presents itself as another
dimension of his bonding with the feminine. During his train ride from Pencey he comes
across Mrs. Morrow who is the mother of one of his classmates. Through this goodlooking, middle-aged woman readers encounter Holden’s uneasy desire; a hunger that
hovers between the sexual and the maternal (Weesner,Jr: 40). First, “he tries to relate to
her as an adult, rather flirtatiously offering her a cigarette and trying to buy her a drink.
This performance is continually undercut by Mrs. Morrow’s maternal attitude and her
repeated use of ‘dear’ when addressing Holden. So Holden fails to establish an erotic
connection with her and comes to relate to Mrs. Morrow as maternal rather than sexual
(Baldwin, op. cit., p.116). When he lies to Mrs. Morrow about his son’s popularity at
the prep school and the make-believe operation he is going to have, he is actually trying
to gain the woman’s sympathy, a connection he is missing with his real mother.
This emotional distance with his mother forces him to project his cravings on
other women or objects. Apart from Mrs. Morrow, his little sister Phoebe too functions
as a substitute maternal persona. She may only be ten years old, yet her representation
anticipates her adult role. For example, when she is even younger and goes out walking
31
with Allie and Holden, dressed in white gloves, she acts ‘like a lady’ (Ibid., 118). In
addition, she behaves like a mother when Holden arrives home in a dazed state by
comforting him, lending him money like a parent, and reassuring his mental stability by
serving as a metaphor for perpetual innocence.
Wrapping up, it is safe to assert that Holden’s frustration with incompetent
paternal figures has led him to renounce the masculine predominant role of the alpha
male. Instead he seeks and is amused by non-traditional approaches to gender identity.
His attachment and understanding towards the oppressed feminine, maternal figures
moreover cements his personality as a protector of innocence.
1.4. Holden and the Death Drive
The Catcher in the Rye is, on closer inspection, a novel driven by death. Holden’s
comments about certain events which he admits basically “kill him” and his vocabulary
overall, the symbolism of certain objects like the ducks in the Central Park lagoon or the
Egyptian mummies, his feelings toward old and deceased people in his life, his repressed
urges about suicide; all these little details conjure up an image of an adolescent boy
surrounded, and who slowly becomes plagued by death.
The cornerstone of his chthonic obsession is (as pointed out on other chapters
also)his brother Allie, having passed away a few years ago. Holden, as a teenager at this
critical junction in his life who has been established as being stuck in the imaginary, has
formed a strong connection with his dead brother’s image. This identification with Allie,
accordingly, serves a bigger role than just pointing out a fixation; it is a bond that
constitutes Holden’s volatile ego.
32
On the verge of becoming an adult yet still clinging to a fantasy of remaining a
child, in Holden’s perception of the world as a chaotic environment in which the self is
besieged by outside forces, Allie’s memory is a stabilizing anchor. In Lacanian terms
Allie “functions to provide coordination in the midst of [...] internal anarchy, to establish
organization in the field of a primal discord” (Boothby, 1991: 24). In this state of
disarray, Allie comes to realize a unifying safeguard against the turbulent urges which
seek to unmake Holden’s newly emerging identity.
This turbulence in the imaginary order, targeting the ego’s integrity in order to
dissolve it is what Lacan actually reinterprets as the death drive; the death drive aims [at
destroying] the unity of the ego (Ibid., 71). Much as Holden continuously tries to flee
from the unsettling encroachment of the symbolic order, to use his brother’s image to
construct a secure space to preserve a sense of wholeness, the ever present threat of the
death drive ignites in him profound anxiety.
Holden’s position has to be examined in a larger context of primordial narcissism
inherent in all people. Human beings, by the nature of their premature birth, lack the
necessary control to fully exercise bodily functions. The notion of a fragmented body is
thus embedded in an infant from a very early age. By associating with an external
representation, the self overcomes this deficiency and attains inner balance. However,
the death drive keeps reminding the ego that the imaginary coherence achieved by the
subject via identification with another image (in Holden’s case Allie’s) is only
illusionary. It is the frustrating realization of this fact, and the agony it instills in him that
provokes Holden to assault people verbally, to get into brawls that he knows he cannot
win or to contemplate suicide. By channeling his anger towards external causes he
attempts to maintain the totality of self. Yet this “aggression is ultimately less an urge to
destroy the other than it is an impulse to destroy oneself” (Boothby, 2001: 150).
33
His sadistic tendencies therefore are really reflections of repressed feelings of
masochism. Richard Boothby states that for Freud,
“[…] all aggression and destructiveness in human beings is, according to its
original nature, self-destructiveness. This means that human aggressiveness is to be
understood neither as a reaction of self-defense nor as a result of an innately brutish
disposition, but rather as an expression of an internal conflict of the individual
human being with itself”. (Boothby, 1991: 5)
Picking up fights with Maurice and Stradlater in order to protect a false
impression of purity which he measures himself up to, getting physically mutilated and
projecting this humiliation into death fantasies are solid indicators of Holden’s sadistic
and at the same time masochistic temperament.
Following this analysis, his suicide fantasies mirror his ego’s efforts in
transforming the actual deed into a harmless fabrication; they “give [Holden] fixity, a
sense of being grounded” (Ragland, 1995: 87). Holden succeeds in soothing these
destructive stimuli temporarily by directing their course, however on the long run his
death related thoughts will prove overwhelming.
Lacan proposes that the ego, instead of resisting the death drive’s disintegrating
predilection, should give into it for a healthy resolution. This approach can best be
implemented if the importance of a reconceptualized Oedipus complex is emphasized
regarding the death drive.
Simply because the imaginary wholeness of the body forming the ego is a
fabrication, a trap holding the self-enclosed in the imaginary order, the intervention of
the castration complex acts as a liberating agent by attacking this forged identity and
preparing the individual to a transition from the imaginary into the symbolic.
34
Oedipus complex enables the subject to sever the narcissist complexity of the
ego in favor for an acceptance of a fragmented identity. Thus;
“[t]he imagining of the fragmented body that issues in castration anxiety is
therefore not merely the threatening inducement on the Oedipal transformation.
Castration is no longer a fearsome possibility to be avoided but rather a psychical
task to be achieved”. (Boothby, 2001: 172)
Holden’s crisis in accordance with the statement above stems from his inability
to welcome the altering effects of the Oedipus complex. His insistence of “holding onto”
idealized images of people like Allie and Jane, his struggle to maintain an innocent,
childish outlook against the world only reinforce his morbid fantasies due to the fact that
they are impossible to realize.
Holden’s obsession about the frozen lagoon in the Central Park, the Egyptian
mummies and the museum is indicative of his desire to preserve things, to keep them the
way they are. The harsh reality of death, decomposing everything in its path, is an image
that he cannot reconcile with. We realize that change troubles him in general, and that he
wishes the things he likes would be exempt from change (Alsen, 2008: 163).
Nonetheless, his greatest challenge in the novel will be to triumph over this terrifying
feeling.
What enables him to master his anxiety is his acknowledgement of the
interwoven state of life and death. All through the novel thoughts of sex seem to lead
Holden to thoughts of death (Rosen, 1987: 103). Although he is curious about sex he
believes it to be a road of no return; because once he engages in sexual activity, it will
bring about the death of the innocent self he is struggling to maintain.
For instance, when he is in Ernie’s bar he watches a couple as the man starts
telling his date about a guy in his dorm who tried to commit suicide while at the same
time trying to “give her a feel” under the table:
35
The conjunction of a near suicide and a clumsy effort at seduction strikes
Holden as obscene [...], but the fact grabs his attention exactly because his
hypersensitive antennae are continually fixing on the small moment when sex and
death are so intimately conjoined, for he equates sexuality itself with change, with
mutability, and, ultimately, with death. That is why he is seldom quite in the mood
to give Jane Gallagher a buzz, and why he is so attracted to the unchanging
character of the museum”. (Pinsker: 56)
The decisive moment which marks the shift in his understanding towards the
dynamics of sex and death occurs when he discovers that someone has written ‘Fuck
You’ signs all over Phoebe’s school’s walls. The “sign” itself, an imposition of the
symbolic register, is an admonition of the impracticality of resistance. Holden tries to
keep children from learning about sex in this misguided (and even aggressive) context,
attempts to erase the signs (Rosen: 105). Yet, as much as he tries there will always be
more of these signs embedded literally in stone that it is inconceivable to get rid of them
permanently. Holden reiterates this notion when he comments that:
It’s hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t
rub out even half the “Fuck You” signs in the world. It’s impossible. (Salinger: 262)
When he descends into the mummy’s tomb (a spot that he describes being
relatively “peaceful”) following the sign incident at the school, another ‘Fuck You’ sign
sinisterly greets him. It is at this critical crossroad that he imagines his own tombstone
scribbled with the same revolting obscenity. It is a moment of decision, a life changing
adjustment has to be made (Miller, Jr, 1965: 17). Slowly coming to terms with the
unavoidable nature of death, sex and change, he tells the reader:
That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and
peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there,
when you’re not looking somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck You” right under
your nose. (Salinger: 264)
As he prepares to leave the museum, “Holden feels both nausea and faintness,
and he actually passes out momentarily, and falls to the floor, a final fall that marks the
36
end of the descent. When he arises, he feels better, the crisis is past, the choice for life
symbolically made, the slow ascent begun” (Miller, Loc. Cit.).
Sex and death, agents of change and the symbolic, which continually try to
disintegrate Holden’s volatile ego composed of his identification with Allie and the
everlasting static safety provided by the museum, finally help Holden realize that change
should be welcomed, not feared.
By the time we reach the concluding lines of the novel, Holden’s binary,
narcissist, closed circuit relationship with the idealized image of a world he had created
for himself evolves to envelop a third party; the symbolic order which will always
remind him that he is not a self-contained subject but a lacking one.
1.5. Resolution through Phoebe
Although with Antolini’s transgression there seems to be no one left in the world
to help Holden progress, the figure of Phoebe (unconventional as it may seem) emerges
as the ultimate model for aiding her brother with his Oedipal struggles. At the same age
as Allie when he died, she serves as a bridge for Holden’s desire to replace Allie in the
familial structure. Also because of her age she is both a symbol of childhood innocence,
and the reminder of the impending reality of adulthood. If Holden wishes to resolve any
issues regarding his rite of passage, it will become possible through the character of
Phoebe.
Phoebe’s dual nature as the preserver of purity and the initiator of maturity
blends perfectly with the psychological impasse that Holden is in. Having exhausted all
37
possible options of help from the adults, Holden now has to turn to someone who can
really understand him without harboring any prejudice.
As stated above, Holden perceives Phoebe as a confidant because of her lingering
connection to Allie and for possessing the intimacy attributed to children. Holden likens
his two siblings to each other in both physical features and intellectual capacities (both
of them are described as having red hair, relatively intelligent and likeable characters).
By being the reminiscent image of Allie, Phoebe fills to an extent the abyss left by his
absence in Holden’s unconscious.
Not only that, but by being the person with whom Holden shares the secret of his
innermost desire in the climactic scene of the novel, Phoebe also comes to embody
paternal functions in aiding Holden express his true feelings. The scene itself, from
beginning to end, points to how neglecting the Caulfields have become towards their
children.
Holden comes home after a horrid night spent in the streets of New York to seek
solace and paternal comfort. Yet his parents are away at a party. From this point on
Phoebe, home alone, will be the provider of companionship for Holden.
The exchange between them revolves around Holden’s dissatisfaction concerning
the adult world, his disability of letting go, and his fantasy of being the catcher in the
rye. Unlike the adults who persistently try to give advice to him and who attempt to
force their worldviews upon him, Phoebe proves to be a great listener and instead of
criticizing his brother tries to understand what he has been going through. When Holden
mentions that the only thing he likes in this world was his deceased brother Allie, by
being silent and letting his brother re-evaluate what he just said, Phoebe makes Holden
realize the desolate nature of his struggle. As Gerald Rosen puts it, this is an upside-
38
down situation in which the younger person protects the older one and gives him advice
in line with the whole pattern of the book (Rosen: 107).
The emphasis over his parents’ inability to support Holden is made more explicit
in the same chapter when Holden’s mother arrives home whilst her children are talking.
What Holden does is hide in the closet to avoid a confrontation with his mother. The
ensuing incident where Mrs. Caulfield, even after suspecting that someone had been
smoking in the room recently (that being Holden), absent-mindedly kisses her daughter
goodnight and leaves the room without so much as questioning Phoebe is frighteningly
neglectful. In addition to being out of reach of their children when they need them the
most, the Caulfields fail at taking care of them when they are actually around.
It is in this context of a society devoid of good examples that Phoebe becomes,
gradually, a redemptory figure: “Whereas all of the adults in his world fail him, and he,
in consequence, fails them, a ten year old girl, whom he protects as catcher in the rye,
saves him – becomes his catcher” (Baumbach: 71). She represents both the catcher and
the caught in Holden’s rye field fantasy. She develops into a figure providing Holden
with what he had been chasing after all along; a child in need of protection from the
adult world, resembling Holden’s own desire, and also a wise advisor pointing Holden in
the right direction, preventing Holden’s personal fall.
After his confrontation with Mr. Antolini, as Holden makes up his mind to
become a sojourner and live alone as a deaf-mute apart from society, it is once again
Phoebe and her indirect influence on him that compels him to reconsider his decision.
Holden, determined on leaving decides to see Phoebe one last time and asks her to meet
him in front of the museum. However, contrary to Holden’s expectations, Phoebe shows
up wearing his “people shooting hat” and dragging a suitcase which used to belong to
him. This image of Phoebe is literally a turning point for Holden, because as soon as he
perceives how his action may be interpreted by Phoebe, he defers from it. “In that
39
moment, he seems to realize that he has become an older sibling mentor to his own little
sister, Phoebe [...]” (Miltner, 2009: 164). He cannot take the risk of turning Phoebe into
a carbon copy of himself.
The last scene of them together in the park, with Phoebe riding the carousel and
Holden watching her from a distance, suggests both Holden’s redemption and his
acceptance of the symbolic order. Holden reveals his new understanding of the
imperative of moving on, of letting his guard down and allowing Phoebe to grow up
when he remarks:
All the kids kept trying to grasp for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe,
but I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddamn horse, but I didn’t say anything
or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you
have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad
if you say anything to them. (Salinger: 273-274)
Holden has, in effect, abandoned the catcher fantasy. William Glasser asserts that
“Holden has become intellectually capable of giving up his desire to be the catcher in the
rye, for he realizes by this point that it is ‘bad’ to keep a child in childhood...Therefore,
Holden becomes capable of accepting the necessity for movement within a child’s
existence: even though it steadily brings the child into greater contact with corrupting
influences, the child will never attain a complete existence unless it continues
‘becoming’ within this world” (Glasser, 1990: 100). He becomes aware that the fall from
grace is inevitable no matter how enchanted the period of childhood feels.
By welcoming this fresh attitude, Holden also breaks away from Allie’s spell
which haunted him throughout the novel. He identifies his fate with Allie’s as he sits
under the pouring rain in front of the carousel. Yet, unlike the rain which drenched
Allie’s gravestone, Holden’s rain is redeeming. He lets go of his hold on the vision of
the dead Allie, and turns toward the happiness provided by the promise of Phoebe’s
reflection (Rosen: 108).
40
The image of the catcher in the rye, which is an impossible dream to live up to
and keeps Holden imprisoned in the imaginary, is replaced by a more promising image
of the ever turning carousel, the acceptance of the cycle of life and personal integrity, the
inevitable loss of childhood and the importance of communal bonding as displayed by
Holden preferring to mix in with the adults instead of riding the carousel with his sister.
There is clearly a dividing line between the carousel which keeps going around, carrying
all the children in a circular motion, and all the other people of age which prefer to
inspect the carousel from the outside. Hence, watching Phoebe ride the carousel brings
Holden a vicarious enjoyment similar to that of the parents of the other children. Clearly,
“[i]t seems that he is enjoying his first taste of what it is like to be and adult [...]” (Alsen:
165). He slowly joins the ranks of grown-ups whom he has abused verbally the entire
novel, as he invites the reader to share his exhilaration when he says: “God, I wish you
could’ve been there” (Salinger: 275). Holden may not be through with all of his
problems, but he has successfully navigated the first rapids of adolescence: he has left
childhood, at least symbolically, and entered adulthood (Peck, 1989: 5).
Being a social recluse at the beginning of his journey, refusing to affirm the
values of the community, he had placed himself in a position outside of society’s reach.
His personal rebellion grew out of a sense of irrecoverable loss of innocence in
conjunction with his belief that the adult world would not be able to provide him with
the necessary resources to cope with his anxieties. While relating his story to the reader,
however, his second viewing of events soothes his anger, and replaces the strong
feelings of cynicism with those of tolerance and compassion. With his sister’s lead he
accepts the burden of growing up as an intermediary step to a new perception of himself.
The closing lines of the story reaffirm Holden’s willingness to integrate himself
into society. He confesses that he sort of misses everybody he told the reader about,
pointing to his yearning and desire to form relationships with other people. Holden the
41
narrator is clearly now a different person than the Holden who experienced the events;
he no longer wants to be caught, he has reconciled himself to life in a world full of
people like Stradlater and Maurice (O'Hara, 1966: 219). The gap between the
protagonist and his community has been mended. He has progressed from the imaginary
into the symbolic, and although the ending does not make it crystal clear he will likely
secure a place for himself among the adults after he leaves the sanatorium to rejoin
society.
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2. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a complicated novel dealing
excessively with the problem of identity formation. The story is filled with questions
like whether individuals have a direct impact regarding the constitution of their own
personalities, or if outside forces (i.e. society) influence such structures more than we
would care to admit. The narrative revolves around the lives of inmates in an insane
asylum, who feel belittled by the actions of the attending nurse looking after them and
whose lives take a drastic turn towards freedom with the arrival of the new inmate;
Randle McMurphy.
In this chapter I would like to put under the scope the character of Chief
Bromden and his gradual growth as a narrator and an individual under the tutelage of
McMurphy. The underlying reasons of his psychosis, his delusional fantasy of
perceiving society as a huge organization with a hidden agenda, the emasculating
treatments of the Big Nurse (and of women in general), McMurphy’s revitalizing role in
shaping the chief’s new forming identity and his metamorphosis will also be dealt with
in detail throughout this section. In light of these examinations, the problem of moving
from the imaginary register into the symbolic will also be discussed based on Chief
Bromden’s development.
2.1. Chief Bromden and His Psychological State
When Chief Bromden the narrator starts relating the story we are made to
understand that the events being narrated have already come to pass, and the Chief is
trying to make sense out of a situation which he is still having difficulty at grasping as a
whole. His last sentences in what seems to be the prologue of his tale points to his
43
distress at coming to terms with his past experiences and a fear of being misunderstood;
I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you
think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible
to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard
for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.
(Kesey, 1963: 8)
Although his odyssey is practically concluded at this point, his warning that what
he is about to tell may contain elements of an incredulous nature seems, at first glance,
as an admission of the fragility of his sanity. Yet readers will realize after going through
the novel that this is not the case. Bromden’s phantasmagorical narration is filled with
metaphorical undertones which, if close attention is paid, hint at his acute observations
and interpretations regarding the hospital environment and society at large. The
Bromden who is recounting his past and the Bromden who is living through these events
have different psychological states. To be able to understand Bromden’s evolvement as
an individual clearly, it is important to analyze the core of his psychosis.
The narrative distinctly hints at the cause of his mental breakdown as his
unfulfilling interactions with women throughout his life and his father’s eventual
derogation from a powerful chief to an incompetent drunkard. These two factors; that
being forced to feel afraid and inadequate in his dealings with females and witnessing
the image of his commanding, exemplar father reduced to a caricature of a man bit by
bit, compels him to retreat to an internal cocoon for psychological protection. Thus, at
the beginning of the story when we are introduced to Chief Bromden, he is a man acting
as a deaf-mute to avoid human interaction and who imagines that he can hide in an
imaginary fog whenever his safety is threatened by outside forces.
Bromden informs us that his father used to be called “Tee Ah Millatoona”, which
simply means “the-Pine-That-Stands-Tallest-on-the-Mountain” (clearly a phallic image
depicting male virility). Yet following his marriage to a Caucasian woman and taking
44
her surname because “that name makes gettin’ that Social Security Card a lot easier”
(Ibid., p.285), he gives up his tribal name and everything associated with it. The Chief’s
father, who was a big man, proud of his race and independence (Maxwell, 1992: 138), is
methodically belittled by the combined efforts of his white wife and a government who
wants to take over the Indian tribal land. In this context, by privileging the name of the
mother over his own name (i.e. the name of the father), the Chief has surrendered his
manhood and his central role in the family structure to Mrs. Bromden (Waxler, 2007:
151). The son is, therefore, robbed of the ideal role model. The source of his neurosis is
deeply centered on this memory of masculine dispossession that his father had to endure.
Robert P. Waxler explains Bromden’s disillusionment and his dilemma regarding
paternal authority in these words:
[…] Kesey sets his character on a symbolic search for the father: that is, the
spark of manhood within himself that flares at the traditional gender definition. The
search is complicated, however, by the father’s minority status which gives the
mother social supremacy. (Loc. Cit.)
Bereft of a paternal figure who would carve a path for his introduction towards
interaction with the rest of the members of society, little Bromden’s growth as an
individual is crippled by the intervention of castrating maternal figures. Beginning with
his own mother’s smothering presence leading to his father’s emasculation, Bromden’s
condition worsens when he meets the government officials who are trying to buy the
tribal land without his father’s consent.
The female official, who “is an old white-haired woman in an outfit so stiff and
heavy it must be armor plate” (Kesey: 211), insidiously mentions the offer of buying the
land to Mrs. Bromden by mistake, “for she knew instinctively that women, and not men,
wore the trousers” (Sullivan, 1992: 54) in Bromden’s family. Although Bromden’s
father struggled a long time against the government’s plan, his wife overshadowed him
at the end till he couldn’t put up a fight anymore.
45
Furthermore, the arrival of the government agents had another important impact
in young Bromden’s psyche on the long run. He experienced for the first time in his life
the crushing feeling of being ignored. As he reminiscences about the day when the
government officials first appeared in their village, the thing that he vividly recalls is the
way they treated him as if he was an invisible entity. At first he has confidence in
himself as a speaking subject; he believes that he can be acknowledged by the agents if
he can make his voice heard:
[…] and I get the notion they’re talking about these things around me because they don’t know I speak English. They are probably from the East someplace,
where people don’t know anything about Indians but what they see in the movies. I
think how ashamed they’re going to be when they find out I know what they are
saying. (Kesey: 212)
Unfortunately, contrary to his expectations, his existence is coldly denied by the
agents and the road to his self-induced exodus as a deaf-mute is paved at this critical
juncture;
“And I’m just about to go and tell them, how, if they’ll come on in, I’ll go get
Papa from the scaffolds on the falls, when I see that they don’t look like they’d
heard me talk at all. They aren’t even looking at me […].
[…] Not a one of the three acts like they heard a thing I said; in fact they’re
all looking off from me like they’d as soon I wasn’t there at all”. (Ibid., p.213)
Yet, the realization of their indifference becomes clouded by a more sinister
epiphany;
And everything stops and hangs this way for a minute.
[…] And, almost, [I can] see the apparatus inside them take the words I just
said and try to fit the words in here and there, this place and that, and when they
find the words don’t have any place ready-made where they’ll fit, the machinery
disposes of the words like they weren’t even spoken. (Loc. Cit.)
46
In addition to blocking the young Bromden’s access into the symbolic by not
recognizing his words, his allusive perception of outsiders composed of actual
machinery, who dispose of unwanted elements in language triggers in Bromden an
anxiety towards society altogether. This fear will eventually manifest itself more
vehemently in the conception of “the Combine” (society as an oppressive mechanism)
when Bromden grows up.
The female government agent, like her counterpart the Big Nurse, is a
representative of this all powerful establishment, and her word becomes the law as an
extension of matriarchal authority. Her first utterance during the whole encounter in the
village is “No” (Ibid., p.214); a forbidding, dark omen of the despotic treatment that
Bromden will receive at the hands of female figures in the future.
As his own mother, who is supposed to be a nurturing figure, becomes an
accomplice in his father’s downfall, he slides into silence as a means of self-protection
and a response to his discovery that he is considered a voiceless entity. The deaf-mute
act that he carries out for most of his adult life is a direct reaction to the loss of the
paternal signifier, the name of the father, which is replaced literally by the name of the
mother.
Bromden’s father’s influence is twisted before he has had a chance of
intervening in the imaginary order, by re-organizing the image driven register to include
spoken language as a means of interaction with the outside world. Instead, Bromden is
faced with a castrating mother image. The prohibiting gaze of the perverted maternal eye
not only deteriorates the paternal law, but it also aborts any possibility for development
in the case of the young Chief. Consequently Bromden’s personal exile, being unable to
merge with the symbolic register, is an obstacle that he cannot overcome by himself.
47
2.2. Emasculating Females
The reason behind the docile nature of the patients’ behavior in the hospital ward
is almost incessantly pointed out as the possessive tendencies of the female figures
governing the men’s lives, turning them practically into toddlers dependent upon their
mother’s will. This is a lingering, unhealthy master-slave relationship that encourages
both the women to keep their dominant roles, and the men to accept their submissive
positions.
To reiterate, the root of the problem lies in the refusal of women to give up their
swaying influence over the male characters. Their overprotective stance sends waves of
self-doubt and self-criticism into the men’s hearts. Normally, in the Oedipal structure,
the duality of the mother-child bonding is allegedly to be unraveled by the intervention
of a third party; the signifier dubbed by Lacan as the Name-of-the-Father.
However, in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, female characters do not adhere
to the primacy of the paternal signifier. Instead, they choose to take on the attributes of
the signifier themselves, creating a perverted dynamic of a power set-up in which they
refuse to accept the lack within their own psyche and at the same time blocking the
access of the patients (i.e. the child) into the symbolic order. The Name-of-the-Father,
which is supposed to make both parties (the mother and the child alike) realize
themselves as lacking subjects, is taken out of the equation.
From the perspective of the conventional resolution of the Oedipal struggle, “the
father deprives the mother of the phallus she presumably has in the form of the child
identified with the object of her desire” (Dor, 2004: 102). By keeping the child, the
stand-in symbol of the phallic signifier that fills the gap of their lack, the women in
48
Cuckoo’s Nest instill themselves with a false sense of conviction, becoming phallic
mother figures who exercise authority over men for fulfillment.
Under expected circumstances, “it is through the mother that the desire of the
child inevitably encounters the law of the other”, i.e. the father or the symbolic law
(Ibid., p.103). Yet, in the case of the Big Nurse and the rest of the women, their fixation
and their domineering gaze upon the male figures restrict any possible interaction with
and resolution through the paternal signifier. Men become the sole object of the
women’s obsession, locked in the literal prison of the hospital ward for the satisfaction
of the (m)other’s desire.
This distorted dualistic relationship effects and warps the feminine as much as
the masculine. The most obvious example of this notion is the character of Nurse
Ratched. Irving Malin describes the control-driven persona of Ratched as:
[…] an authoritarian, middle-aged woman who tries to impose her will
upon her lunatics – she must make them fear and respect her so that she can feel
superior. She exerts power not to help others but to help herself: her compulsive
design cannot stop – except through violence – because it is all she has. (Malin,
1973: 430)
To be able to hold and exert such a power, she has practically denied her
existence as a woman and repressed all her physical and psychological feminine
qualities. No longer an emotion displaying figure, she has figuratively merged with the
surrounding machinery and reformed herself so that she is almost like a robot dressed in
the skin of a human being in Bromden’s eyes. She carries “no compact or lipstick or
woman stuff” (Kesey: 4) in her bag, but “wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard
glitter, tiny pills that gleam like porcelain, needles, forceps, watchmakers’ pliers, rolls of
copper wire” (Loc. Cit.). Her gestures are precise and automatic. She has become, like
the machines she has been identified with, a cold-hearted, calculating, control freak. Her
49
stature is so imposing for the patients for many reasons, as the men fear the nurse not
just because
[…] she can emasculate her man (phallic issue), or because she can control
him (anal issue), they also fear her because she withholds emotional warmth and
physical care (oral issues). A deep disappointment that the novel expresses
concerning women is not only their failure to be equal and generous partners to
men, or even their unwillingness to submit to men in a battle of sexes, but their
failure to play a warmly maternal role, or, when actually assuming that role their
failure to play it effectively. (Sullivan: 55)
Combined with her absolute control over the patients’ affairs, the denial of her
sexuality creates an even greater source of resentment against her, harbored by the men
in the hospital (Allen, 1997: 65). With her huge breasts hidden under her white, stiff
uniform, she symbolizes the Destructive Mother or the Bad Mother (Géfin, 2012: 98)
who holds back motherly affection. Her breasts are a reminder of her natural disposition
and accordingly she is ashamed of them. Chief Bromden observes that:
[…] A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly
breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter
she is about it. (Kesey: 6)
To suppress the physical manifestations of her weakness she compensates by
treating the patients brutally and depriving them of any contact relished with feelings. In
this regard she succeeds in appearing as a sexless being, or even masculine at times. She
derives a sense of enjoyment out of the collective misery of the men she mentally
tortures. She projects her anger onto the men in the guise of sadistic affiliations; the
functional result of her frustration emerges as her sadistic desire to castrate the patients
in her ward (Havemann, 1971: 63-64).
She uses many different techniques of persecution which cause anguish and
misery to patients. Among these maybe the most excruciating method is the group
therapy sessions which force men to share their deepest secrets and spy on each other for
50
the nurse’s approval. These “pecking parties” as McMurphy calls them, are so effective
that they destroy any chance for unity between the patients and assure a sense of
helplessness that breaks their spirit. Carol Sue Pearson Havemann has this to say about
the issue:
[…] in group therapy meetings all the Acutes analyze each other. Fundamental to
this technique is individual public confession. In addition, each inmate is
responsible for writing down anything ‘revealing’ another inmate might say while
not in group therapy so that ‘therapy’ becomes a euphemism for shameful
confessions and rewarded spying. The net result of these tactics is the loss of selfesteem by each individual, partly as a result of his own less than dignified
confessions […] and partly as a result of his persecution of other inmates in the
pecking parties. (Ibid., p.64)
The nurse’s probing into their innermost, private emotions bestows her with the
necessary knowledge to castrate them as she destroys the barrier between the personal
and public self with her all-seeing gaze. The illusion of democracy and supportive care
at the center of these meetings only make men more passive and mild.
Ratched’s tools for emasculating the men range from such therapy sessions to
electro-shock treatments, using the black orderlies to spread anxiety and fear among
men, and as a last resort ‘frontal’ lobotomy. With such powerful weapons at her disposal
she rules over the hospital with an iron fist. As Terrence Martin observes about these
methods of castration:
At Miss Ratched’s disposal are the three black orderlies (hired for their
hatred), the Shock Shop, and the final measure of lobotomy. With their
thermometer, their giant jar of vaseline, and their blood knowledge of rape and
injustice, the orderlies make women out of men, just as the shock therapy machine
turns men docile, and lobotomy converts even the most unruly into Fully Adjusted
Products. These weapons of terror, dedicated to the proposition that the best man is
a good boy. It is small wonder that the patients on the ward seek the relative safety
of boyhood and allow themselves to be ruled by stern and selfish non-mothers who,
like cuckoo-birds, have no instincts for building nests of their own. The Chief has
his fog, but they have no other place to hide. (Martin, 1992: 28-29)
51
In addition to such feats, Big Nurse’s ability to insinuate people for things they
do not even admit to themselves is another particular craft she employs for domination
over the patients. She does it in a subtle manner under the guise of trying to help them;
like the time when she asks Billy what was about the girl he wanted to go out with that
frightened him so much, just to add more to his feeling of inadequacy (Maxwell: 142143). Bromden observes this situation with sorrow when he says:
And as far as the nurse riding you like this, rubbing your nose in your weakness till
what little dignity you got left is gone and you shrink up to nothing from
humiliation, I can’t do anything about that, either. (Kesey: 137)
As the novel warns the reader though, Ratched is not the only female figure
making the men’s lives miserable. Most of the patients in the ward have already been
subjugated to one form of castration or another at the hands of women prior to their
arrival at the hospital. At the root of their trauma lies the demeaning treatment they
received from their mothers, wives or girlfriends alike:
The ward is littered with casualties of “momism”: Billy Bibbit’s stuttering began
with his first word, M-m-m-m-mama; Ruckly’s only utterance throughout the novel
is “Ffffuck da wife”; Harding’s neurosis stems from inferiority feelings agitated by
his wife’s “ample bosom”; Chief Broom’s self-concept shrank in sympathy with his
once-powerful father after, he says, “[his wife] made him too little to fight any more
and he gave up”. (McMahan, 1992: 146)
“With her captive son or sons in a state of automatic adoration of herself”
(Wylie, 1968: 208), as Philip Wylie says in Generation of Vipers, the women in the
novel, like the mom figure described in the quotation, have become the ruthless
shepherds of a submissive flock of men who have lost their manhood and are too scared
to do anything about it.
Not surprisingly then, Bromden conjures up an idea of a society ruthless and
mechanical, shaped in the image of the castrating female figures who govern their lives.
His perception of the possessive, imposing mother figure is reflected onto the whole
52
world. Whereas under a healthy resolution of the Oedipus complex society and its
structuring laws implant in a person’s character a sense of identity through
differentiation, in the Chief’s case it poses an impending sense of doom. This “dread of
all conditioning forces to the point of paranoia” (Tanner, 1971: 16) is the basis of the
Indian’s vision of the Combine.
Bromden’s projection of his anxieties, triggered by his experiences in the “inner
world of the hospital ward” to the “outer world of everyday life”, is a sign that if he can
muster the strength to overcome his issues regarding the castrating females in his life,
his passage from the imaginary to the symbolic order will be an achievable goal.
Unfortunately, he does not have that kind of iron will at the beginning of the story.
Bromden’s greatest concern is that the Combine’s ultimate purpose, headed by
officers such as the Big Nurse, is the destruction of personal identity. According to him
the ward
[…] is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed
product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse’s heart; something that came in all twisted
different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and
a marvel to behold. (Kesey: 40)
The matriarchal society pulling the strings of the whole process wishes to
recreate the society in their own image: human beings without their own identity,
satisfied with the way the Combine handles things. During the fishing trip the Chief
realizes solemnly that the Combine has already accomplished this feat; they have
produced a social order where the individuation of a human being is not quite possible
through differentiation by the operation of a signifying chain, because every individual
seems like a carbon copy of someone else. They have no defining features:
53
[…] All up the coast I could see the signs of what the Combine had accomplished
since I was last through this country, things like, for example—a train stopping at a
station and laying a string of full-grown men in mirrored suits and machined hats,
laying them like a hatch of identical insects, half-life things coming pht-pht-pht out
of the last car, then hooting its electric whistle and moving on down the spoiled
land to deposit another hatch. (Ibid., p.240)
This world, controlled by the “Big Other”, in the visage of authority figures such
as the “Big Nurse”, is devoid of any possibility for self-realization. In the eyes of the
Combine, personality is a negative trait that has to be abolished. The Combine, with its
aim to destroy any meaningful symbolic relationship the individual might have with his
surroundings, is more than just a closed system. As Terence Martin puts it:
[…] The specific make-up of the Combine remains vague, as indeed it must, since
the word combine is not simply a synonym for organization, since it is the Chief’s
protean metaphor for all that mechanizes, threshes, and levels – for all that
packages human beings into “products”. (1992: 36)
Without a paternal signifier to break the closed circuit of the dualistic mother –
son relationship in the imaginary, the gaze of the phallic mother figure becomes so
overwhelming that the Indian starts to see the world through the perception of their
prosecutors.
The society, with its ever-changing, ever-fluid symbolic relations should be a
liberating platform and a guarantor of individual development. Sadly, in the perverted
conception of the Combine, the social order becomes yet another tool for alienation and
imprisonment. Bromden and the rest of the patients will need the intervention of the
paternal signifier that finds body in the character of Randle McMurphy to break away
from the harrowing influence of the “Big Mother”.
54
2.3. McMurphy the Liberator
The microcosm of the asylum comes to embody the psychological plight of the
inmates entrapped within the boundaries of a society under the domination of a
seemingly all powerful matriarchy. Although Chief Bromden and the patients have
cultivated ways to endure the constraining disposition of such a system, they could not
avoid being reduced to puppets at the mercy of their puppeteers. Without intervention,
their existence would be shaped according to the demands of outside forces.
At this crucial point, the introduction of McMurphy serves as an indicator of
spiritual awakening for the patients and a possible, long-awaited change in the workings
of the oppressive order. McMurphy, with his exuberant and unyielding nature, will
slowly turn the tables in favor of the inmates; showing Bromden and others not only
how to resist the numbing aura of the Combine, but also how to form a stable identity
free from the limitations of the society. As the story unravels, McMurphy’s role as a
surrogate paternal figure and a liberator will eventually help Bromden to break away
from the enclosed, figurative jaws of the imaginary register as he reconstructs his
personality.
In the morning that McMurphy arrives at the hospital, prior to his admission
into the ward, Bromden and the rest of the patients feel that there is something peculiar
about this man even without laying eyes on him. The reason being is that they ‘hear’ him
before they see him (Martin: 31), and according to the Chief “[h]e sounds big” (Kesey:
11). McMurphy’s voice becomes his first defining characteristic and a source of
admiration in the eyes of the inmates; his yet to be perceived physical posture is directly
juxtaposed with the pitch of his voice:
Talking louder’n you’d think he needed to if the black boys were anywhere
near him. He sounds like he is way above them, talking down, like he’s sailing fifty
yards overhead, hollering at those below on the ground. […] I hear him coming
55
down the hall, and he sounds big in the way he walks, and he sure don’t slide […].
(Loc. Cit.)
McMurphy’s zestful way of articulation unsettles both the attendants and the
patients who are used to the quiet and uneventful way of life in the ward. Unlike
Bromden, who gave up his voice for the feeling of security provided by noncommitment, McMurphy constantly talks and makes his voice heard. In the long run, by
small degrees McMurphy uses the power of his voice to distort the mundane order of the
ward. At first he ridicules the nurse with his witty comments and makes all the patients
laugh at his jokes, because “through his ability to recognize and function within Big
Nurse’s discourse […] McMurphy demonstrates how to use the language of the
matriarchy to control a dominant female” (Waxler: 151). He makes the inarticulate
inmates realize that by using their voice as a form of expression, they may in fact have
an effective aegis against the brutal plots of the Big Nurse; for unrestrained voice
“becomes senseless and threatening, all the more so because of its […] intoxicating
powers” (Dolar, 1996: 17).
McMurphy’s mastery over his voice causes a small tremor within the hearts of
all the residents, for voice of an individual is foremost an affirmation of his personality
and the cornerstone of his consciousness:
To hear oneself speak – or just simply to hear oneself – can be seen as an
elementary formula of narcissism that is needed to produce a minimal form of a
self. (Ibid., p.13)
By small degrees Bromden will begin to realize that his voluntary withdrawal
from social interaction is nothing but a hindrance at self-discovery and fulfillment.
Following the example set out by McMurphy, he will eventually shed his skin of silence.
In conjunction with his booming voice, another aspect of McMurphy’s dynamic
nature that mesmerizes the patients presents itself in his ability to laugh and instill
56
laughter in other people. Ensuing the first group meeting he attends, McMurphy
observes that patients are too afraid to smile, let alone laugh. He explains that:
“[…] when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. A man go around
lettin’ a woman whup him down till he can’t laugh anymore, and he loses one of the
biggest edges he’s got on his side […]”. (Kesey: 70)
Basically then, laughter is his great weapon (Klinkowitz, 1992: 116) against the
tyrannical matriarchy. It is a physical expression rooted in intellectual and imaginative
ecstasy. The ability to laugh is a commodity, a relic long forgotten by the inmates; an act
by the nature of its manifestation uncontrollable and a potential threat in the eyes of the
Combine. In addition to its rule defying property, in the hands of McMurphy laughter
becomes “a new way of perceiving reality, which is nothing less than a new reality
itself” (Loc. Cit.). So much so that towards the end of the story when McMurphy takes
the patients on a fishing trip, away from the hospital’s and the society’s influence, their
conjoined laughter on the boat acts as a vigorous therapeutic device. The communal
laughter turns into “the expression of freedom – earned and shared” (Martin: 33).
The Big Nurse’s ward also has its own peculiar sounds, like the music played
through the speakers all day long. However the music, in Nurse Ratched’s case,
becomes another tool to oppress the patients as she refuses to turn the volume down
even though she is aware it is upsetting everyone in the ward. Sound, for McMurphy, is
a restorative instrument aiding his new friends in reclaiming their identities; whereas
Nurse Ratched uses it for the sole purpose of further agonizing the inmates and
reinforcing her authority. As the novel progresses Chief Bromden learns to internalize
McMurphy’s healing voice against all odds and will metaphorically be reborn as a
speaking subject.
Besides the recuperative power of his voice, the most significant aspect of
McMurphy’s persona for the patients, especially the Indian, is his resemblance to a
57
paternal figure, which they are in dire need. The merciless mechanism that is the
Combine, represented by the Big Nurse, has placed the men in an environment where
their actions and emotions are kept in check by fear. The anxiety of castration has turned
these men literally into submissive children afraid of their own shadows.
McMurphy’s entrance into the ward marks the beginning of the gradual
acceptance of their manhood and consequently the end of their arrested development at
the hands of the restricting matriarchal order. He will come to embody the paternal
signifier which breaks the duality in the mother-child relationship and enable the men to
take a step towards the symbolic register.
As the narrator of the story, we acknowledge Bromden’s point of view about the
paternal function of McMurphy. He becomes the spokesman of the patients (although at
first it seems ironic since he acts as a deaf-mute), in regards to their metamorphosis
under the Irish man’s influence. He draws the first parallelism between his own father
and McMurphy as soon as he senses the other man’s presence within the ward:
He talks a little the way Papa used to, voice loud and full of hell, but he
doesn’t look like Papa; Papa was a full-blood Columbia Indian—a chief—and hard
and shiny as a gunstock. This guy is redheaded with long red sideburns and a tangle
of curls out from under his cap, been needing cut a long time, and he’s broad as
Papa was tall, broad across the jaw and shoulders and chest, a broad white devilish
grin, and he’s hard in a different kind of way from Papa, kind of the way a baseball
is hard under the scuffed leather. (Kesey: 11-12)
Bromden’s initial impression is based on the physical similarities between the
two men. Though he admits McMurphy does not exactly resemble his father’s
appearance, what makes the ‘red headed’ Irish man a successor of the Indian Chief ( for
Indians are traditionally hailed as the ‘Red Man’) is the admirable way he carries his
composure. The manner he moves freely around the ward shaking hands with people
and trying to have a conversation while the orderlies chase after him to fulfill hospital
58
regulations, paints a picture of a head strong man above the rules of society in
Bromden’s mind. As John W. Hunt puts it:
Many of McMurphy’s surface qualities are attractive to six-foot-eight-inch
Bromden because they remind him of his father and of what he might himself have
become had not his personal history, especially the betrayal of his mother, reduced
him in psychological size to the point of invisibility to others. (Hunt, 1992: 16)
This Irish man is a gambler, a scoundrel, a maverick; he is a man whom the
Combine has not succeeded in subduing. He has not experienced a breakdown because
“the Combine didn’t get him” (Kesey: 92). McMurphy is a glitter of hope for the
masculine cause, and there can be no doubt that from this point on McMurphy plays the
role of a second father for the Indian, his story becomes the account of Bromden’s
second growth from childhood to adulthood (Beidler, 1992: 6).
Bromden has a dichotomist perception of power based on a person’s size. Yet
this conception does not rest on a classification of the actual size of said people, it does
not reflect the exterior of their physical being. For instance, although he himself has a
much ‘larger’ body than the Irish man, in his mind McMurphy is a ‘giant’ come out of
the sky to save them from the Combine (Kesey: 267). In contrast he views himself as a
pathetic weakling because he chose to bend before the authority of the Big Nurse like his
father did formerly; thus the gap in power between Bromden and McMurphy at the
beginning of the novel is purely conceptual. It is the size of McMurphy’s backbone, so
to speak, that the Indian admires.
It is no wonder that the Indian’s perception of reality has been altered so
drastically if we take into account that the inmates have been living under the influence
of a repressive matriarchal hierarchy. Their anxiety and low self-esteem is a direct result
of being under the prohibiting gaze of a perverted maternal figure who has come to
embody a function which is traditionally attributed to her paternal counterpart. The
59
function of the maternal gaze in a healthy child-mother relationship is to direct the
child’s desire towards a third party, which is the paternal signifier:
The Lacanian gaze is thus understandable only in the triadic structure of
desire, the Oedipal structure in which the subject is faced with the question of the
Other’s desire. In the actual setting of the Oedipal stage, the experience of the gaze
begins to unfold when the mother no longer simply presents an image to the child
but is seen to be looking for something herself, the moment when the suspicion
dawns that the mother’s desire is directed beyond the child itself to some third
position. (Boothby, 2001: 260)
The problem in Cuckoo’s Nest is, instead of directing her gaze towards the
paternal signifier to break the mother-child relationship, Nurse Ratched prefers to fix her
gaze at the patients and preserve the vicious dyadic cycle.
Ratched’s twisted, threatening gaze assumes the form of a tool for emasculating
the ward residents. This overpowering device, since the connection between the child
(i.e. the patients) and the mother (i.e. Ratched) could not be severed, serves as a mirror
shaping the self-perception and the ego formation of Bromden and the others. They
measure their self-worth wholly dependent upon the nurse’s view and reflections about
them. Considering that Ratched is a judgmental mother figure who enjoys the abuse of
power she exerts upon other people, it is not surprising that patients are turning into
obedient figureheads fearing the wrath of the Combine. During his discussions with
McMurphy, Harding paints a real stark picture of the situation with his metaphorical
insight:
“This world... belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence
is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to
this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a
law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the
wolf as the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive
and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He
knows his place. He most certainly doesn’t challenge the wolf to combat. Now,
would that be wise? Would it?” (Kesey: 64)
60
Harding, who was the official representative of the patients till McMurphy
arrived, summarizes their predicament with this simple analogy. As if in a wild jungle,
the inmates have come to accept their role as rabbits dreading the wolf in this vicious
ecosystem.
By the same token, this alarming pattern of conscious resignation on the part of
the patients is the underlying reason behind their incarceration. To McMurphy’s
surprise, most of the patients in the hospital are voluntarily committed because ‘they
don’t have the guts to be Outside’. McMurphy has a hard time grasping the logic
inherent in their decisions because according to him they may not exactly be “the
everyday man on the street, but [they] are not nuts” (Ibid., p.195). Interestingly Billy
Bibbit, who is normally a very submissive person, becomes enraged after hearing
McMurphy accuse everybody of being cowards:
“You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn’t like
a con-con-vertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-llaughing at you? No, because you’re so b-big and so tough! Well, I’m not big and
tough. Neither is Harding. Neither is F-Fredrickson. Neither is Suh-Sefelt. Oh—oh,
you—you t-talk like we stayed in here because we liked it! Oh—it’s n-no use...”
(Loc. Cit.)
Similar to the animal analogy then, their problem lies in negative self-perception.
The real enemy lurks in their own minds, the Combine is nothing but a projection of
their ineffectual, weak personalities (Sullivan: 62). In consequence, McMurphy’s first
task is to break this illusion of power struggle and make the residents realize that their
emasculation is solely the result of their unfounded anxieties of the feminine.
The clearest manifestation of the patients’ anxiety is perhaps what Bromden calls
‘the fog’. In Bromden’s psyche the fog indicates a defense mechanism which triggers in
order to make him adjust to his current and past horrifying experiences. As Elena
Semino and Kate Swindlehurst point out:
61
Bromden is underlexicalized in relation to emotions and to the workings of
his own mind. As a result, he conceives of even his bouts of dislocation and anxiety
in terms of mechanical metaphors. A key feature of Bromden's consciousness is the
fog machine: he believes that his intermittent sense of disorientation must come
from some outside mechanism, and he therefore conceives of his confusion as
concrete rather than abstract and as caused by the robots who control him.
(Swindlehurst and Semino, 2012)
During a group meeting when McMurphy persuades the supervising doctor
Spivey to let the patients use a vacant storage room for card playing, and seemingly tips
the scales in his favor in the battle for domination against the nurse, Bromden
contemplates that McMurphy’s efforts will only further antagonize the stone cold nurse
resulting in catastrophe. As soon as his fear of Ratched surfaces, he starts conjuring the
soothing image of the fog machine:
Right now, she’s got the fog machine switched on, and it’s rolling in so fast
I can’t see a thing but her face, rolling in thicker and thicker, and I feel as hopeless
and dead as I felt happy a minute ago, when she gave that little jerk— even more
hopeless than ever before, on account of I know now there is no real help against
her or her Combine. McMurphy can’t help anymore than I could. Nobody can help.
And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in.
And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it and can let go, and
be safe again. (Kesey: 113)
At this point in the novel the fog imagery serves the purpose of a sanctuary, a
safe haven in Bromden’s stormy subconscious. However, this perspective will shift as
McMurphy becomes Bromden’s primary mentor; he is welcomed by the Indian as an
interesting character and he will begin his educational task by bringing Bromden out of
the fog (Havemann: 102). Much as the Chief is scared of McMurphy’s small victories
against Ratched, like the one mentioned above, the more he comes to close contact with
the Irish man the more confident he feels:
They haven’t really fogged the place full force all day today, not since
McMurphy came in. I bet he’d yell like a bull if they fogged it. (Kesey: 78)
62
A decisive moment in Bromden’s recovery occurs during the voting incident
following a group meeting in which McMurphy and the nurse have an argument over
which program to watch on TV. Nurse Ratched agrees to put the outcome to vote just to
prove that she has full control over the hospital. As McMurphy tries to gather supporters
to watch the baseball game, Bromden realizes that Mack’s efforts symbolize more than a
struggle to gain the control of the television schedule:
It’s like... that big red hand of McMurphy’s is reaching into the fog and
dropping down and dragging the men up by their hands, dragging them blinking
into the open. First one, then another, then the next. Right on down the line of
Acutes, dragging them out of the fog till there they stand, all twenty of them, raising
not just for watching TV, but against the Big Nurse, against her trying to send
McMurphy to Disturbed, against the way she’s talked and acted and beat them
down for years. (Ibid., p. 140)
Prior to this event, McMurphy’s hand was already established as an image of
spiritual regeneration by Bromden when he first shook hands with the Irish man during
his admittance into the ward:
That palm made a scuffing sound against my hand. I remember the fingers
were thick and strong closing over mine, and my hand commenced to feel peculiar
and went to swelling up out there on my stick of an arm, like he was transmitting
his own blood into it. It rang with blood and power. It blowed up near as big as his.
(Ibid., p.25)
The comparison made here is between Bromden’s father and McMurphy. The
hand comes to stand for McMurphy’s (and in turn late Chief Bromden’s) inherent
masculinity and strength. By describing the experience in terms of an exchange of
bodily fluids, the Indian metaphorically foreshadows Mack’s role as a positive influence
over the patients. He brings contact and human touch to a place sterilized by inverted
relationships (Olderman, 1992: 73). Bromden, who had lived in the ward for the past
twenty years like a ghost, slowly raises his hand in support of McMurphy’s symbolic
rebellion. At first he believes he raised his hand simply because there were invisible
63
wires tied around his wrist and he couldn’t help it. However he quickly admits; “No.
That’s not the truth. I lifted it myself”. (Kesey: 142)
For the first time in years the group acts together against the patronizing mother
figure Ratched and this leads her to lose her temper; as “she’s ranting and screaming
behind [them]”(Ibid., p.144), they gather in front of the blank television screen and listen
to McMurphy while he conjures up and narrates a make believe baseball game. The
television screen, which had so far been a stand in mirror acting as a reflection of
Ratched’s prohibiting gaze, broadcasting whatever the nurse saw fit for the ward
residents, is replaced by Mack’s story; the word of the father, the symbolic initiator, is
slowly overcoming the image driven perception of the inmates. Concluding the first part
of the novel, this episode shows the first signs of reawakening in Bromden as he is being
gradually fished out of the fog by his surrogate paternal mentor McMurphy (Hicks,
2007: 76).
Another similar occurrence takes place when McMurphy and the rest of the
patients are discussing about a way to escape from the hospital. McMurphy proposes
that they should try to break the reinforced screening windows (another metaphor for
Ratched’s constant, ever seeing gaze) by throwing a heavy object at them. He then sets
his eyes on the ‘control panel’ in the tub room and, to the surprise of the patients, bets
them that he can lift it although it probably weighs more than four hundred pounds.
Bromden observes that even though he bets on himself on this particular
occasion, McMurphy knows that there is no way he can lift that massive control panel.
The only reason he forces himself to participate in such an undertaking is to show the
cagey inmates that futility of resistance should not prevent them from trying. As he is
leaving the tub room after exerting all his physical power to lift the panel to no avail,
McMurphy sums up his struggle in a few words:
64
“But I tried, though,” he says. “Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much,
now, didn’t I?”. (Kesey: 125)
For him it is not the act itself that counts but what it signifies. The act becomes a
symbol of his resistance and willingness to continue even when he knows that he is
going to be beaten. Bromden is deeply affected by Mack’s struggle with the control
panel, and his determined nature is one of the reasons that lead Bromden and the patients
out of the fog at the end. (Olderman: 73-74)
McMurphy’s positive impact, in accordance with his ability to pull the patients
out of the foggy dimension of their psychological abyss, extends to his capacity to form
a bond between the patients against the disconnecting authority of the Combine and to
make them come to terms with their pasts.
Nurse Ratched’s ultimate tactic for keeping the inmates tied to her invisible leash
and assuring their loyalty rests on their cooperation of sharing secret information about
each other during the group meetings. She chooses a possible victim among the patients
and discreetly leads the rest of the group in publicly humiliating their target, thus
creating an atmosphere of distrust among them which she can easily use for
manipulation. These ‘pecking parties’ are an obstacle in the way of their recovery,
because instead of providing a therapeutic effect, they become a source of discord. They
are just another tool in the great arsenal of the nurse in keeping the men emasculated,
because as McMurphy insightfully comments, Ratched is actually pecking “at [their]
everlovin’ balls” (Kesey: 60) during group meetings.
Beginning with the voting incident, McMurphy tries to restore the men’s
masculinity through activities of male bonding:
Gambling, drinking, and whoring also serve to unite men, and McMurphy
succeeds in initiating, some of the ward into these activities as well. These activities
65
are shared by the men on the fishing excursion, as well as in the novel's conclusion,
when the all-male ward rises in rebellion against the Big Nurse. (Vitkus, 2012: 80)
By having them participate in these ventures, contrary to Nurse Ratched’s so
called ‘group meetings’, he enables them to feel a connection among themselves and
encouraging the emergence of positive emotions. Like an actual paternal figure, he
breaks the negative bonding between Ratched and the patients, severing the tie making
them dependent upon her. This, in turn, allows them to socialize. They learn to share
their feelings and express them freely. As mentioned earlier laughter, Mack’s ultimate
weapon against the repressing matriarchy, is shared by the whole crew during the fishing
expedition:
[This] community laughter; comic, aware, the signature of a deep
experience, the expression of freedom – [becomes] earned and shared. The fishing
expedition, brilliantly handled by Kesey, accentuates the growing sense of
community among patients. (Martin: 32-33)
Following the fishing trip and the midnight party at the hospital prior to
McMurphy’s escape, the patients form such strong bonds among themselves that they
become “a far cry from the little boys who spied on each other and tattled in the Big
Nurse’s log book. No longer do they tear each other down” (Ibid., p.35).
The Irish man’s influence not only affects the communal bonding process, but
directly inspires personal growth as well. The most noticeable instance of such
development can be observed in Bromden’s case. A colossal part of Bromden’s illness
results from his inability to come to terms with his past experiences. Unresolved issues
of paternal incapacity, social pressure and cultural disassociation force him in the path of
becoming a deaf-mute. Bromden’s healing will be possible if he can accept and make
amends with his history. McMurphy is the person who gradually helps the Chief in
sorting out his frail feelings.
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The few comforting memories Bromden has regarding his past usually focus on
his relationship with his father:
For the Chief […],it is clearly not the memory of his mother that gives him
any comfort, but the early childhood memories of bonding with his father. When
Big Nurse sends the black boys to shave the Chief at the beginning of the novel, for
example, the Chief thinks of his father, their hunting trips in the early morning fog
in the Dalles. For the Chief it is the father who is associated with the womb-like
protection of the fog—a temporary, but ultimately unsatisfying retreat from the
threat of Big Nurse’s attempts at symbolic castration. (Waxler: 153)
McMurphy’s close association with his own father in Bromden’s mind, his
caring qualities and just treatment of the patients trigger a sense of renewed faith in
paternal figures. It is not surprising then to see Bromden uttering his first words in
twenty years to McMurphy, when he thanks him for the flavored gums he shares. At this
point Mack fulfills his role as the paternal signifier, enabling the Indian who is stuck at
the imaginary to step into the symbolic by being the agent responsible for his language
(re)acquisition. Thanks to McMurphy’s (i.e. Name-of-the-Father) efforts Bromden does
not remain bound to the sexual service of Nurse Ratched (Lacan, 2006: 723). The ties of
dyadic relationship are severed.
Furthermore, by telling the Irish man of his paralyzing past that involves
reenacting the oppression and the destruction of his father by his mother, the wasting of
his tribe by various U.S. government agencies, and his own […] emasculation (Hicks:
77), the Chief learns to look at them in a new light and starts perceiving his current
situation accordingly. From a giant sweeping machine who avoids contact with his
surroundings, he turns into a man of acute observations and reflections:
[…]I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was
out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pasture-land; the face of it
was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and
madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got
brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant
moon. It called to mind how I noticed the exact same thing when I was off on a
hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven,
67
lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a
quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. […] (Kesey: 163-164)
McMurphy becomes a conduit that integrates the Indian’s woeful old self with
his newly forming identity. As a teller of embellished stories, McMurphy’s therapy for
the inmates consists as much of talk as of action; he teaches them to replace an imposed
identity with a fresh identity of their own creation (Fick, 2007: 139). A prime example
of such magnitude takes place when McMurphy tries to boost Billy Bibbit’s self-esteem
with a fictitious recreation of his character:
Billy ‘Club’ Bibbit, he was known as in them days. Those girls were about
to take off when one looked at him and says ‘Are you the renowned Billy Club
Bibbit? Of the famous fourteen inches?’ And Billy ducked his head and blushed—
like he’s doin’ now— and we were a shoo-in. And I remember, when we got them
up to the hotel, there was this woman’s voice from over near Billy’s bed, says,
‘Mister Bibbit, I’m disappointed in you; I heard that you had four—four—for
goodness’ sakes! (Kesey: 102)
Billy Bibbit, the victim of excessive maternal care, a mother’s boy who stutters
because of his fear of the feminine, finds solace in Mack’s account of him as a powerful
male figure. Such instances of innocent storytelling flatter and caress the battered
confidence of the patients and instill them with zest and hope about life.
Likewise, McMurphy’s genuine concern for the others not only lets the Chief
enter the symbolic order, but it also instigates a dramatic change in his cognitive
capabilities. Having lived in a psychic protective bubble to isolate himself from the
demands of the outside world most of his life, Bromden finally realizes his mistake
through the example of McMurphy. By avoiding contact with others he has indeed
secured a safe spot for himself in the ward as a deaf-mute, yet this voluntary state of
non-commitment literally turned him into a living dead.
68
His actions, starting with him raising his hand in the voting episode, gradually
benefits more and more people and this helps the Chief realize he can resist the probing
molestations of both the nurse and the Combine. When he assists McMurphy defending
a helpless patient against the orderlies and as a punishment is sent to receive more
electro-shock treatments, he feels there is something different about the whole
experience.
During the last electro-shock he receives he stumbles into a nightmare which
begins with an ‘AIR RAID’ warning that reminds him of the suffering he endured before
being admitted to the hospital; however this enigmatic alert quickly gives way to a more
pastoral memory from his childhood involving his father, uncles and grandmother. In
this dream he relives all his childhood traumas regarding his father’s humiliation and his
inferiority complex stemming from it. Yet unlike his previous electro-shock treatments,
this time he awakens from the dream as a subject still ruling over his mental faculties:
I couldn’t remember all of it yet, but I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my
hands and tried to clear my head. I worked at it. I’d never worked at coming out of
it before.
I staggered toward the little round chicken-wired window in the door of the
room and tapped it with my knuckles. I saw an aide coming up the hall with a tray
for me and knew this time I had them beat. (Ibid., p.287-288)
The realization that he had them beat, knowing that the victory is within his
grasp boosts his self-respect. Reminiscing about his past when personal ties within the
family structure was of prime importance, where the expectations of a strict authority
did not muddle his true feelings, is a huge step towards his recovery. He begins
expressing his pleasure about being able to linger on such fond memories:
I was kind of amazed that I’d remembered that. It was the first time in what
seemed to me centuries that I’d been able to remember much about my childhood.
It fascinated me to discover I could still do it. I stay in bed awake, remembering
other happenings […]. (Ibid., p.215)
69
With a renewed sense of perception Bromden takes another look at the mirror, so
to speak, and he realizes that he does not consider himself so small anymore. In the
evening prior to the fishing trip McMurphy, the symbol of unbridled masculinity, after
learning that the Chief can understand him spins a tale filled with erotic undertones
regarding Bromden’s sexual prowess in his full glory ( just as he made up a story for
Billy Bibbit).:
There you’ll be. It’s the Big Chief Bromden, cuttin’ down the boulevard—
men, women, and kids rockin’ back on their heels to peer at him: ‘Well well well,
what giant’s this here, takin’ ten feet at a step and duckin’ for telephone wires?’
Comes stompin’ through town, stops just long enough for virgins, the rest of you
twitches might’s well not even line up ‘less you got tits like muskmelons, nice
strong white legs long enough to lock around his mighty back, and a little can of
poozle warm and juicy and sweet as butter an’ honey [...]. (Ibid., p.223-224)
Despite being an optimist fabrication, the tale serves to further solidate
Bromden’s belief in himself and his true capacities as it tries to rebuild an identity that
had been shattered for a long time. The Irish man’s counter therapy as an advocate of
manhood slowly reaches its fruition precisely because he brings a sense of space,
freedom, and largeness onto the ward (Martin: 37). The result of his innovative tale
quickly manifests itself physically; when McMurphy unties Bromden’s sheet and clears
the covers he shrewdly comments that he has grown “half a foot already” (Kesey: 224)
because the Chief has an erection.
Along with his ability to rekindle sexual desire in the patients with his arousing
tales, McMurphy’s own physical virility is time and time again emphasized by Kesey
while he paints a picture of a man unburdened by the demands of the matriarchal
authority. He is described as a symbol by a literary major he was acquainted with in the
university, and this person gives him a pair of underpants as a present covered with the
figure of the famous ‘sperm’ whale Moby-‘Dick’.
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McMurphy shares many qualities with the legendary leviathan like natural
vitality, strength and independency (Sherwood, 1973: 391). Terence Martin puts the
Irish man’s connection with the white whale elegantly into words when he comments
that “McMurphy may represent the indomitableness of Moby-Dick himself; as MobyDick cannot be vanquished by the monomaniac Ahab, so the spirit of McMurphy cannot
be quenched by the Combine”. (Martin: 38)
Consequently, his constantly highlighted sexual bravado extends to the patients (
who have grown passive and torpid before McMurphy’s arrival) during the evening
party which is supposed to mark the Irish man’s escape from the hospital.
The party becomes the final expression of freedom and self-assertion against the
agents of a society so pre-occupied with control that they thwart any attempt of personal
growth. It signifies the celebration of individuals shedding the skin imposed on them by
external forces. At the most primitive psychic level, it “develops into a wild
bacchanalian wing-ding, the climax of all the harassment, all the antics, all the antiauthoritarian nose-thumbing”. (Waldmeir, 1973: 413)
The most significant aspect of the party is that it provides the patients with an
opportunity to experience sex. Under the pressure of castrating female figures
whomanifest themselves as their mothers, wives and most notably Nurse Ratched, they
have been reduced to the stature of small children whose knowledge of sex is almost
non-existent. Following his custom of presenting sex as a liberating instrument
throughout the novel, McMurphy invites two female friends of his to the party named
Candy and Sandy. Being representations of the proverbial ‘whore with a golden heart’,
these two women serve as foils against all other emasculating females in the story;
[They] function both to emphasize (McMurphy’s) manhood and to measure the
progress of the patients towards regaining (or finding) theirs. […] Candy and Sandy
evoke attitudes of freedom and openness rather than of restraint and confinement.
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Whereas the Big Nurse would make men little, they would make men big. (Martin:
28)
Among the patients, the person who is mostly affected by the arrival of these
kind hookers is undoubtedly Billy Bibbit. Being victimized by a mother who obviously
wants to keep him as her “little darling” forever; Billy’s interactions with women are
limited to his mother’s caresses whose treatment of him borders almost on incest. Billy,
a thirty one year old grown man with the emotional aptitude of a small kid, never has a
chance to break out of this perverted dual relationship with his mother until McMurphy
introduces him to Candy.
The morning after his sexual relationship with Candy, Billy Bibbit feels so
competent and confident for the first time in his life that (ever since the day he uttered
the word ‘Mama’) he does not stutter any more. As his prolonged virginity, endorsed by
his mother, is shown to be the primary cause of his stutter, his loss of virginity proves to
be its instantaneous cure (Eagle, 2012: 207). Once the disapproving, forbidding gaze of
his mother is replaced by the accepting, caring touch of another female, the ailment
which reflects his symbolic castration is healed and he becomes a fully functioning man.
The same conviction can be observed in other patients like Harding, who
confesses that the whole experience changed them somehow:
They’re [the patients] still sick men in lots of ways. But at least there’s that: they
are sick men now. No more rabbits, Mack. Maybe they can be well men someday.
(Kesey: 307)
Harding finally realizes that it was the patients’ own faults for letting external
elements determine their own personalities and judging their masculinity. Their primary
sin and the cause of their suffering was to accept their rabbithood in the first place and
act weak (Boyd, 2012: 169-170). They internalized the values of the society and lost
72
their own identities in the process. For Harding, it was the overpowering influence of the
Combine that put them in the hospital:
Guilt. Shame. Fear. Self-belittlement. I discovered at an early age that I was—shall
we be kind and say different? It’s a better, more general word than the other one. I
indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It
wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing
forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voice of millions chanting,
‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different.
(Kesey: 307-308)
For years, he admits, he has let the vindictive jibes and perception of his wife of
himself as an incompetent homosexual man shape the course of his life. However,
beginning with McMurphy’s arrival at the ward and timely intervention, his view
regarding his way of life alters. He believes he can take control of his own life once
again and contemplates leaving the hospital:
I’ll be ready in a few weeks. But I want to do it on my own, by myself, right out
that front door, with all the traditional red tape and complications. I want my wife
to be here in a car at a certain time to pick me up. I want them to know I was able to
do it that way. (Loc. Cit.)
A parting boon bestowed upon the patients by McMurphy, the party is a
culmination of his efforts to enable them as individual beings. In the absence of a naysaying authority figure who constrains them, they all enjoy the freedom to express
themselves and to be a part of a community which does not criticize them for their
shortcomings. Unfortunately, this blissful celebration of self re-discovery is short lived.
They have to face one more trial to rid themselves of the Combine’s control.
The next morning when the nurse arrives at the ward and finds out what they
have been up to the previous evening, she starts to lash out at them in a cold-hearted
manner as if she were a mother passing judgment on her disobedient children. Her wrath
specifically focuses on Billy Bibbit, who by sleeping with another woman and enjoying
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the experience, has outgrown his former, fragile self. However, since his new emerging
identity is not fully developed, by playing on his feeling of guilt regarding sex and
threatening to inform Mrs. Bibbit of his son’s behavior, Ratched succeeds in reversing
McMurphy’s positive influence over Billy:
“What worries me, Billy,” she said—I could hear the change in her voice—“is how
your poor mother is going to take this.” (Ibid., p.314)
[…]
“Mrs. Bibbit’s always been so proud of your discretion. I know she has. This
is going to disturb her terribly. You know how she is when she gets disturbed,
Billy; you know how ill the poor woman can become. She’s very sensitive.
Especially concerning her son. She always spoke so proudly of you.” (Ibid., p.315)
In response, the anguished man is so overwhelmed by shame that his habit of
stuttering, the indicator of his own emasculation, re-emerges:
“Duh-duh-don’t t-tell, M-M-M-Miss Ratched. Duh-duh-duh—” (Loc. Cit.)
The quarrel concludes when Billy Bibbit, unable to cope with the idea of being
exposed to his mother, cuts his own throat and commits suicide. This incident marks a
very significant change in McMurphy’s attitude. As the surrogate father figure who most
of the time tried to outwit the nurse to set an example for the others with humorous jokes
and occasional acts of minor rebellion, he faces a humongous responsibility. By now he
has come to terms with the fact that the patients are so weak that without his lead they
are powerless against the nurse. Therefore he is aware that even if his last act will negate
the very terms of his freedom (Fick: 145), he has to perform it to fulfill his duty as the
paternal signifier.
Chief Bromden knows that the heavy burden they have put on the Irish man’s
shoulders is what propels him into action at this point:
We couldn’t stop him because we were the ones making him do it. It wasn’t
the nurse that was forcing him, it was our need that was making him push himself
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slowly up from sitting, his big hands driving down on the leather chair arms,
pushing him up, rising and standing like one of those moving-picture zombies,
obeying orders beamed at him from forty masters. It was us that had been making
him go on for weeks, keeping him standing long after his feet and legs had given
out, weeks of making him wink and grin and laugh and go on with his act long after
his humor had been parched dry between two electrodes. (Kesey: 318)
McMurphy, with the firm belief that only by destroying the image of the
castrating nurse in the minds of the patients can he liberate them, accepts his fate like a
tragic hero and assaults the nurse. Don Kunz observes that:
As McMurphy rips her uniform, exposes her overdeveloped breasts, and
assumes the missionary position with hands around her throat, he forces the Big
Nurse to undergo a comic mortification. In one sense it marks the symbolic death of
the matriarchal castrator, the monstrous goddess of mechanical conditioning: she
will never again regain control over her ward. (Kunz, 1992: 97)
It is clearly a sexual assault on the nurse’s persona and in a way equal to actual
rape. The violation of Ratched is the only way to get to the root of the problem and
restore their lost masculinity; it is distinctly apparent that this is a collective act born out
of the need of the patients and realized by McMurphy as their chosen scape goat
(Vitkus, 2012: 82). The whole ordeal achieves the desired effect at the end. As Bromden
describes what has transpired during Mack and the nurse’s struggle, he emphasizes the
ward residents’ changed perception of the female castrator:
Only at the last—after he’d smashed through that glass door, her face
swinging around, with terror forever ruining any other look she might ever try to
use again, screaming when he grabbed for her and ripped her uniform all the way
down the front, screaming again when the two nippled circles started from her chest
and swelled out and out, bigger than anybody had ever even imagined, warm and
pink in the light— […] did he (McMurphy) show any sign that he might be
anything other than a sane, willful, dogged man performing a hard duty that finally
just had to be done, like it or not. (Kesey: 318-319)
Not only does McMurphy destroy the Big Nurse’s emasculating power by
replacing her stony, emotionless, medusa-like gaze with a frightened one, he also
75
exposes the most blatant features of her femininity, her enormous breasts, to the whole
world which Ratched had tried to repress relentlessly.
In the psychological field, the breast, as an object of desire by the child triggers
two fantasies: the good breast, idealized as all giving; and the bad breast, its withholding
counterpart (Sokolsky, 1994: 128-129). The image of the breast becomes a pivotal point
of oral gratification, and its deprivation accordingly hinders development of oral
activities (Bracher, 1993: 176).
Nurse Ratched, by covering up her breasts with a uniform and turning herself
into a cold, unresponsive automaton, robs the inmates of the affection and satisfaction
provided by the endowing, good breast. Mack’s assault goes on to show that “only by
becoming exposed and defenseless does Miss Ratched ‘prove’ that she is not after all a
machine, but a ‘warm and pink’ human being” (Géfin, 2012: 100). Her façade of being
the phallic mother is brought down; her efforts of subverting her natural impulses by
hiding the very objects of her femininity are crushed literally in one big swoop.
From this point onward, any shred of authority that the nurse has over the
inmates vanishes forever. The spell of oppression is broken, and out of the struggle
between the two opposing forces the patients are reborn, possessing a different outlook
about themselves and the society as a whole.
Soon after the defeat of Ratched at the hands of McMurphy, patients start leaving
the hospital or signing themselves to different wards where the Big Nurse’s reach is
limited. Now that they know it is in their power to resist and overcome its impact, they
no longer fear to face and mingle with the rest of the society.
Yet Ratched has one last trick left up her sleeve to try and reclaim her influence
over the remaining patients, including Chief Bromden. She decides to use McMurphy,
76
who has been lobotomized after his attack on the nurse and whose body has practically
been turned into a living vegetable, to set an example for everyone else to show what
happens when you aim to buck the system (i.e. defy her authority). However this is just a
futile attempt at regaining power, since Mack has already symbolically castrated her by
destroying two of her most frightening features; her gaze and her voice:
Her face was bloated blue and out of shape on one side, closing one eye completely,
and she had a heavy bandage around her throat. And a new white uniform. Some of
the guys grinned at the front of it; in spite of its being smaller and tighter and more
starched than her old uniforms, it could no longer conceal the fact that she was a
woman. (Kesey: 320)
What deeply troubles Bromden is the state that McMurphy is in. Although at first
he shakes off the idea that the person lying on the post operation bed can be McMurphy,
as the swelling on the face subsides he sorrowfully realizes that he really is the Irish
man. Accepting the loss of his paternal mentor, he decides that he will not leave the fate
of his savior at the hands of a power crazed female figure to be a source of ridicule for
years to come.
His suffocation of McMurphy, in other words his mercy killing of the father, the
paternal metaphor, can be read on many levels. Contrary to the expected interpretation
of the Oedipal struggle where the child wishes to murder the father so that he can
replace him to enjoy the mother’s desire, Bromden’s murder of McMurphy occurs not
out of jealousy but out of love. Mack, the symbolic father, who had been the agent of
spreading ‘the Word’ to the patients, through the signification of his name had separated
the link between the castrating mother and the enfeebled children, has been reduced to a
dead object, a non-signifier. The Indian, by suffocating him rescues the Irish man and
restores his signifying function as he internalizes McMurphy’s teachings. By covering
the lobotomized body with his own, the two men merge figuratively for an instant. In
one sense, then, he becomes McMurphy. Yet he realizes that he has surpassed his
teacher when he puts on Mack’s cap; it is too small for him. So, leaving the dead image
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of the surrogate father behind and contemplating his escape, he “frees his own voice
from the stranglehold of imitation” (Scally, 2012).
The Chief’s flight from the ward and his redemption embellishes the concluding
pages of the novel:
The novel does not end on a note of death and pessimism […]. McMurphy,
though dead, lives on in the spirit, especially for Bromden, who escapes from the
hospital and presumably returns to the land of his fathers. He escapes by throwing
the Big Nurse’s control panel – symbol of the world of authority – through the
window. The faithful Indian, in short, survives his white companion and becomes [
a more confident ] McMurphy, having learned to lie and boast readily as his
mentor, having learned to travel light, to survive by his wits, and to live a good life.
(Carnes, 1974: 15)
Having beaten the Combine, regained his consciousness and heading for his old
hometown, the Chief’s recovery is solidified further by him recounting the whole tale to
the reader. By relating his experiences in the hospital, he materializes the trauma of his
past life into a tangible, coherent entity.
Just as McMurphy was related to Moby-Dick through their similarities, Bromden
becomes a modern day Ishmael who is mentally altered by his story, and is the only
survivor to tell a tale whose magnificence lies in its relieving nature. The Chief, “the
undischarged refugee from a madhouse” (Fiedler, 1968: 183), recreates himself and
transforms from a deaf-mute whose sole identity resided upon other people’s
confirmation of his existence, into a story teller who is cured of his ailment by his ability
to symbolize his suffering by a brilliant narrative.
In accordance with his newly forming social character, by inheriting
McMurphy’s self-assertive qualities and showing symptoms of a desire to make contact
with other people, Bromden proves that he has matured both on the personal and
collective level. His struggle against the mind numbing principles of the Combine,
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which aims at creating an order devoid of humane emotions, emphasizes his anti-heroic
side. Having faced a system that disapproves of any trait indicating individuality, he has
succeeded in preserving his personal integrity and defeated the Combine in a
psychological battle. Just like his mentor, he becomes a rebel with a cause; the cause
being the reformation of his identity, founded onthe principle that individuality arises
from a conflict with the outside world.Hence, he progressively becomes aware that he
cannot assert his being in a vacuum. He needs to find a suitable place for himself among
other people who will, unlike the Combine and its followers who try to dictate upon him
a conceived identity, recognize him for who he is. In this sense, the last paragraph of the
novel reflects his eagerness to return to society and to reconstruct the links that were
severed during his childhood with his old tribe. His wish to socialize and to be a part of
the communal fabric again, to be a signifier among other signifiers, is a testimony of his
successful journey from the deadlock of the Big Nurse’s dualistic conception of
imaginary relationships into an ever changing, ever evolving symbolic stratum.
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3. INVISIBLE MAN
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a complicated story of a marginalized individual
in search of acceptance within society, whose search is first and foremost a reflection of
his own desire to be recognized for what he really is by a community which refuses to
perceive his very essence as a human being. The Invisible Man’s obscure odyssey is a
record of his life which carries him from ignorance to knowledge, darkness to
illumination; it is a tale which by unraveling its many puzzles to the narrator in
retrospection
allows
him
to
acknowledge
the
concepts
of
blindness
and
invisibility,which haunt him all through his life as cornerstones of an identity that
eventually help in forming his new outlook at life.
As a bildungsroman which takes into consideration the gradual growth of his
protagonist from a fledgling layman into an experienced story teller, Invisible Man
displays the narrator’s struggle for self-affirmation in the light of recurring patterns.
These patterns not only enable the protagonist to finally realize the path to his life-long
goal of individuation, but also show the readers his inner turmoil at certain stages of his
life, so that one can infer from the Invisible Man’s reactions to particular events his
actual growth as a person.
In this regard, during this section I would like draw attention to aspects of the
narrative which focus on the narrator’s understanding of himself and his relation to
society in a larger scope, the factors that initially imprison him in a limited perspective
and incidents which truly open his eyes to wider concerns regarding his place in the
grand scheme of things. The narrator’s gullibility and his compliance with externally
imposed identities that make him a puppet at the hands of paternal authority figures
which result from his inability to read signs and decode them, his efforts to find a
medium to assert his identity in the face of such odds, the trials set before him by
equivocal mentors whose crucial advices he literally takes a life time to understand, and
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finally his ultimate rebirth as an individual having mastered both the imaginary and
symbolic registers will be discussed in detail.
Before moving to an analysis of the story however, it is imperative to mention
that Invisible Man chronicles the experiences of a black protagonist. Yet, as Ellison
emphasized time and time again after the novel’s publication, although the story’s
particular episodes may mention the narrator’s ethnic background and his adventures
may reflect the perceptions of a certain minority group, the main premise of the story
deals with universal concerns about the human condition as a whole. Its themes and
motifs transcend ethnical boundaries, giving each reader an equal chance of appreciating
an underprivileged individual’s struggle for autonomy.
3.1. The Dilemma of Being an Invisible Mirror
The Prologue that welcomes the reader into the enigmatic world of Invisible Man
and the Epilogue that concludes the narrator’s fascinating tale serve as a framing device
which capsulate some twenty years of the protagonist’s life, and are reflections on the
experiences of the narrator’s life that leads up to their conception at the end of his
journey, rather than being part of the story proper.
The concept of invisibility that gives the novel its title and the nature of which
the narrator keeps pondering about all through his life, establishes itself as the prime
suspect in causing his past to haunt him. It is a condition, as he admits in the first page of
the novel, not directly related to a physical anomaly in his body, but rather it is a defect
resulting from the way other people perceive him:
[…] I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I
have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me
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they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination –
indeed, everything and anything except me. (emphasis mine)
Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of bio-chemical accident to my
epidermis. That invisibility which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of
the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their
inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon
reality. (emphasis Ellison’s) (Ellison, 1965: 7)
Invisibility, in the protagonist’s case (as he finally comes to realize while
repeating his tale to us), is an affliction stemming from other people’s unwillingness to
accept the narrator for his uniqueness. He is an invisible entity because the people
looking at him are acting intentionally blind, so to speak, which in turn causes the
Invisible Man to doubt his identity. His fragile ego therefore, is constituted upon the
reactions of other people whom he meets during his misadventures. He is not much
different than an infant whose understanding of himself, whose need for approval as a
being, is wholly dependent upon the gaze of others. He is practically stuck at the mirror
stage and the only identity he can call his own during his invisible days is the reflection
he can conjure in the eyes of the onlookers.
Since Lacan posits the formation of the ego through the child’s perception of its
own mirror-image, or of that of someone similar (Weber, 1991: 105), the protagonist’s
fascination with how he is perceived by other people and his desire to fulfill their
expectations helps us to understand the Invisible Man’s identity crisis.
On the level of imaginary identification, human beings imitate the other at the
level of resemblance – we identify ourselves with the image of the other inasmuch we
are ‘like him’ (Žižek, 2008: 121). This crucial effort of welcoming the image of the
other, constructing our ego ideal based on the recognition of our self by the other’s gaze,
is the root of the mirror stage. What makes the protagonist’s situation problematic is that
he is never given the opportunity to overcome this phase. Since this dualistic
relationship between the image in the mirror and the self looking at it is never severed
by a third, intervening party (i.e. the-Name-of-the-Father), the narrator is stuck in a
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prison of reflections which keep repeating themselves in different guises but which are
fundamentally the derivations of the same complication. That is why the story actually
feels like the echo of a primal issue of self-assertion which displays itself under different
situations in a series of events. From the first scene of the battle royal to the concluding
pages of the nightmarish Harlem riot, the whole adventure is, at its core, an effort to
break the spell of the reflection in the mirror; to move from the imaginary identification
with an image as a coherent foundation of the self, to the comprehension of identity as
an ever lacking, fragmented element.
As stated above, the story revolves around people trying to force their
perceptions of him upon the protagonist, till he realizes, as Edith Schor puts it, “that he
has always been invisible, that all his life people have been looking through him, unable
to see him, because they have refused to see him – that is, they have refused to recognize
his individual humanity” (Schor, 1993: 54). Schor also comments on the narrator’s
eventual awakening when he says:
In recalling the series of events that led to his fall, IM (Invisible Man) tries
to place the blame in the outside world but soon realizes that at least half of it lies
within himself; he was run because he was willing to be run. By doing “what was
expected of him”, he suppressed his own understanding and feelings; his complicity
lay in denying his own humanity. (Ibid., p.104-105)
However, this realization comes too late, and the narrator first of all has to go
through many pre-defined social roles and elaborate mask changing rituals before he can
fully capture the meaning behind his experiences.
Following the short Prologue, the readers are plunged into the harrowing
universe of Invisible Man with perhaps one of the most memorable episodes in
American fiction; the battle royal.
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This scene depicts a veiled initiation ceremony where the participants (both black
and white) act out their respective roles to maintain a pre-conceived social order. The
prominent white authority figures of the community who arranged the occasion and the
black students who will partake in the battle are all performing their allotted parts in this
intricate farce. The whole ordeal puts the white authority figures in the position of the
voyeur, where with their probing gaze they can judge the black boys who have become
the objects of their fascination.
Prior to their fight, the boys are forced to watch with the white men the naked,
dancing figure of a white woman who has the tattoo of the American flag on her belly.
By making them peek at this forbidden fruit, confronting them with the taboo of the
white female flesh, the townsfolk both compel the boys to engage in their voyeuristic
ritual and make them realize that they are not allowed to touch what they see. This
twisted position they are in; being both the object of the white men’s gaze, and joining
with them in devouring the female body visually without the permission of touching it,
provokes ambivalent feelings among the black boys and the narrator. They identify with
the blonde woman and at the same time are repelled by her. The narrator explains his
conflicting feelings during this scene in these words:
I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the
floor, or to go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the others with my
body; to feel the soft thighs, to caress her and to destroy her, to love her and murder
her, to hide from her […] (Ellison: 20)
With the American flag on her spectacular body, the naked woman emblematizes
the psychic and social projections of her white male audience (Shinn, 2012: 247). The
Invisible Man’s identification and repulsion with her result from their similar victimized
positions. The motif of similarly victimized women with whom the narrator feels a
connection will be a recurring theme in the following episodes.
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Yet here the figure of the naked woman serves to emphasize the power of
authority over the perceptions of young black boys. It is a warning against trespassing
the set values of the community, a caution for the narrator and his friends to ‘know their
place’. According to Mary Rohrberger the whole setup is a plot to emasculate the boys
symbolically:
Clearly the white men know what they are doing. They call the black boys
to the front, at different times addressing them as “shines”, “coons”, and “Sambos”.
The white men openly exhibit to the black boys not only the white woman but their
own sexual powers and then by means of the fight to follow cause the boys to
punish themselves blindly and brutally for daring to look. In a sense, the battle royal
is a choreography of masochism designed to accomplish the sexual satisfaction of
the white male majority in a patriarchal society. (Rohrberger, 1991: 126)
Despite the cruel and tainting treatment the black boys receive from the authority
figures, the narrator is blinded to the larger implications of the hazing ritual because he
was promised to make a speech at the end of the evening in front of the audience. This is
why when he is made to fight other boys in the boxing ring blindfolded following the
exhibition of the naked blonde, the only thought occupying his mind is that the indignity
of the brawl will detract the impact of his speech afterwards. At this point he does not
care if their contest satisfies the obscene requirements of the white men or not, whether
their humiliation is a way for the prominent figures of the community to absolve their
sins of greed and lust (Schor: 57). His wish to impress the audience and being
acknowledged by them compensates for the ill treatment he receives.
Regrettably his dreams of recognition are short lived as he realizes that his
audience is more interested in the spectacle they have created than the protagonist’s
naive declaration of equality. His oratory skills, which throughout the story become
increasingly important for his identity formation, are wasted on the relentless
southerners. The only instant of his speech which catches their attention is when the
narrator unconsciously replaces the words social “responsibility” with social “equality”.
Regarding this unexpected, seemingly unintentional slip of tongue, they openly admit
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that they mean “to do right by him” as long as “he knows his place at all times” (Ellison:
30). Richard Kostelanetz has this to say about the issue:
When the narrator mentions the phrase “social responsibility”, they ask him to
repeat it again and again, until in a moment of mental exhaustion he subconsciously
substitutes the word “equality”. Challenged by the audience, he quickly reverts to
the traditional, unrevolutionary phrase. What the novel illustrates here is that as the
speaker’s censor relaxes, his true desires are revealed; but as soon as he remembers
the power of Southern authority, he immediately represses his wish. (Kostelanetz,
1991: 114)
Consequently, at this point we can sense that the narrator’s ego is unconsciously
trying to defy authority, to differentiate itself from the norm. However his “myopia and
overdependence on others’ values” (Smith, 1988: 48) prevents his early liberation.
Instead, after completing his valedictory speech according to the wishes of the authority
figures, he is presented with scholarship to a college for “further education” and a
briefcase which will be a crucial motif in his individuation process.
This briefcase becomes in time, for lack of a better description, the reflection of
his accumulated identities, a mirror reminding himself of his image on the glass; a
container preserving within the fragmented pieces of identity belonging to the
protagonist. Having acquired such a piece in the guise of the college scholarship the
Invisible Man is overjoyed, and will continue his search for identity in a different
environment.
The narrator’s college days extend the metaphor of invisibility into a wider
perspective as they involve his academic education process, giving the readers an
elongated look at the way he is continuously being assimilated by the ideals of the
authority figures. From the administrators who run the facility to the white trustees who
support the whole institution, the Invisible Man is constantly in contact with individuals
who bombard him with tenets of their own agenda. Such a predominant figure in the
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novel is a trustee named Norton, for whom the protagonist is given the duty of
chaperoning around the campus.
During the ride Mr. Norton, the old, wealthy northerner, starts talking to the
narrator about his “fate” all of a sudden. The trustee’s idea of fate, as he explains it in his
own words, acts very similar to the way a mirror would, reflecting in its surface the
image of the beholder:
“I felt even as a young man that your people were somehow closely connected with
my destiny.
[…]
That what happened to you was connected with what would happen to me…”.
(Ellison: 38)
As James M. Albrecht says, Norton’s philanthropy is anything but altruistic, his
humanitarian acts are actually blatantly self-aggrandizing at their core (Albrecth, 2010:
67). Each comment he makes on the subject of his fate being dependent upon the actions
of the black community, only goes to show that his actual concern is how their success
will reflect upon his personal glory:
Through you and your fellow students I become, let us say, three hundred teachers,
seven hundred trained mechanics, eight hundred skilled farmers, and so on.
(Ellison: 41)
His intentions are, as can be observed in this declaration, purely selfish. His
purpose is certainly not tied to a grander obligation, such as elevating the status of the
black community, but apparently more sinister: portraying himself as an all-powerful
authority figure by forcing them to acknowledge his power:
“I have wealth and a reputation and prestige—all that is true. But your great
Founder had more than that, he had tens of thousands of lives dependent upon his
ideas and upon his actions. What he did affected your whole race. In a way, he had
the power of a king, or in a sense, of a god.” (Ibid., p.40)
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Comparing himself here to the Founder of the college who was a former slave,
Norton solidifies the notion that his fate is an accumulation of the combined efforts of
the disenfranchised people. His understanding of “fate” corresponds to his sense of
identity that is largely clinging upon the accomplishments of the college students. This
dual relationship of co-dependent identities is eloquently ridiculed by Ellison in the
scene where the narrator is sitting in the front seat, and looking at the rear-window
mirror can only see the reflection of the old trustee. The naïve protagonist can only form
his ego based upon the image of the white authority figure, likewise Norton is counting
on the Invisible Man and people like him to realize his “fate”. According to Philip Brian
Harper, the reflection on the car mirror has important implications as well:
[…] [As] Mr. Norton's image is observed in the reflective apparatus, […] the
protagonist is thwarted from glimpsing his own image—from experiencing a
successful mirror phase—and thus from achieving a workable self-conception.
(Harper, 1994: 118)
Harper adds another dimension to the mirror scene when he analyzes the
interaction between the narrator and Norton in linguistic terms, depicting it as a play on
the signifying process:
[…] When the college benefactor, Mr. Norton, sees the protagonist's reflection in a
mirror and yet recognizes in that face his own "fate" , the black man represents a
facet of the white self. To the extent that black existence thus serves to frame white
identity, then the protagonist's re-patriation aligns him with the function of the
"signifier" in Saussure's classic conception of the linguistic sign. The negative
aspects of this alignment are clear, as blacks in this case constitute a population
whose own "fate" seems never to stand for itself, but always for an Other who
appears to control the very means of self-definition. This sort of identification of
blacks with the signifying function thus implies blacks' role in creating their own
invisibility. (Harper, 2012: 683)
Therefore, by gazing at one another in the mirror, each re-affirms his identity
through the perception of the other, achieving integrity by way of internalizing the
image of the other.
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The concept of Norton’s fate becomes a more intricate subject however, with the
introduction of Norton’s deceased daughter into the equation. The trustee confesses to
the narrator that another reason why he feels obliged to help the less privileged black
people is to uphold the memory of his daughter. Yet the way he chooses to describe her
features and his feelings toward her implicates something more than familial love,
feelings which would be deemed bordering a taboo perhaps:
“She was a being more rare, more beautiful, purer, more perfect and more delicate
than the wildest dreams of a poet. I could never believe her to be my own flesh and
blood. Her beauty was a well-spring of purest water-of-life, and to look upon her
was to drink and drink again… […] I found it difficult to believe her my own…”
(Ellison: 39)
His choice of words clearly indicates a longing for his departed daughter that is
sexual in nature. His daughter passed away before he could consummate his feelings in
action, and the burden of such grief forms the basis of his philanthropy. Accordingly, by
drawing a parallel between his daughter’s memory and his “fate” through a cause and
effect relationship, Ellison points to the way the northerner equates his possessive
inclinations towards both his daughter and the black community. The college becomes a
monument, his attempt to absolve him of the sin of incest which he could not realize.
Furthermore, preserving his daughter’s photograph etched in a frame which he
keeps in his vest pocket, as if “erecting a pedestal for his biblical maiden” (Stepto, 1986:
64), Norton objectifies his unrequited lust in an image, just as he is objectifying his
“fate” in the success of people like the Invisible Man. Be that as it may, his image of
himself as a successful philanthropist whose charity is founded upon the innocent
memory of a daughter lost, is nothing but an excuse for a cheap attempt at redemption.
Apart from the hypocritical benefactor Norton, the college life presents the
narrator with his fair share of deceitful father figures whom he fails to recognize as such
during his student years. These figures include the Founder upon whose legacy the
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whole institution was erected, the college president Bledsoe whose manipulation of both
the students and the white trustees make him the most powerful individual on the
campus, and Homer Barbee, a reverend whose sermon on the life of the Founder
astonishes and hypnotizes his listeners.
Among these figures, perhaps the Founder is the most distant and hardest to
decipher in terms of the values he represents. Since he only remains as a memory in the
minds of the college people and is described from the perspective of others, it is
impossible to paint an objective picture of him. Although he is elevated almost to the
status of a prophet because of his efforts in founding the college, a proper reading of his
achievements is impractical. The narrator confirms such difficulty in labeling the
Founder, when he describes the statue commemorating him:
Then in my mind’s eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the
cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a
veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am
standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered
firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.
(Ellison: 33-34)
The Founder, or “the father”, has become emasculated as he only lives not in
flesh, but in stone. This ineffectual authority figure’s influence is also questioned, as his
gesture is so ambiguous that the protagonist cannot fathom the meaning behind his
eternally fixed message. Nonetheless, the authority belonging to the Founder who is now
being treated like a totem animal is divided among his two living disciples who claim to
carry on his mission: Bledsoe and Barbee. Freud describes the relationship between the
dead father figure and his remaining sons in Totem and Taboo in these words:
The violent primal father had doubtless been the feared and envied model
of each one of the company of brothers: and in the act of devouring him they
accomplished their identification with him, and each one of them acquired a portion
of his strength. (Freud, 2001: 164-165)
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As heirs of the primal father figure, both Barbee and Bledsoe use the Founder’s
image to glorify his past achievements, and at the same time solidify their positions by
identifying with him. Despite not murdering him directly and devouring his flesh, they
consume him spiritually. They become the revived embodiment of his persona, sharing
his glory and authority. Barbee’s speech, hereof, acts as a bridge linking the Founder to
Bledsoe, recreating the former man in the image of the latter.
Barbee’s account of the Founder’s life is so enchanting that at a certain point he
puts his audience in a trance, helping them experience the events being related as if they
were their own. Larry Neal says this on the subject of Barbee’s verbal prowess:
Barbee makes his audience, composed primarily of black college students,
identify with the Founder. No, in fact, under the spell of the ritual sermon, they
must become the Founder. They must don the mask of the god, so to speak. All of
these details are said to be remembered by the students, yet Barbee has a
compulsive need to reiterate them, to recharge them with meaning by
reconsecrating them. His essential role, as ritual priest, is to keep before them the
“painful details” of the Founder’s life. These are memories that his young audience
must internalize, and share fully, if they are to ever realize themselves in the
passage from adolescence into maturity. (Neal, 2004: 100-101)
Essentially then, Barbee’s aim is to impose upon the students a certain
conception of the Founder, to mythologize him as to render his authority absolute. His
exploitation of the Founder’s influence is concluded when he equates Bledsoe’s persona
with his predecessor. According to him the death of the Founder was not an event to be
mourned but a joyous occasion, for it brought forth a new beginning:
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, yes. That [the Founder’s death] too is part
of the glorious story. But think of it not as a death, but as a birth. A great seed had
been planted. A seed which has continued to put forth its fruit in its seasons as
surely as if the great creator had been resurrected. For in a sense he was, if not in
the flesh, in the spirit. And in a sense in the flesh too. For has not your present
leader has become his living agent, his physical presence? Look about you if you
doubt it. My young friends, my dear young friends! How can I tell you what
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manner of man this is who leads you? How can I convey to you how well he has
kept his pledge to the Founder, how conscientious has been his stewardship?”
(Ellison: 111)
Thereupon Barbee’s sermon becomes, as Robert B. Stepto concludes, “less a
valorization of the Founder than of A. Herbert Bledsoe’s. To put it another way, the text
of his sermon is less a strategy for authenticating the legend of the Founder than one for
authenticating the equally supreme fiction with which Bledsoe wields power and
proffers a particular construction of historical reality” (Stepto: 63).
As much as Barbee’s oratory skills aid him in manipulating his naive audience,
the revelation that Homer Barbee, the priest who summons up the pictures of ancestors
to validate a myth, is actually blind – is a device used by Ellison for undermining the
reverend’s authority (Kent, 2000: 55). His blindness not only depicts him merely as a
tool, a mouthpiece for Bledsoe’s exaltation, it also shows his insincerity. Because he is
unable to see his audience, to make contact with them both on the physical and the
spiritual sense, he equals to no more than a blind prophet leading his misguided
congregation to ruin.
On another level, Barbee’s oratory skills combined with his sightlessness make
him a perfect foil for the narrator, who is struggling to assert his identity as a speech
maker. Just as the blind preacher only pours gilded words from his mouth lacking
integrity, the narrator’s speech at the battle royal renders him an incompetent orator
whose thoughts serve the purpose of reaffirming the predominant ideology. Not
surprisingly, the narrator at this point does not possess the necessary depth to see
through Barbee’s deceitful rhetoric. It is only after he has matured enough to be able to
take another look at his past that he will realize the values Barbee articulates are corrupt.
The way he mocks in retrospection the preacher’s blindness in conjunction with his
blind faith when he stumbles upon the stage after completing his speech is a proof of this
(Smith: 51).
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College president Bledsoe, on the other hand, is the real puppeteer behind the
curtain. Whereas Barbee is only influential with his words, Bledsoe’s mastery of deceit
and his ability to take advantage of his position, shape shifting into a different
personality when the necessity arises, renders him a powerful figure in the school
administration.
The protagonist’s first impressions on Bledsoe are highly positive, describing
him as an inspiration, a role model whom he would like to follow the footsteps of in the
future:
But more than that, he was the example of everything I hoped to be:
Influential with wealthy men all over the country; consulted in matters concerning
the race; a leader of his people; the possessor of not one, but two Cadillacs, a good
salary and a soft, good-looking and creamy-complexioned wife. What was more,
while black and bald and everything white folks poked fun at, he had achieved
power and authority; had, while black and wrinkle-headed, made himself of more
importance in the world than most Southern white men. They could laugh at him,
but they couldn’t ignore him. (Ellison: 86)
The narrator’s fascination with Bledsoe’s social and economic privileges
compels him to identify, or at least hope to identify, with the president. Bledsoe becomes
a mirror showing the aspiring students what they may dream to achieve if they lead a
similar lifestyle. Valerie Smith’s take on Bledsoe’s success and its alluring effect is as
follows:
Dr. Bledsoe provides an even more consistently visible image of what the students’
best efforts may yield. His story typifies the standard rags to riches formula […].
After years of hard work he became not only president of the school, but a
nationally prominent leader as well. (Smith: 30)
Yet the protagonist’s description of Bledsoe’s accomplishments above clearly
indicates his inability to see beyond the material accumulation of such a position. His
aspirations seem purely focused on how many cars Bledsoe has, or how good his wife
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looks. His failure to read the image of Bledsoe beyond what he represents in tangible
terms, and his inability to decipher the intentions of this sinister figure will lead to his
gradual disillusionment. However, during the time that the events take place the
president is the epitome of black progress in the minds of his students.
What triggers the narrator’s shift in perspective regarding Bledsoe occurs
following the aftermath of his tour of the campus with Mr. Norton. After being exposed
to the local ‘Negro life’, the white trustee feels spiritually enfeebled as he has seen
things that sophisticated black figures such as Bledsoe tried to conceal. Bledsoe’s
differing attitudes in handling the situation in respect to his conversations with Mr.
Norton and the narrator, whom the president blames for the so-called outrageous
mistake, points to his talent at switching personalities like an actor:
When he first meets with Bledsoe after returning Norton to campus, the
protagonist begins to see that the president’s obsequious, meticulous demeanor is
but a façade. In a gesture that emblematizes the disjunction between his veneer and
his beliefs, Bledsoe instantaneously rearranges his facial expression, replacing rage
with placidity, just before entering Norton’s room. This quick, apparently effortless
change confirms the protagonist’s growing suspicion that Bledsoe’s legendary
humility is not genuine, but only a performance; at base, he is a manipulative,
dishonest power monger. (Ibid., p.31)
His suspicions are confirmed when it is his turn to be scolded by the father figure
whom he had aspired to imitate. When the narrator tells Bledsoe that he met with
Trueblood and his family because he was personally asked by Mr. Norton, the
president’s reply shows how transparent and scheming he is:
“Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only
way to please a white man is to tell him a lie!” (Ellison: 118)
Lying, a way of altering one’s perception of reality, falsification of facts, is the
ultimate solution that Bledsoe has at his disposal in his dealings with white authority
figures. Not only does he lie to secure his position, he practically acts the part to suit his
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interests. In his mind whites and blacks alike are merely puppets who need to be
reminded of their place.
With his ritual of mask-wearing, performing appropriate roles to further his
goals, Bledsoe joins the ranks of the narrator’s oppressors. The masks that he is wearing
become so powerful that he admits he is willing to sacrifice his own people to maintain
his authority (Havemann: 250):
“Well, that’s the way it is. It’s a nasty deal and I don’t always like it
myself. But you listen to me: I didn’t make it, and I know that I can’t change it. But
I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree
limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.” (Ellison: 120)
Bledsoe, as he brags, maintains his charge of the school by devising devious
plans, yet the masks he puts on destroys any possibility for acquiring a genuine identity.
In truth, he is nothing more than a mirror reflecting to the observer what they wish to
see; beneath it he is only an empty shell. As Todd M. Lieber says:
Although Bledsoe's use of the mask seems to have only the positive value
of a guise adopted for strategic purposes, even here the destructive effects of maskwearing are implicit. Bledsoe boasts of his power and of the necessity of his
attitude, but under his bold exterior it is clear that his character is unstable and
contains elements of despair and self-abnegation, which emerge in the paranoid
manner with which he defends himself and his position. Bledsoe has banished his
pride and dignity, and ultimately his selfhood, to invisibility, and replaced them
with his "power," a power which can be used only "in the dark." (Lieber, 2012: 9495)
Sadly, during their conversation the narrator does not possess the necessary
insight to see through the old man’s thick hide. He eventually falls for another trick as he
is given seven sealed letters by the president, instructing him to present them to
prominent white figures living in New York. Of course, his forced exile from the school
disguised as a job search will only prove to be a wild goose chase. The recurring theme
of his inability to decode signs is manifested here as well since the sealed letters,
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contrary to Bledsoe’s claims, include not recommendations but warnings for the white
employers “To Keep This Nigger Boy Running”. As he does not even suspect that the
content of the letters may be quite different than what is implied by Bledsoe, he will
continually be made a fool until he learns to “read signs”, to understand the discrepancy
between the surface and interior reality.
Packing his suitcase to embark on his solitary sojourn to north, the naïve
protagonist still has hopes of one day returning to the college, reasoning that “within this
quiet greenness [he] possessed the only identity [he] had ever known, and [he] was
losing it” (Ellison: 84). He rationalizes and accepts his punishment in the same manner,
for he “would rather misunderstand his own experience than see it as a lesson about the
disjunction between the way things are and the way they are supposed to be” (Smith:
31).
Being driven away from the sanctuary of his southern college, his false Eden, the
protagonist continues his search for identity in the urban north. His first great obstacle
greets him in the shape of a job offer in a paint factory when he secures a place as an
inexperienced paint mixer. Ellison’s choice of occupation for the narrator is significant
as paint will represent an important metaphor in relation to his dilemma for selfrealization. With a huge sign announcing “Keep America Pure With Liberty Paints”
above its entrance, the paint factory is almost like a parody of Dante’s Inferno, the
Invisible Man’s personal limbo.
Since paint is essentially a tool for covering up surfaces, hiding the core of what
is beneath it, the narrator’s involvement with the production of white paint will enhance
the idea of his symbolic invisibility. In an environment where the stroke of a brush can
hide the true nature of an object, appearance and reality become blurred concepts, the
relationship between the signifier and the signified lose any cause and effect
relationship. In a farcical manner, the company’s best-selling paint is dubbed ‘optic
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white’; “suggesting the very duplicity inherent in the notion of a painted surface's
"purity," for if the word means "with reference to the eye," then "Optic White" may
present a pure white facade to visual scrutiny, but it simultaneously masks a "reality"
that undoubtedly manifests some darker hue” (Harper, 1994: 123). The visual illusion
provided by the paint is much like a mirror; similar to his failure to distinguish between
the image reflected on the mirror and the source of the image itself in previous episodes,
unable to read the intentions of people acting out a certain role under a certain mask, the
narrator falls short at grasping the connection between “what is beneath” and “what is
presented”.
He experiences firsthand this “disparity between simple appearance and complex
reality” (Busby, 1991: 52) when he is ordered to mix ten drops of black dope into the
white mix to make it even whiter. As he mixes the dope with the rest of the paint, he
realizes that the black color eventually becomes totally consumed by white paint and
none of its trace remains, yet making the paint purer in the process. Ellison’s allegory
becomes clear when we equate the white paint with authority and the black dope with
individuality; individuality is sacrificed as people are forced to accept the illusions
provided by those in power.
Furthermore, any sign of defiance jeopardizing the integrity of such a system is
punished immediately. In the case of the Invisible Man, whose invisibility is confirmed
and even encouraged by the factory’s ideology, this punishment comes in the shape of a
demotion. When he mixes the wrong ingredient with the white paint, he is quickly
disposed of and reassigned to work with another black man, who like himself has
become a recluse.
Like Barbee and Bledsoe, his new overseer Brockway represents a mirror image,
the narrator’s own shadow (the dark side of our nature) in Jung’s words (Jung, 1964:
85), who needs to be overcome for self-realization. In conjunction with the dominant
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motif of blacks being pitted against each other in the novel, Brockway is an extension of
the authority’s imperceptible reach, a puppet whose strings are in the hands of unseen
masters. At the center of the whole paint operation, he is both a manipulator of his
surroundings and a fool who is unaware of his own manipulation. He boasts to the
narrator because he claims to be the only person who is capable of producing the right
type of white paint. His perception of himself as an indispensable worker actually blinds
him to the inhumane treatment he receives from the company and furthermore makes
him suspicious of anyone who has a potential at replacing him, like the narrator. Richard
Kostelanetz describes him as a figure to be pitied:
Underpaid and underpraised, Brockway survives in the industrial system by
embracing the existing authority and by having indispensable talents. (Kostelanetz:
121)
The narrator’s inability to read signs presents itself yet again in his encounter
with Brockway, and is the reason behind his downfall at the hands of this trickster
figure. Brockway’s suspicion of the Invisible Man’s affiliations with the union members
leads to a brawl between the two men, after which the heinous engineer instructs the
narrator to watch some gauges and turn a lever that he is not familiar with. Soon as he
turns the lever the protagonist realizes that he has been set up by the old man, as he turns
around to see him laugh and run away, “his hands clasping the back of his head, and his
neck pulled in close, like a small boy who has thrown a brick into the air” (Ellison: 187).
As a mirroring of previous incidents, “this treachery echoes and reinforces the
treachery of Bledsoe's expulsion of him in order to protect his own realm of power in the
ivy-covered halls of his college” (Tabron, 2003: 132). Unless he learns to read the signs
around himself properly and overcome his dependence on others for self-definition, his
confrontations with his reflections in the mirror will continue to prove disastrous.
Likewise, his battle with Brockway concludes as the machinery around him explode and
leave him unconscious as he imagines himself falling into water.
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Upon waking up the narrator finds his body strapped to a machine in the factory
hospital. This episode, taking place almost at the middle of the novel, points to an
important transitional phase. In Tony Tanner’s words;
From his fall into the lake of heavy water on to his coming to consciousness
with a completely blank mind in a small glass-and-nickel box, and his struggle to
get out, it reads like a mechanized parody of the birth process. (Tanner: 54)
Having a hard time remembering who he was previously, he is molested by
doctors who agonize him both physically and mentally. They are so confident about
themselves in front of the now paralyzed narrator that they openly discuss castrating him
in the hopes of finding a permanent cure for his condition. However, their attempts are
far from altruistic as they only hope to recreate the Invisible Man’s identity in their own
image:
Symbolically, the hospital scene prefigures the violence done to
protagonist’s identity, humanity, mind and manhood by the social factory.
negating the protagonist’s identity, humanity, manhood and mental powers,
doctors as agents of the factory, attempt to transform him into a robot
encouraging him to accept a stereotype as his identity. (Havemann: 229)
the
By
the
by
This point of perceiving him not as an individual but as a stereotype is evident in
their comments regarding the narrator’s reaction to electro-shock therapy. “They really
do have rhythm, don’t they? Get hot, boy! Get hot!” (Ellison: 193), one of them
exclaims, indicating clearly that in their view he is nothing more than a typical Negro.
At the mercy of his doctors who act more like his captors, the narrator becomes an
object of amusement for the men in white. Carol Sue Pearson Havemann aptly remarks
that at this moment, “robbed of his individuality, [the protagonist] becomes a robot, or to
use another metaphor, a puppet, who is defined by his role and who is controlled by the
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mysterious mechanism of those in power” (1971: 230). The tendency of people trying to
fit the narrator in predefined roles is directly linked to the issue of invisibility; when
people look at him they see not him, but a stereotype conjured because of their own
blindness (Winther, 2012: 118).
The narrator’s entrapment in the glass cage is metaphorically linked to his loss of
identity following the explosion. As he himself remarks, his freedom depends upon the
discovery, or rediscovery, of his identity. In order to force answers out of the narrator,
the doctors keep asking him questions regarding his past. Under the authoritative gaze of
the doctors the protagonist feels helpless like a child. He can neither remember his own
name nor that of his mother. Without such knowledge he is practically a nobody. When
the doctors feel satisfied with his total lack of recognition, convinced that they have
successfully created another mindless puppet who will be easily manipulated, they
disconnect him from the electronic tank he is placed in by unplugging a device that
symbolically represents the umbilical cord. Discharged from the hospital feeling dazed
and confused, an empty shell lacking a coherent identity, the narrator starts wandering
the city like a mindless zombie.
The aftermath of his symbolic rebirth at the hands of the hospital doctors consists
of a recovery period, at the conclusion of which the narrator’s life quickly becomes
dominated by his association with a political organization called “The Brotherhood”.
For the narrator whose bewildering experiences has left him with a sense of ambiguity
and anxiety, the Brotherhood at first glance seems to offer him an alternative take on
looking at life.
Recruiting the narrator into their ranks after hearing his emotional speech given
during an eviction in Harlem, the Brotherhood provides him with shelter and support
which the Invisible Man always craved throughout his misadventures. Yet, in return for
such hospitality, the Brotherhood demands from the narrator absolute obedience to their
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authority and an unquestioning faith in their doctrines. His need for self-affirmation is so
crucial at this point that the protagonist, believing the Brotherhood can help him with his
identity crisis, accepts their condition of blind devotion and forgets about his past:
To adhere to the Brotherhood’s principles, he also has to deny virtually all
of the lessons that his college and postcollege experiences have taught him. The
Brotherhood’s assumptions and tactics are sufficiently similar to those the
protagonist rejected, that he might have recognized them and saved himself some
despair. His need for place and for a system of belief is so profound, however, it
blinds him to these resemblances. (Smith: 36)
Reminiscent of his college days when he felt he had a stable identity based on the
values of the school, his association with the Brotherhood aids him in reconstructing his
ego. As Jim Neighbors observes:
What is valuable in the Brotherhood, what the Brotherhood gives, is a sense
of definition, of identity, of history […]. It allows one to become "human," to move
out of the degradation of being defined as inhuman, or of no account.(Neighbors,
2012: 235)
One of the Brotherhood’s most controversial tenets is their understanding of
history, which basically reflects their political agenda. Their approach to history consists
of controlling people’s reactions to certain events, trying to influence the outcome of
particular incidents by way of elaborate intrigue, brainwashing the masses so that the
party can manipulate their actions and acquire a certain amount of authority over the
common folk. They practice such tactics even on their own members to propagate a
sense of self-righteous ideology. Despite being instrumental in redefining the narrator,
his involvement with such an organization also limits his freedom of choice.
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The Brotherhood’s emphasis on an objective concept of history is really a denial
of the individual’s connection with his historical past. The Brotherhood interprets
history as a constant movement towards future and progress (Busby: 54). It is almost
described like a hurricane which devastates anything in its path that dares to defy it.
Impressed by the Invisible Man’s oratory skills at the eviction scene Brother
Jack, who is the leader of the Brotherhood, explains his idea of the insignificancy of
individuals in these words:
“Oh, no, brother; you’re mistaken and you’re sentimental. You are not like
them. Perhaps you were, but you’re not any longer. Otherwise you’d never have
made that speech. Perhaps you were, but that’s all past, dead. 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”. (Ellison: 236237)
Although the narrator cannot exactly grasp the meaning behind these
embellished words at the time they are spoken, Brother Jack’s (and by the same token
the Brotherhood’s) intentions are clear: they intend to recreate the protagonist and the
society from scratch based on their own beliefs of history. Their hypocrisy and
deception of the Invisible Man, their abuse of their position and power, will become
evident as the story unravels.
From the first moment the protagonist is ushered into the headquarters of the
Brotherhood there are clear indications that the party has ulterior motives in hiring him.
Emma, one of the female members of the organization, after being introduced to him
criticizes the skin color of the Invisible Man for not being “a little blacker” (Ibid.,
p.245). The narrator becomes mildly angry at such a racist statement and questions the
situation silently: “What was I, a man or a natural resource?” (Ibid., p.246). However the
event turns out to be a more embarrassing experience than the narrator has anticipated
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when another member of the party, similar to the attitude of the factory doctors, asks
him to sing a spiritual as he believes all black people excel at singing. With Brother
Jack’s harsh intervention a possible disaster is averted, yet the general consensus of the
organization regarding the Invisible Man is revealed; he is nothing more than a tool to be
used to further the goals of the Brotherhood. In their eyes he is a typical black to be
exploited for his gift of oration.
A solid example of their willingness to categorize the protagonist, to direct him
in the path of their ideology, is the new identity they present him with written on a piece
of paper. He realizes that if he wishes to advance he has to assume this precast role, by
accepting this job he will have to bury his past to emerge as a new person (Kostelanetz:
125). The overwhelming influence of Brother Jack’s authority, combined with his
desperate desire for affirmation eventually prompts him to take the job. During the
initiation ritual, the narrator feels the collective gaze of the party members upon him,
noticing their exhilaration as if they already “knew the role [he] was to play” (Ellison:
252).
There are three major incidents that serve as concrete evidence of the
Brotherhood’s objectification of the narrator, that confirm his suspicions that he is being
made the butt of a terrible joke. The first instance follows his debut speech delivered at
the Brotherhood rally, where he feels he makes a genuine contact with the audience.
Despite being given a set of rules to be followed during his speech by the committee, in
the heat of the moment he forgets about such instructions and initiates a sincere dialogue
with the audience. As he acknowledges an intense kinship with the people who are
eagerly listening to him, he feels a transformation taking place within himself:
This was a new phase, I realized, a new beginning, and I would have to take
that part of myself that looked on with remote eyes and keep it always at the
distance of the campus, the hospital machine, the battle royal- all now far behind.
Perhaps the part of me that observed listlessly but saw all, missing nothing, was still
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the malicious, arguing part; the dissenting voice, my grandfather part; the cynical,
disbelieving part – the traitor self that always threatened internal discord. Whatever
it was, I knew that I’d have to keep it pressed down. (Ibid., p.270-271)
As he is shedding his old skin and exercising his power over language and
people (Dickstein, 2004: 141), he is ready to sacrifice his old identity in exchange for the
seemingly influential position the Brotherhood offers. His determination that by being a
part of the organization perhaps he can make a difference in society is soon shattered as
he is criticized by members of the party for his improvised oration style and his
disrespect for scientific speech methods. One of the brothers explains the reason behind
their accusations:
“It [the speech] was the antithesis of the scientific approach. Ours is a
reasonable point of view. We are champions of a scientific approach to society, and
such a speech as we’ve identified ourselves with tonight destroys everything that
has been said before. The audience isn’t thinking, it’s yelling its head off”. (Ellison:
283)
It is apparent that the Brotherhood feels threatened with narrator’s intuitive
discourse, fearing that such words not backed with ideology may wake the unsuspecting
listeners from their slumber, making them realize that the party is misleading the public
to fulfill their own goals. Much as they claim their scientific language aims to organize
the needy black audience behind the Brotherhood, it is clear that these “correct” ideas
and phrases are incapable of moving the Harlem audience (Kostelanetz: 128).
The second incident takes place shortly after the rally. A reporter from a
magazine interviews the protagonist regarding the Brotherhood’s doctrines. When the
interview is published it quickly draws negative remarks from the Brotherhood
committee, who are convinced that the narrator uses such publicity for his own political
agenda. They judge the article not in terms of its content but its context. They are more
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concerned about his photograph that appears in the cover of the magazine than the
interview itself, as they believe this visual detail is abused by the Invisible Man for selfaggrandizement (Lamm, 2012: 828). The committee members claim that they think of
the Brotherhood at the expanse of their own personal feelings:
The Brotherhood is bigger than all of us. None of us as individuals count
when its safety is questioned. (Ellison: 327)
With such claims hanging over his head, the Brotherhood decides to punish the
protagonist by demoting him to deal with trivial subjects. He is removed from the
Harlem headquarters and is forced to work on a different district. Yet the narrator’s selfesteem is so fragile that, instead of defying their judgment he accepts his punishment
just as he did Bledsoe’s.
What finally triggers the Invisible Man’s complete disillusionment with the
Brotherhood is their treatment of Tod Clifton’s memory. Tod Clifton is a black member
of the organization and one of the few people whom the narrator can identify with,
almost serving as an alter ego. Tod’s undeserving maltreatment at the hands of the
police which leads him to being gunned down by a cop who disrespects Tod’s identity
by addressing him with a racial slur, inflames the narrator to the point of arranging a
funeral without the consent of the Brotherhood.
When the narrator is called to another meeting with the committee after giving a
eulogy for his deceased comrade, the reactions he receives from the other members
baffles him. Whereas the narrator perceives Tod as a martyr to the cause, the
Brotherhood labels him a traitor. These two differing descriptions of his fallen brother
make the protagonist realize that for the organization human beings such as Clifton and
himself are insignificant; their understanding of history will trample on individuals for
the benefit of authority figures. The narrator’s eventual disregard for the party’s
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ideology is rebuked by Brother Jack, who admits at last that the Invisible Man “was not
hired to think” (Ibid., p.377).
As Brother Jack gets more irritated by the protagonist’s defiance he finally snaps
and jumps to his feet. This sudden movement exposes a very significant characteristic of
Jack, as one of his eyes falls down from its socket to reveal that it was a fake. The
narrator realizes that the chairman (and the whole organization which he represents) has
been literally and metaphorically blind all along. Patrice D. Rankine surmises regarding
this issue that
Jack’s limited vision suggests the myopia of the Brotherhood, which offers
an unrealistic solution to the broader American issues that the organization seeks to
address. Jack urges discipline and sacrifice in forging a “new society” of future
time, but without a humanistic vision inclusive of all factions, invisibility is likely
to be a feature of that society as well […]. (Rankine, 2006: 144)
Since Jack cannot perceive the narrator in humanly individuated terms (Lee,
2012: 29), his blindness and the narrator’s invisibility become two sides of the same
coin. Just as the party’s refusal to acknowledge Tod as a martyr imposed a false
definition upon him, the protagonist is invisible simply because the authority figures are
symbolically sightless. Their perceptions of other people are based on their utility. The
Brotherhood believes that
[…] only the political part of a person, that segment that could serve the
interests of the movement, is worthy of attention; all other problems and
aspirations, whether emotional or physical, are ignored. People could just as well be
invisible. (Kostelanetz: 130-131)
On a brighter note, with the revelation that one of his eyes is a fake, a glass eye,
Brother Jack’s authority over the narrator is sundered. With his gaze losing its
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commanding effect, the half-blind chairman is symbolically castrated. His blind
devotion to the ideals of the organization seem now almost like a farce, a dark comedy
that the Invisible Man cannot take seriously any longer. Jack’s words lose their weight
and as the narrator looks at him in a new light he feels nothing but pity for the cyclopean
father figure
.
This new understanding and perception of the Brotherhood as nothing but an
empty shell breeding baseless rhetoric, is a huge leap towards the narrator’s own
individuation. However, he still needs to be able to decode and make sense of certain
ambiguous messages. The characters analyzed in this section are obstacles in the way of
such a task, because they all represent negative aspects of the protagonist’s own ego.
Since Lacan posits the mirror stage as a phase constructing the ego by identification with
external images “which […] establish a relationship between an organism and its
reality” (Lacan, 2006: 78), internalizing his reflection in the eyes of false authority
figures who constantly refuse to acknowledge his identity, reaffirms his sense of
inferiority and invisibility.
In order to achieve his goal, to define himself in his own terms, he has to seek the
aid of proper mentors who will instruct him in the way of reading signs. These figures,
unlike their false counterparts (Norton, Bledsoe, Jack and the like) do not try to force an
identity upon him, but on the contrary help the protagonist in reconstructing his own.
3.2. Dispelling the Reflections
All of the characters discussed in the previous chapter basically perform the
function of being the Invisible Man’s reflection in the mirror stage. Therefore the
formation of his ego relies wholly upon internalizing their image. For a large portion of
the story this process constitutes the core of the narrator’s brittle identity. He cannot
grow as an individual because his conception of himself is a direct reflection of other
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people’s perception of him. In consequence, the only way to break this self-perpetuating
chain is to dispel the illusions created by external origins, and reconstructing one’s ego
through self-reflection. The Invisible Man is assisted by many mentor figures throughout
the story in his quest for knowledge and integrity.
Although he does not appear in the novel frequently, perhaps the most important
and haunting among such guides is the narrator’s own grandfather. Since the narrator’s
father is only mentioned in passing and does not build any presence in his life, it is safe
to assume that other paternal figures (like the grandfather) take up his mantle. What
makes the grandfather such an influential character is the deathbed advice that he gives
to the protagonist and his father just before passing away:
“Son, after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you,
but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s
country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your
head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome’em with yeses, undermine’em
with grins, agree’em to death and destruction, let’em swoller you till they vomit or
burst wide open”. (Ellison: 17)
This enigmatic counsel containing a cryptic message (similar to a riddle) turns
into one of the most important elements in the story. It becomes a sign whose
implication the narrator spends a life time to decode, and which ultimately aids him to
understand his situation as an individual in relation to the society he belongs.
This sign and deciphering its elusive meaning will enable the protagonist to
adjust himself to the symbolic order, considering the grandfather’s advice functions as
the-Name-of-the-Father.
Since the-Name-of-the-Father is
an
unusual
signifier
symbolizing the intervention of the paternal law, whose task is to prevent the ego’s
complete identification with its mirror image in the imaginary register, it is imperative
that the protagonist understand the wisdom behind the words of the dying man.
Additionally, in the familial dynamics, the-Name-of-the-Father can also be interpreted
as “the name the father gives his sons or daughters” (Regnault, 1995: 68). From this
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perspective, unraveling the coded message of his elder will grant the nameless narrator a
symbolic name, a further detail paving the way to his individuation.
This puzzle, resembling the one presented to Oedipus by the sphinx, will be a
warning and an extolling voice throughout the novel that will keep plaguing the narrator
during his moments of agony, conflict, trial, public and private passion, conveying the
Invisible Man to self-criticism (Forrest, 2004: 279). Likewise, the grandfather’s presence
in the story as a speech act, constantly reminding his grandchild (whether in dreams or
in memory) that as long as he fails to refuse socially imposed masks he will be
manipulated by those in power, propels the narrator to seek other mentors who will help
him decode the true content of his ancestor’s words. This sentiment is shared by
Havemann who states that:
In his attempt to understand his grandfather’s advice, the protagonist looks
for mentors who will act as symbolic fathers, leading the way toward full humanity.
(Havemann: 244)
The veterans at the Golden Day episode correspond to the aforementioned task
as they are analogous to the grandfather both in the sense that they set an example before
the narrator with the situation they are in, and by giving him sound but obscure advice.
Although in their current condition as mental patients they represent a mockery of their
former selves, even the narrator admits once they were people who inspired him:
Many of them had been doctors, lawyers, teachers, Civil Service workers;
there were several cooks, a preacher, a politician, and an artist. One very nutty one
had been a psychiatrist. Whenever I saw them I felt uncomfortable. They were
supposed to be members of the professions towards which at various times I
vaguely aspired myself […]. (Ellison: 64)
These veterans who had been prominent members of the society at one time are
driven to insanity because they have seen the true nature of the social fabric; [they] are a
microcosm of a whole social order of black sons. […] Now they need to be controlled
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lest they rebel. As inverse images of the fathers who lie, the vets speak truth in
metaphoric ways (Rohrberger: 127). They are an omen which the narrator should heed,
because in their image the treatment of people who try to assert their individuality
against authority is reflected. They are the ‘veterans of life’, so to speak, who have paid
the price of seeing the reality beneath the surface of polished masks by losing their
sanity.
When the narrator brings in the unconscious Mr. Norton into the bar where the
veterans congregate, they slowly start displaying emotions that have been repressed
under the restricting gaze of the white authority. Each of them stares at the old trustee’s
sweating face and interprets the reflection they see in his features according to their
collective experiences. Mr. Norton is described by the mad veterans as reminding them
of Thomas Jefferson, John D. Rockefeller and the Messiah. The message here is clear:
Norton is the epitome of all white power figures; whether political, commercial or
religious. The great white father has emasculated his black sons and has left them to
suffer in exile.
The veterans, despite being unable to take their frustrations out of Mr. Norton,
find a substitute for revenge in the figure of their attendant Supercargo, who is charged
with watching over them. Supercargo,
[…] as his name suggests, functions as their collective superego. Not only
does he impose the repressive forces of white society upon them but he also
attempts to internalize obedience into their own consciences. (Kostelanetz: 116)
Therefore as soon as he disappears the veterans get out of control and mayhem
ensues in the bar. When they get hold of their unsuspecting caretaker Supercargo later
on, they strip him and beat him until he is unconscious. Essentially their attack on him is
an attack directed at a man who symbolizes, by extension, the power elite behind their
imprisonment. Their madness and their eventual riot, resulting from being abused by
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white men, act as warning to the ignorant narrator. He has to understand what they
represent if he wishes to avoid the same fate in the future.
Apart from serving as a precaution to the protagonist, the veterans provide him
with invaluable advice. The veteran psychiatrist “becomes especially important, serving
as a kind of oracle” (Busby, 49). His insight into the relationship dynamic between the
narrator and Mr. Norton proves prophetic, as everything he tells the Invisible Man
eventually comes true in one form or another. Yet, like the grandfather’s, his counsel is
so ambiguous that a direct interpretation is impossible. During their long conversation
prior to the narrator’s exile to north, the veteran cautions him:
“All right, forget what I’ve said. But for God’s sake, learn to look beneath
the surface. […] Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don’t have to
be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don’t believe in it – that
much you owe yourself. […] You’re hidden right out in the open – that is, you
would be if you only realized it. They wouldn’t see you because they don’t expect
you to know anything, since they believe they’ve taken care of that…” (Ellison,
127-128)
[…] “Perhaps that’s the advice to give you: Be your own father, young
man. And remember, the world is possibility if only you’ll discover it. Last of all,
leave the Mr. Nortons alone, and if you don’t know what I mean, think about it.
Farewell”. (Ibid., p.130)
More detailed and specific than his grandfather’s death wish, the advice given by
the vet touches many issues. As Tony Tanner observes they bear on three points:
He tells him that much of his freedom will have to be ‘symbolic’ – a deeper
truth perhaps than he knows for the boy who will ultimately find his freedom in the
symbols called words. He says, ‘Be your own father, young man,’ an Oedipal echo
[…] and a warning to the boy that he will have to create an identity, not relying on
assuming one already waiting for him. Thirdly, he bids him remember that the
world is ‘possibility’. (Tanner: 55)
Albeit listening to the vet, the narrator fails to take his firm advice to heart. At
the time of their conversation, his words seem to him merely as the rumblings of a mad
man. His persisting attachment to the approval of others blinds him to the real
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significance of their discussion. It is only after many instances of ‘boomeranging’, as the
narrator calls it, or looking back at such conversations will he be able to grasp their
importance in his search for identity.
Inasmuch as the grandfather and the veteran are portrayed as parental characters,
Trueblood, the underprivileged sharecropper whose story of incest leaves both the
narrator and Mr. Norton gasping for breath, present a more debatable side of identity
formation. Trueblood’s act of transgression and people’s reactions towards it, combined
with his retelling of the events in his own words demonstrate on a greater scale the
efforts of a single individual to come to terms with his experiences and to establish a
distinct meaning out of it. In this regard, unlike the previous two figures, Trueblood
becomes more than just an advisor; he is a tangible proof in flesh and blood of
individual’s victory over society’s prejudice.
When the narrator and Mr. Norton first meet him during their tour around the
campus, he has already been established as a taboo subject by the black community. As
colored people try to avoid contact with him, the white folk seem to enjoy his company.
For some reason hearing the farmer’s tale of shame seems to elevate their spirits.
However, Mr. Norton’s insistence of meeting with Trueblood is based on a much deeper
connection he feels with the sharecropper; one that he is unwilling to admit consciously.
It was mentioned in the previous chapter that Norton’s feelings towards his
deceased daughter, which he was not able to consummate, were the basis of his hidden
guilt and acts of philanthropy. Trueblood’s actions serve as a bridge between these two
men; one as having committed the sin, and the other seeing his secret desires reflected in
the fate of the farmer. “You have looked upon chaos and are not destroyed!” (Ellison:
46) the trustee exclaims, revealing his marvel at Trueblood’s endurance. Mary
Rohrberger observes that these two characters are foils for one another:
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Norton and Trueblood are also presented as mirror images of each other.
Norton’s interest in Trueblood’s story is characterized by an urgency explainable
only by the assumption that he must have shared a powerful attraction to his own
daughter, now dead. (Loc. Cit.)
Listening to the black man’s harrowing tale with eager ears, the white trustee is
covered with sweat by the end of the sharecropper’s account of incest, as he was
exhausted by the sexual act himself. Trueblood embodies Norton’s black self, the
witness to his dream-sin concealed from both his conscience and the world (Schor: 62).
The gap separating him and the black Other is no longer a protective barrier.
Beyond his personal identification with Norton, Trueblood moreover serves as a
mirror for both the black and the white community in general. On the one hand the
narrator and the rest of the black community shun him as they believe he discredits the
whole race by his lustful act, perpetuating the stereotype that a Negro is an immoral
beast. The narrator, in looking back at those days, describes their attitude towards the
sharecropper in a regretful manner:
I didn’t understand in those pre-invisible days that their hate, and mine too,
was charged with fear. How all of us at the college hated the black-belt people, the
‘peasants’, during those days! We were trying to lift them up and they, like
Trueblood, did everything it seemed to pull us down. (Ellison: 43)
Sadly this is an understanding which the narrator reaches only at the end of his
journey. During the occurrence of the events he feels (like the rest of the college),
Trueblood paints an image in the eyes of the world about the black people which they
would rather like to bury beneath the surface. He believes that “in order to define
himself as an educated, progressive black man, he must repudiate the folk heritage that
Trueblood represents” (Marvin, 2012: 591).
The white authority’s conduct in general regarding Trueblood is similar to that of
Norton’s. By asking him to repeat his tale again and again, each authority figure aims at
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repressing their fear of miscegenation by stereotyping the black man as a buffoon (Cook
and Tatum, 2010: 170). The sheriff and the other white officials who are interested in
Trueblood’s sexual indiscretion provide him with food and money in return for the
voyeuristic pleasure (Kostelanetz: 115). Reminiscent of the battle royal scene, the white
male community neutralizes the sexually active black man after safely drawing a racial
barrier, a negative image, around him. Under the gaze of these powerful figures his
transgression is used both to disgrace the black Other, and to reinforce their authority.
Like Norton, their goodwill towards the farmer is merely a covert act of atonement for
their innermost desires. Even Trueblood is baffled by their contradictory attitude:
“That’s what I don’t understand. I done the worst thing a man could ever do
in his family and instead of chasin’ me out of the county, they gimme more help
than they ever give any other coloured man, no matter how good a nigguh he was.”
(Ellison: 60)
Still, the most crucial aspect of Trueblood’s tragedy for the protagonist is not that
he acts as a mirror for everyone who judges him; his importance lies in the way he reacts
to all the uproar caused by his actions. Although feeling guilty for what he did, he
prohibits his daughter to get an abortion, faces his wife’s wrath and accepts the price of
his violation. Contemplating on his sin, “I ain’t nobody but myself” (Ibid., p.59) he sighs
and starts singing the blues. This self-naming (echoing God’s I am that I am) places
Trueblood beyond all social patterning (Benston, 2012: 8). Singing the blues, an act of
self-affirmation for the farmer, becomes a way of easing his pain as he abstains from
accepting other people’s criticism:
Trueblood refuses to castrate himself or to allow himself to be killed
because of his “dream-sin”; and his anguish and pain together with his love of life
ultimately are expressed in his blues songs. (Rohrberger: 125)
Since even the preacher of the town, or his friends and own family cannot
provide him with solace, the only way left for him to find inner peace lies in self-
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expression. He recreates his identity on his own terms; singing his songs gives him a
chance to define his experiences in his own words:
Trueblood, by not exiling himself, is refusing to act out the white man’s
myth of guilt and pollution. Though he knows his is the “blackest” sin, whether his
fault or not, he decides to return and live with it. By resuming his role as family
provider, he asserts his manhood. He is an individual, not a moral agent, and it
doesn’t do anyone any good for him to run off. Trueblood is a family man – this is
his identity – and accepting his responsibility gives him manhood and meaning.
(Schor: 61)
Trueblood’s efforts of relating his own experiences the way he sees fit, whether
by his blues songs or his retelling the tale of incest, place him beyond the confining
descriptions of society. He is not destroyed by his action, does not accept a stereotype as
his identity, and with his resolve goes through a metamorphosis (Havemann: 262). He
sets an example for the Invisible Man in the way he holds on to an identity conceived by
solely himself, not imposed by external forces.
The similarities between the narrator and Trueblood are actually more apparent if
we consider that by the end of his story the protagonist writes his own memoirs, the way
Trueblood relates his own tragedy. Mirroring the underprivileged sharecropper, the
narrator make use of the blues (he is a fan of Louis Armstrong he informs the reader) as
an inspiration for his work. His disgust with Trueblood’s transgression in time becomes
a source of adoration. The narrator’s view of him shifts from an uneducated fool to a
figure worthy of respect for his resolution in the face of such odds. When he first
encounters him, however, he fails to incorporate Trueblood’s voice into his own, which
limits his ability to find his improvisational and individual identity (Spaulding, 2012:
489).
The Invisible Man’s most valuable guides during his adventures in the north are
his Brotherhood associates Tarp and Clifton. These two characters, with their wisdom
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and courage, are the only figures in the whole organization that the narrator can establish
genuine connections with.
Brother Tarp, an old relic of a man who is tasked with assisting the newly
recruited narrator in settling in his headquarters in Harlem, unusually reminds him of his
grandfather; he even hears “the echoes of his grandfather’s voice” (Ellison: 306) while
conversing with the elderly man. What makes Brother Tarp’s relationship with the
protagonist significant is his two symbolic gifts; the chain link and Frederick Douglass’s
portrait, both of which carry quite deep and powerful meanings.
When the narrator doubts his abilities in leading the Harlem District, and his
concern over his capabilities make him question his judgment, Brother Tarp is the
person who comforts him by handing down to the narrator a sacred object: the broken
chain gang link which had imprisoned him for nineteen years. With this symbolic
gesture the Invisible Man realizes that Tarp has become a surrogate for his grandfather.
(Havemann: 265):
[…] I felt that Brother Tarp’s gesture in offering it was of some deeply felt
significance which I was compelled to respect. Something, perhaps, like a man
passing on to his son his own father’s watch, which the son accepted not because he
wanted the old-fashioned timepiece for itself, but because of the overtones of
unstated seriousness and solemnity of the paternal gesture which at once joined him
with his ancestors, marked a high point of his present, and promised a concreteness
to his nebulous and chaotic future. And now I remembered that if I had returned
home instead of coming north my father would have given me my grandfather’s
old-fashioned Hamilton, with its long, burr-headed winding stem. (Ellison: 314)
The analogy between his grandfather and Tarp becomes clear here: since the
narrator could not receive the paternal signifier (i.e. his grandfather’s gun), Tarp’s chain
fills this gap both literally and symbolically. Unfortunately, his understanding of such a
token is still premature, he feels uncomfortable as he cannot fully grasp what the gift
stands for. Though he recognizes the paternal gesture and the link to his ancestry, he
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does not know how to interpret its meaning just as he does not grasp the message behind
his grandfather’s words.
Unlike Bledsoe’s new, shining, and probably purchased leg chain which he uses
for the purpose of propaganda, Tarp’s old, broken chain acts as an “instrument of
characterization; Tarp becomes something more than a type through his responses to the
portentous relic of a past which is private, but which also provides a political and
cultural heritage”(Winther: 115). The iron shackle is a reminder of the choices he made
in the past and is a direct bond between his experiences and his identity. For saying “no”
to a white man and refusing to be treated unfairly he was physically imprisoned; yet at
the same time by his action his integrity was liberated forever. Standing behind his
ideals he defended his identity, like the rebel of Camus:
What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a
renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first
gesture of rebellion. […] Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that,
somewhere and somehow, one is right. It is in this way that the rebel slave says yes
and no simultaneously. He affirms that there are limits […] he confronts an order of
things which oppresses him with the insistence on a kind of right not to be
oppressed beyond the limit that he can tolerate. (Camus, The Rebel, 1991: 10)
In this sense then, Brother Tarp is a rebel who says no to an order which tries
unjustly to take away his freedom. By saying no he defines the terms of his
individuality. The chain link is the symbolic embodiment of his independence. It is a
sign with greater meaning than the narrator can comprehend unless he tries to assert his
own identity like Brother Tarp does.
The other object given to the protagonist by Tarp that holds various implications
is the portrait of Frederick Douglass. A portrait, by its disposition, is a representation; it
is a mirror with a rigid reflection, a surface whose depiction of an individual creates a
personal impression in the minds of the observers. Douglass’s portrait has such an
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impact over the narrator; as he looks at the portrait of the ex-slave, he feels a strange
familiarity, a connection, a distant identification with him on some level:
Sometimes I sat watching the watery play of light upon Douglass’s portrait,
thinking how magical it was that he had talked his way from slavery to a
government ministry, and so swiftly. Perhaps, I thought, something of the kind is
happening to me. Douglass came north to escape and find work in the shipyards; a
big fellow in a sailors suit who, like me, had taken another name. What had his true
name been? Whatever it was, it was as Douglass that he became himself, defined
himself. And not as a boatwright as he’d expected, but as an orator. (Ellison: 307308)
The narrator is evidently affected by Douglass story of self-definition through
oration and narration. Douglass’s act of refusing the dictated conventions of society in
favor of an introverted understanding of himself is a huge inspiration. Kimberly W.
Benston associates Douglass’s self-naming and liberated voice in these words:
The act of naming, which had originally been a brand of enslavement,
becomes a means for arriving at a nexus of private and public intention. Wielding
figuration as functional aspiration, Douglass becomes a model of consciousness as
self-named, the name helping the self achieve self-awareness, technique, and,
finally, voice. (Benston: 8)
However, be that as it may, the narrator’s admiration of Douglass is based on
some flawed principles. Douglass’s Narrative makes explicit in chapter 6 of his
autobiography that what lead to his freedom more than anything else, first and foremost,
was his ability to read:
From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It
was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. […]
Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high
hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.
(Douglass, 2012)
The narrator’s “misreading” of Douglass’s portrait and duly the importance of
his life story is founded on the false assumption that, what conceived Douglass the free
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man was his ability to create another fictional self by oration, and then accepting that
fiction as his new identity; whereas in reality it was the competence of the ex-slave to
outmaneuver his masters by becoming an efficient “reader of signs”. Robert B. Stepto
comments accordingly on Douglass’s achievement:
Given the events of the Narrative, it isn’t stretching things to say that, for
Douglass, acts of literacy include acts of reading the signs and events, or “patterns
of certainties”, that comprise oppressive and imposing fictions of reality. Douglass
didn’t “talk” his way to freedom; rather, he “read” his way and, as far as the
Narrative is concerned (it being his personal history as and in a literary form),
“wrote” his way. (1986: 67)
As long as the Invisible Man fails at reading signs, he is doomed to repeat his
mistakes as others will define his identity for him. His acceptance of authority figures’
definitions will blind him to the truths lying beneath the surface. If he wishes to follow
in the footsteps of people like Douglass, he will have to find the strength and wisdom to
narrate his own story in his own words.
If Brother Tarp with his gifts and invaluable advice acts as a surrogate
grandfather, Tod Clifton, the Youth Leader of the Brotherhood can be regarded as a
counterpart of the narrator himself. A new recruit like the narrator, Clifton also goes
through similar phases of alienation and identity crisis among the ranks of the
organization. Regarded by the Invisible Man as a hope for the black community’s future,
his interactions with the authority figures and eventual disintegration imitate the status
of the minority groups in general under the Brotherhood’s influence. Regarding the
resemblance between the two characters Harper asserts that
Clifton's situation had been parallel to that of the protagonist: A young
black rendered ineffectual as a leader within the black community due to his
affiliation with the Brotherhood, he is equally unable to find validation of his
identity in the white power structure. (1994: 138)
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At length, his discontent with the hypocrisy of the Brotherhood’s politics leads
him in a direction which alters both his and the narrator’s life in a drastic way.
Becoming aware of the Brotherhood’s ill intentions concerning the minorities way
before the Invisible Man can, he exiles himself from the organization. Yet his
disapproval and criticism of the Brotherhood is not limited to just abandoning their
cause.
Clifton directs his anger and despair into an act of mockery of the power
structure which forces individuals to submit to the will of authority. He starts selling
Sambo dolls in the streets, dolls which represent the way whites perceive black people:
as compliant servants. What makes the situation more dire is he not only sells them, but
acts out the role of the obedient slave while doing so. The intentional reenacting of a
stereotype by Clifton is a critique of a recurring theme in the novel; the formation of the
ego depending on the perception of others. Kimberly Lamm has this to say on the
subject:
Recall that in the Battle Royal chapter the black male bodily ego is broken
and rebuilt through physical violence that the young men are forced to endure but
also inflict upon each other […]. The looks of the young men are produced
simultaneously with the violent destruction and reconstruction of their bodies, and
their looks are policed within contradictory imperatives. (Lamm: 829)
However, unlike the young blacks who are forced to affirm their identities under
the gaze of the white authority, Clifton’s deed of purposefully identifying with the doll
image, an image enforced by outside forces, proves that he has moved beyond being a
reflection in the mirror. The image of the Sambo, under Tod’s influence, evolves into a
source of ambiguous power:
Clifton's performance unhinges Sambo's place from the invisibility of the
black male ego, with all its perverse hostility and conflict, and exposes its role in
the construction of the black male identity. […] It is Clifton's corrosively ironic
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play with the identification and distance, presence and absence, its defiant act of
detaching the image of the black male from its bodily source that is so disorienting.
(Ibid.)
Clifton’s way of accepting the image of the Sambo only to expose the
Brotherhood’s hypocrisy is a testament of his ability to read signs. He sees through the
surface value of the stereotype, only to use it against the power structure which
perpetuates such images.
The still blind Invisible Man, on the other hand, finds Clifton’s actions as
treacherous to the ideals of the Brotherhood and appalling. His dedication to the identity
bestowed on him by the organization renders him shortsighted, unable to receive his
friend’s crucial message:
It was as though he had chosen […] to fall outside of history. […] But he
knew only in the Brotherhood could we make ourselves known, could we avoid
being empty Sambo dolls. Such an obscene flouncing of everything human! […]
And those dolls, where had [he] found them? Why had he picked that way to earn a
quarter? Why not sell apples or song sheets, or shine shoes? (Ellison: 350)
The narrator cannot comprehend the reason why Tod is selling Sambo dolls.
Combined with his Brotherhood jargon, describing his friend as “falling out of history”,
his faith in the Brotherhood doctrines clouds his judgment. He labels his friend a lost
cause because he degraded the organization by identifying with a stereotype. His reading
of the situation and the Sambo doll is baseless, indicating his gullibility.
As Clifton’s intentions remain unintelligible for the narrator, it is clear that the
young man “visually interrupts the Brotherhood's, and Invisible Man's, illusions of
control, progress, and rationality” (Lamm: 831). By mimicking an externally imposed
identity for the amusement of others, he redefines the stereotype in his own perception.
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Under his control, the Sambo image is not a generalized cliché used to degrade a certain
minority group, but an idea to show the limiting nature of such bizarre epithets.
Lamentably, Tod’s example turns out to be a temporary defiance. He is gunned
down shortly after his display of self-assertion by a police officer (both the gun and the
law being the representations of authority) who calls him a “nigger” for resisting arrest.
The authority literally and metaphorically murders individuality for trying to reconstruct
an identity based on inner perception.
Tod’s death is not a total loss, however, as it serves as a catalyst for the
narrator’s growth and his realization of the Brotherhood’s actual goals. As the
protagonist’s double, Clifton’s death frees the protagonist from Brotherhood’s
machinations so that he may seek alternative values (Havemann: 269). He starts to
question the organization’s previous motives in relocating him to a different part of
Harlem after the newspaper article incident. Moreover, the committee’s reaction to him
for preparing a funeral service for Clifton without consulting them first, finally assures
him of the true nature of their principles. Their contrasting view regarding Clifton’s
murder and burial is the final straw in a series of insults:
Temporizing, [the Invisible Man] protests that as a Harlem spokesman he
acted because he saw the chance to rally the people and regain the Brotherhood’s
lost prestige in the community. For his claim that to Harlem, Clifton was not a
traitor but a black man shot down by the police, and that the funeral gave them an
opportunity to express their feelings and to affirm themselves, he is chastised for
spouting racist nonsense. He is informed, once again, that the Brotherhood’s policy
is unequivocally against demonstrations, that they are considered “no longer
effective”. (Schor: 87)
The Brotherhood criticizes the narrator for taking an initiative and not obeying
the judgment of the collective consciousness of the committee. As they are trying to
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label the deceased party member Clifton as a traitor, imposing on him an identity
undeserved, the protagonist counters their perception by humanizing his late friend:
“He was a man and a Negro; a man and a brother; a man and a traitor; as
you say; then he was a dead man, and alive or dead he was jam-full of
contradictions. So full that he attracted half of the Harlem to come out and stand in
the sun in answer to our call. So what is a traitor?” (Ellison: 375)
This challenge to Brotherhood’s authority and their efforts at defining others, is
an indication of the narrator’s growing awareness. His refusal of their one-sided
characterization of Clifton clearly points to his understanding of the importance of selfdefinition. Thus, the death of Tod is a crucial turning point in the narrator’s life, as from
that moment on he becomes a more skeptic individual. He reassesses his connection to
the Brotherhood and questions the motives behind their activities. This, in turn, will
eventually aid him in decoding the meaning and message behind other people’s
behaviors, unclear signs and symbols.
While the narrator’s days in the Brotherhood are numbered following his
disobedience after Clifton’s death, he encounters yet another mentor in the guise of
Rinehart before the story concludes. Although the character never appears physically in
the novel, his impact upon the Invisible Man’s perceptions on reality is undeniable.
As stated, the narrator does not meet the figure of Rinehart in person. He
becomes aware of the existence of such a character during his escape from the
henchmen of a right wing black separationist called Ras. When the protagonist puts on a
hat and a pair of dark glasses to disguise himself, he not only succeeds in avoiding Ras’s
men, but also starts perceiving the world in a different manner:
The shops and groceries were dark now, and children were running and
yelling along the walks, dodging in and out among the adults. I walked, struck by
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the merging fluidity of forms seen through the lenses. Could this be the way the
world appeared to Rinehart? (Ellison: 395)
Rinehart becomes a mask; a protean camouflage altering the perceptions of both
the people looking at the mask, and the person looking out of it into the world. In the
symbolic sense, he presents the “endless metonymic slide from signifier to signifier”
(Chiesa, 2007: 109), a privileged sign whose definition is impossible because he is not
limited by a fixed identity. Benston observes that Rinehart, performing a plethora of
social functions - numbers-runner, preacher, lover, etc.- […] becomes "one" only with
the metamorphic flow (2012: 7), indicating his inscrutable nature. His ingenious ability
at shape shifting, reflecting to the outside world what they wish to see, grants him a
power over reality beyond the narrator’s comprehension.
Furthermore, Rinehart’s mask wearing takes the form of another kind of
invisibility. Unlike the narrator who has conceived of his own invisibility as a liability,
Rinehart prefers to exploit his position to augment his status (Harper, 2012: 697).
Rinehart is a con man whose fluid identity enables him to move freely inside the social
fabric without the risk of being labeled as a fraud. He has discovered the effectiveness of
wearing multiple masks to take advantage of the possibilities of his innate and inherent
invisibility (Lieber, 2012: 96). He is many things and none of them at once, and the
ambiguity of his identity, the endless possibilities his reputation grants him inspires the
protagonist:
His world was possibility and he knew it. He was years ahead of me and I
was a fool. I must have been crazy and blind. The world in which we lived was
without boundaries. A vast, seething, hot world of fluidity, and Rine the rascal was
at home. Perhaps only Rine the rascal was at home in it. (Ellison: 401)
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Rinehart, in the eyes of the protagonist, becomes an embodiment of chaos.
Contradicting the Brotherhood’s rigid rules and efforts at classification, Rinehart wears
his mantle of invisibility to defy such boundaries. As Walton M. Muyumba points out,
“Rinehart uses his mask to work around the conventions of identity. He is able to create
his own identity by refusing a determined, absolutist version of social representation”
(2009: 73). Thus, the chameleon-like figure sets an example for the narrator to overcome
socially imposed identities by refusing to be limited to one role, but playing many at the
same time. An escape mechanism consciously adopted by Rinehart, his approach to
invisibility makes the protagonist realize the potency in anonymity.
Nonetheless, Rinehart’s chaotic nature and his indefinable character also posit
dangers for the narrator, which in the end prove to be disastrous. His freedom of
movement resulting from his clever use of masks, constantly adapting to his
environment, in essence may also be tied to his lack of a coherent, relatable identity. It is
true that possessing many faces allows him to outmaneuver any possible rivals, yet
behind all his masks there is not a real person, only a phantom. To follow in his
footsteps would mean relinquishing mastery over one’s personality. In Tony Tanner’s
words:
To emulate Rinehart would be to submit to chaos. Rinehart, whose heart is
in fact all rind, really represents the ultimate diffusion and loss of self; a freedom,
indeed, which might easily turn into that nightmare of jelly. The narrator,
attempting to discover or create his own identity, does not want to dissolve in
fluidity. (1971: 57)
Rinehart, divided into many men who are assembled under one name, is the
perfect example of the fragmented ego. What constitutes this con man’s existence is,
ironically, the total lack of unity between these fragmented parts. That is why Rinehart
can at the same time be a reverend and a pimp without raising suspicion. The core of his
identity is built on contradiction. Whereas the Brotherhood forced its rigid worldview
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upon its members, celebrating the efficiency of their scientific approach to life,
Rinehart’s influence may prove more harmful to the narrator as it disregards stability.
Rinehart is a bad role model for the narrator as Jack is, since both base their prosperity
on the amoral manipulation of their roles (Hoberek, 2005: 67).
The narrator only becomes aware of the dangers of emulating Rinehart after he
unsuccessfully tries to infiltrate the ranks of the Brotherhood’s elite circle by seducing
their wives. His plan backfires at him as the organization makes use of his gullibility to
aggregate the black community, and he unintentionally triggers the violent race riots in
Harlem. Reverting to “Rinehart methods” (Ellison: 413) costs him dearly since he is not
deceptive enough like the cunning con man:
Only Rinehart is technically and metaphysically equipped to lead, but he is
the most demonic misleader of all. Not surprisingly, the narrator’s decision to take
Rinehart as his model, and Rinehartism as his political instrument for undermining
the Brotherhood’s confidence, boomerangs - as have all of his preceding
instrumentalities. First of all, he lacks the ruthlessness necessary to carry out the
sexual intrigue he plans as a reversal of the Brotherhood’s earlier efforts to
neutralize him through the agency of a white woman. Then, after discovering a
certain horrific sameness between the Brotherhood’s real attitudes toward its
Harlem constituents and Rinehart’s - the Brotherhood’s admitted “trick” of
leadership is “to take advantage of them in their own best interest” - he finds that
his counterapplication of Rinehart’s cynical tactics leads not to the destruction of
the Brotherhood, as he intends, but to the apocalyptic riots that the Brotherhood has
helped engineer with his and Ras’s unwitting complicity, making Harlem a dark
sacrifice to political expediency. (Wright, 2004: 239-240)
The last of the Invisible Man’s mentors, Rinehart shows him that he does not
possess the symbolic freedom necessary for manipulating other individuals. First of all,
that power comes from, as time and time again the narrator is reminded, being able to
read and decode the signs in the symbolic order. Rinehart’s fluid identity and his
mastery over the signs enable him to overcome social restrictions because he can alter
others’ perceptions of him by donning his masks. In contrast, the Invisible Man’s flawed
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plan is based on imitating Rinehart’s manipulative guises albeit not exhibiting such
control over the symbolic order.
The narrator’s individuation and identity formation is primarily dependent upon
his ability to define himself. If he can excel in a symbolic medium where self-expression
breathes life into self-definition, the protagonist will be able to assert his identity without
the intervention of outside forces. Such an opportunity arrives when at the end of his
story the narrator is pushed down an open manhole, and spends the rest of his life
underground in silent contemplation. Eventually, this seemingly absurd fate will be the
cornerstone of his rebirth as an individual.
3.3. Recreating Identity through Speech and Words
Much of the Invisible Man’s life revolves around his pursuit of a genuine identity
which he has to construct by himself in order for it to preserve its meaning. His struggle
for such an undertaking is both hindered and motivated by paternal figures he meets
throughout his tale. His interactions with these characters, during and after his
adventures, help him seek out ways to express himself on his own. His search leads him
in two directions; one of them is based on the power of voice and oratory talents to
convey his messages, whereas the other road forks into the path of the written word.
His first tools for self-expression during his adolescent years are, much like a
newborn baby, voice and speech. Since voice and giving it shape through the act of
speech acquired from our parents form the basis of our communicative skills, the
narrator is at the beginning of the story a speech maker more than anything. His
inclinations towards articulating his needs and feelings alike in the phonetic universe
gradually places him in front of an audience eager to lend him an ear, as voice and
speech are portrayed to be reliable conduits for personal and transpersonal recognition
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(Newton, 2004: 46). Thus, by analyzing each of his public speeches it is possible to
draw conclusions regarding his growth as an orator, mainly because these instances give
him the opportunity to forge his self-image. Harper asserts that the protagonist
[…] conceives of public oratory as a realm in which he can discover his
self, representing both the uniqueness of his attributes and a privileged space of
verbal signification that seems impermeable to the threat of politics. (Harper, 2012:
688)
He delivers his first speech on the night of the battle royal to the prominent
white authority figures of his town. What makes the narrator’s initial effort at selfassertion memorable is Ellison’s ironical approach to the dehumanizing situation which
contradicts the narrator’s naiveté. Although he has been symbolically brutalized by the
white gaze during the battle royal, the narrator is so eager to deliver his memorized
speech that he accepts humiliation. Considering the fact that he only recites the words
verbatim that he had read elsewhere, his utterance is ineffectual; “it is full of big words
and in other ways has been designed to impress the white establishment figures […]”
(Sten, 1991: 94). Christopher Hanlon also criticizes the contents of the Invisible Man’s
speech as a compromise to satisfy the authority:
Its inept delivery is in keeping with the speech’s irrelevant logic, the let’s-just-allget-along wisdom the speech offers an imagined audience of black southerners but
which is now rehearsed for a set of white men who recoil from the phrase “social
equality.” Even as the protagonist departs from his script in uttering these disruptive
words, he does not improvise so much as he is improvised upon: sensing the
dangerous ground he has opened up, he quickly substitutes the words “social
responsibility” […]. (Hanlon, 2010: 144-145)
His slip of tongue, uttering the words “social equality” instead of “social
responsibility”, hints at his secret, unconscious desire to defy the enforced concepts and
definitions conjured by those in power. However, at this point in the story he is relying
on such definitions because he has no alternative. As he caves in and retraces his words
the white people, dismissing his disobedience as a momentary lapse, reward him with a
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briefcase which becomes a symbol of their influence over the narrator for the rest of the
novel.
His second public speech, delivered during an eviction scene, is more personal in
nature. Compared to the battle royal episode, what triggers his second act of articulation
is his identification with the old couple that is being evicted from their home by the
police. Unlike his insincere and memorized words in the first instance, the eviction
speech is delivered in the heat of the moment and without improvisation.
Looking at the pile of furniture thrown on the street belonging to the evictees, he
feels a connection to his cultural past that he was not permitted to admit before. Their
symbolic and literal “dispossession” propels him to act. He internalizes their suffering
and struggle as his own, becoming sort of a self-elected leader. Hence,
The speech marks his transition from a phase of egocentric leadership “for”
society to a phase of self-effacing leadership “against” the social order. And his
extemporaneous rhetorical pyrotechnics signal his regenerated political will to
freedom and his new mastery of oratorical “technique.” At last he unites his own
unconstrained psychic experience with the complex symbols of his people’s
emotional history—which he has now perceptively deciphered in the tangled heap
of mementos piled before the dispossessed couple. Consequently, he is able to
articulate a transforming vision and move a mass of men and women to action that,
for a moment at least, breaks the chain of injustice. (Wright: 230-231)
Fueled by his energetic rhetoric, his audience is similarly affected by the eviction
of the black couple. The public speech soon turns into a dialogue in which his frustrated
audience, incited by his words, is slowly becoming ready for action. His interaction with
the crowd on a symbolic level, getting responses out of them, contradicts his battle royal
experience where the white people readily dictated to him what to say. This new
experience fills him with ambivalent feelings. Hanlon observes the relationship between
the audience and the narrator in these words:
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Unlike prior speeches he has given, this speech is directed at an audience
that will not constrain itself to listen quietly, that offers its own retort when
provoked. Over the course of his potentially disastrous intervention, the protagonist
finds himself forced to adjust his pronunciations to the temperament of the crowd;
as his listeners fire back their own answers and protests in response to his various
statements, they actively interfere with the trajectory of the protagonist’s address,
but in such a way as to tease a sort of repressed eloquence from him. (2010: 147)
Being unfamiliar with such a powerful response, the narrator eventually fails at
directing the crowd’s vigor into positive action. They overwhelm him as they are furious
at the police involved in the eviction and physically abuse them, and soon a riot breaks
out. He is bewildered because he has no idea that words spoken freely can have such an
extreme effect on people:
It became too much for me. The whole thing had gotten out of hand. What
had I said to bring on all this? (Ellison: 230)
He is neither ready to grasp the power of speech over people, nor is he able to
convert their support into proper action. His control over his voice is limited, making his
attempts at self-definition futile. The eviction scene serves to remind him of the
difficulty at mastering his voice, since words are like disobedient children; once they
leave the tongue of the orator their meaning becomes autonomous, independent of the
speaker’s intentions. The narrator will have to keep giving speeches if he wishes to
develop into an elegant spokesman.
Such an opportunity arises when he is asked by the Brotherhood to speak in one
of their rallies. As a representative of the Brotherhood he is expected to deliver a
scientific speech, following a strict method of articulation, upholding the ideals of the
organization. Contrary to their expectations, though, the protagonist chooses to follow
his instincts instead of the briefing handed to him prior to the rally. Rather than
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deceiving his listeners with empty words, he communicates with them on a more
personal level. Similar to his eviction speech, but delivered more cautiously, his
dialogue with the audience at the rally reflects his growth as a speaker. According to
John F. Callahan, his public image and individual voice become intertwined during these
events:
He is so thoroughly a performer that he defines and tests his identity on
those occasions when he becomes a public voice. In his speeches Invisible Man’s
voice evolves into an instrument more and more keyed to the necessities, limits, and
possibilities of call-and-response. To persuade others and move them to action, he
relies mostly on techniques of improvisation. (Callahan, 2004: 304)
The more he forms a connection with people listening to him, the more he feels
like a human being. This notion of belonging to a group whose sole purpose is to listen
to him proves exhilarating. The audience symbolically acts as a mirror reflecting his
newly forming identity solely by acknowledging his words. His final declaration is a
proof of this sentiment:
“I feel, I feel suddenly that I have become more human. Do you
understand? More human. Not that I have become a man, for I was born a man. But
that I am more human. I feel strong, I feel able to get things done! I feel that I can
see sharp and clear and far down the dim corridor of history […] I feel the urge to
affirm my feelings. […] I feel that here tonight, in this old arena, the new is being
born and the vital old revived. In each of you, in me, in us all”. (Ellison: 208-281)
This expression of metaphorical rebirth is a testament of his slowly evolving
symbolic competence. From a figurative mouthpiece whose function was to entertain the
white gaze and reaffirm their dominance, he has become an able orator moving masses
to undergo cathartic emotions.
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The narrator’s final act of public speech making occurs after his friend Tod’s
death. He personally organizes his funeral and following the dire event gives a eulogy.
By commemorating his late friend he achieves a sense of autonomy that he never felt
before. His words at the beginning are forced as he has no idea what to tell the
congregation which is gathered in front of Tod’s coffin. However, the obligation to
affirm a wrongfully accused, fallen comrade’s identity presses him to speak more
sympathetically. His initial aim is to make everyone realize Tod’s individuality:
“His name was Clifton and he was young and he was a leader and when he
fell there was a hole in the heel of his sock and when he stretched forward he
seemed not as tall as when he stood. So he died; and we who loved him are
gathered here to mourn him. It’s as simple as that and short as that. His name was
Clifton and he was black and they shot him.” (Ibid., p.366-367)
Reiterating his friend’s name and stressing his commonality help both to paint a
picture of a simple individual in the minds of the listeners, and to identify with him. The
narrator states that Tod’s body acts as a “dulling mirror” (Loc. Cit.) for the whole
community, his death serving as an image of their own helplessness. Putting the
individual and the community in the same pot, he aims to form a connection between the
personal and the collective. Harper’s interpretation of the dynamic between the narrator
and the crowd regarding the funeral scene is as follows:
This final speech is the activity through which the Invisible Man seems to
find his subjectivity by exercising that of the community. The result is the
emergence of individual identity even in the context of the collective-heretofore the
major threat to individual subjectivity. (Harper, 2012: 696)
Therefore, when he concludes his eulogy, he realizes that he has managed to
bring together a horde of people who were total strangers, yet with his words he has
given all of them (including his own) a separate identity:
And as I took one last look I saw not a crowd but the set faces of individual
men and women. (Ellison: 370)
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His final speech for the final journey of his comrade frees him from the
Brotherhood’s totalistic view of community and history. Contrary to the organization’s
beliefs, individuals do count and the protagonist’s achievement in rallying the people
without resorting to demagogy or populism points to his progress as a successful orator.
Be that as it may, spoken words, like the narrator who has struggled with the
ethereal nature of his own identity, are practically invisible. They are invisible in the
sense that once uttered they only reside in the minds of the people who hear them. Their
credibility can also be questioned as they can be manipulated easily to fit the agenda of
the speaker. The true intention behind speech acts are never fixed or clear, since only in
speech does the signifier seem to be completely "reduced" to its signified content; the
spoken word is a strangely diaphanous and transparent medium for meaning (Allison,
1973: xxxix). The protagonist’s temporary mastery over his voice is not enough to
realize his ultimate goal of proving his individuality. He needs to find a different, more
stable medium of self-expression to affirm his place in the symbolic order. But first of
all, he needs to acknowledge the inadequacy of oral communication.
A scene which takes place during the Harlem riots just before the conclusion of
the narrative provides the protagonist with such an opportunity. While trying to secure
himself from the carnage of the apocalyptic night the Invisible Man comes across Ras
the Destroyer, the right wing separationist who has been gathering his own supporters in
the district against the Brotherhood’s encroachment. Instead of fleeing from his nemesis
Ras, who has been the other blind pawn besides the Invisible Man in triggering the
Brotherhood’s grand scheme of disrupting peace in Harlem, the narrator chooses to fight
him.
The episode is very symbolic, as the protagonist rids himself of both Ras’s and
the organization’s influence by throwing a spear at his rival, which catches him in the
cheek. Ras, who has led the Harlem community to ruin by his passionate yet hateful
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rhetoric against white authority, is finally silenced with the narrator’s assault. The act of
muffling his enemy with a clearly phallic symbol serves several purposes:
In locking the jaws of his rival, the narrator is actually locking his own
jaws. By so doing, he is liberated, saved from a role that has become intolerable.
[…] Importantly, the role that has become intolerable is not only the role of
Brotherhood representative but also the role of speaker. (Rice, 2010: 116)
The domain of speech is a chaotic territory where intended meaning and the
received message may differ vastly so as to lead to major misunderstandings. Seeing the
culmination of his oratorical errors in the breaking out of the Harlem insurrection, he
flees from speech and responsibility into the depths of the sewers, becoming an
underground man. He ceases all communication with the outside world in the hopes of
discovering a new method of expressing himself. His aim is to find a way to subdue the
chaos inherent in the spoken word into a discernible pattern; to discover a more reliable,
controllable demonstrative activity.
The Invisible Man’s rebirth as a self-made individual starts the moment he jumps
down the open manhole into the infinite abyss below. The isolating loneliness provided
by the dark cover of the city sewers encourages him to assess his identity, status and
experiences in a new light. The essence of this metaphorical light is initially supplied by
the act of burning the contents of his briefcase, which contains the various imposed
identity fragments such as his high school diploma, his Brotherhood name and the threat
letter he received after becoming a high profile figure in the organization. At the time of
his travels these objects are the foundations of his being, they are the protectors of his
acquired personality against a world of chaos. Still none of these “protections” are worth
more than the paper they are written on, because all they achieve is to keep the narrator
running in circles (Stepto: 56-57).
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The narrator slowly starts reading the signs under the illuminating fire of the
burning papers, and for the first time in his life he realizes the power in decoding
messages when he discerns the identity of the person who wrote the threat letter; the
handwriting on his Brotherhood name (which was given to him by Brother Jack), and
the one on the letter are the same, thus proving Jack to be the culprit all along. This
resolution is only reached at the end of the novel; however it is a step in the right
direction. The newfound freedom in the safety of written words, being able to decode
their meaning, will enable him to re-evaluate his past and his identity without the
influence of outside factors.
Considering that the Invisible Man’s narrative is the recollection of his past life
framed by the lexical world of letters, his mastery over written signs aids him in
exercising his individuality on his own story. No longer tied to any social convention in
his underground refuge his meditations focus on recreating his perception of previous
events. Tuire Valkeakari observes that
A retreat into solitude therefore eventually becomes necessary for the
manipulated manipulator: he needs time to reflect on his past experiences, to
reinvent himself on his own terms, and to create a new, meaningful content for any
possible future “performances” in the realm of public life. During his “hibernation,”
the narrator stops “running,” retires to a private space, and writes his memoir.
(2010: 189)
Contrary to the spoken word, the written word has a conceivable pattern. Unlike
his public speeches where the meaning of his utterances can be twisted by the prejudices
of his listeners, the coherence inherent in letters secures him from involuntary distortion
of motive. The text becomes an agent of counter-signification that reveals to the narrator
he can find freedom in the confines of invisibility (Coleman, 2001: 132).
Consequently, his first words in the novel are a declaration of identity: “I am an
invisible man” (Ellison: 7), he says. As the narrator begins his story with a definition of
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himself and his condition, it clearly paves the path to his liberation from the confining
characterizations of society. Putting his experiences into black and white on his own
accord, he evolves from a victim into a conscious being. In Valeri Smith’s words
When he decides to write his own story, he relinquishes the meaning
generated by other ideologies in favor of one that is primarily self-generated. By
designating a beginning and an end to his story, he converts events that threaten to
be chaotic into ones that reveal form and significance. He creates for himself a
persona that develops, indeed exists, in contradistinction to the images that others
projected onto him. Moreover, he inverts his relation to the figures of authority who
dominated him in “life”. As author / narrator he is able to control the identities of
such people as Norton, Bledsoe, and Brother Jack. By representing them in
uncomplimentary ways, he avenges the humiliations they inflicted upon him in life.
The double consciousness of simultaneously playing and undermining the game
proved implausible. But the solution to the problems of identity and authority can
be found in the double consciousness of reliving one’s story as both narrator and
protagonist. (Smith: 43)
Creating an authentic account of his past in linguistic patterns, he tames the
chaos and absurdity of social reality. His completed tale stands out as an affirmation of
identity produced by the individual himself. As the rebirth process started with the
burning of false documents, it concludes with the conception of a genuine chronicle.
In conjunction with the symbolic function of language in liberating him from the
confines of an other-oriented perception of reality, the Invisible Man’s final triumph
against social authority takes place during a dream sequence in which he is haunted by
all the oppressive father figures he meets in his travels. All of these characters come
together in a last attempt to overpower the narrator and force him to accept their values;
they castrate him and throw his bloody genitals into darkness.
At first glance this act implies the symbolic deprivation of the protagonist, since
they take away his manhood and coincidentally his power to shape public events
(Abrams, 2012: 596). They wish to continue to impose their worldviews on the fledgling
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author. However, in opposition to their expectations, the Invisible Man traverses the
racist and phallocentric fantasies that have stymied his progress up to this point in the
novel and to the men's dismay he begins to laugh pointing at his severed genitals
(Steward, 2012: 531):
“Still”, I said, “there’s your universe, and that drip-drop upon the water you
hear is all the history you’ve made, all you’re going to make. Now, laugh, you
scientists. Let’s hear you laugh!” (Ellison: 459)
His genitals are not only the symbol of the protagonist’s manhood, but also the
sign of white authority’s influence over him. As Norton, Bledsoe, Jack and the rest have
defined his identity so far, his castration also points to their own impotency. The image
of a wholesome ego, a complete being satisfied by obedience, which they tried to
enforce on him is shattered with the removal of his organs. Accepting his fragmented
identity, and finally ridding himself of his false self-perception, the narrator is ready to
comprehend the advice of his late grandfather.
Having dispelled the illusions of his deceitful manipulators with the castration
dream, and understanding the importance of decoding messages, the narrator reviews the
dying words of his elder in a different perspective:
Could he have meant – hell, he must have meant the principle, that we were
to affirm the principle on which the country was built and not the men, or at least
not the men who did the violence. […] Did he mean that we should affirm the
principle because we, through no fault of our own, were linked to all others in the
loud, clamoring semi-visible world, that world seen only as a fertile field for
exploitation by Jack and his kind, and with condescension by Norton and his […] ?
(Ibid., p.462-463)
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The narrator’s new interpretation is certainly at odds with his initial
understanding. Whereas he first thought his grandfather was counseling him to take
hostile action against authority figures when he said “agree’em to death and
destruction”, he now comprehends that his animosity was targeted at those who abused
their positions in power, not the whole society. As Edith Schor puts it:
The old man’s fierce anger was an unyielding opposition to the condition
that denied him his right to human dignity. His words affirmed the principle on
which this country [America] was built, the commitment to equality and justice for
all. His good fight was a passionate resistance to the men who violated the
principle. (1993: 104)
Thus, with his grandfather’s wisdom imparted to him, the narrator learns to
differentiate the men who take advantage of their status from society at large. He
comprehends that his anger and disappointment regarding his past should not be directed
at the society per se, but only at those who were willing to profit from his misery. His
rebellious act of abandoning his social role, leaving his community behind in favor of
solitude, may have enabled him to keep himself safe from the enfeebling influence of
those responsible for his anguish. Unfortunately, by the same token, his escape into the
black hole also amplified his status as an invisible man. Without the acknowledgement
of others, his identity becameas hollow as an empty mirror pane. Therefore he has to
emerge from his hiding place with the wisdom he has acquired from retelling his tale.
He is no longer the easily manipulated fool who was unable to see the harmful intentions
behind his false fathers.Consequently, his symbolic growth completed with his mastery
over language (i.e. his narrative in written form), and having absorbed the meaning
behind his true paternal mentor’s words, the Invisible Man is ready to leave his dark
hole of contemplation and rejoin society as a self-proclaimed author. Just as his first
utterance in the narrative is a confirmation of identity, his departing words reflect his
willingness to accept responsibility for such an identity, and to become part of the
symbolic chain. His question, “Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak
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for you?” (Ellison: 469), lingers in the air as a proof of his acknowledgement that the
individual and the society are inseparable.
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CONCLUSION
All three novels focus primarily on the coming of age of their anti-heroes, whose
growth is possible only through a conflict with authority figures and society, and whose
triumphs in such adverse situations finally enable them to achieve individuation. Their
stories help the reader follow their progress from dependency upon the definitions
imposed by external forces, to their awakening as individuals who not only defy the preconceived notions of identity, but construct their own in their struggle for affirmation.
Their battle for self-confirmation constantly places them at odds with those who
wield the power to define reality. These authority figures (more often than not
represented as manipulative, cruel and deceitful individuals, institutions or social
arrangements) and their narrow perspective on personal freedom, initially limit the
protagonists’ development as human beings.
Their fragile egos are formed by
internalizing the worldviews and conceptions of these powerful characters, accepting
them as their own. In the Lacanian sense, their egos are constructed upon the reflection
they see in the eyes of those in authority. This false identification with an outside image,
acknowledging its predominance in the creation of selfhood, unfortunately confines
them in the Imaginary register and reduces them to the role of victim. This dual
relationship between the external image and the ego needs to be sundered by an
intervening presence so that the anti-heroes can emerge from their narcissist
misidentification as individuals, and step into the Symbolic order where they can
properly assert their identity by interacting with social reality.
In the three novels that I have analyzed, this intervening presence that dispels the
illusion between the ego and its constituent image is personified by mentors who guide
the anti-heroes through the process of transition from the Imaginary into the Symbolic.
These mentor figures mainly provide the protagonists with the wisdom and courage to
overcome their inability to accept their shortcomings, to renounce the identities dictated
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to them by others, and finally to rejoin society as people transformed by their
illuminating experiences. For Holden Caulfield, who is stuck at the crossroads between
childhood and adolescence, this figure is his sister Phoebe. The impact of her exuberant
character aids Holden in letting go of his brother Allie’s negative hold on his life and to
come to terms with his premature death. Chief Bromden, on the other hand, is lifted out
of his blurry second infantalization at the hands of the Big Nurse with the help of his
surrogate father Randle McMurphy. The Chief slowly grows out of his cocoon,
regaining his cognitive and communicative skills. As for the Invisible Man, since his
mentors are not limited in number compared to Holden and Bromden, it takes a longer
time period for him to decode his grandfather’s deathbed words and make sense out of
his enigmatic advice. His struggle is against the blindness of people who refuse to
acknowledge who he is, and his own short-sightedness for not realizing the merits of his
own identity.
My belief is that at the end of each novel the protagonists successfully reclaim
their identities, and the most compelling evidence of such an achievement is displayed
by their metamorphosis that transforms them from objects whose very being is defined
by other people, into subjects who determine the meaning of their own experiences by
putting them into words. Approached from this perspective, each narrative becomes in
itself an act of personal definition, an effort to ease their traumas and make peace with
their pasts.
In this sense, their stories (or in other words their “memoirs”) perform the
function of what the psychoanalysts call “afterwardsness” or “deferred action”. This
concept, first formulated by Freud, suggests that traumatic events that are registered in
one’s psyche at one point are repressed, only to be understood in retrospection later on
(Fletcher, 1999: 15). Lacan too, interprets deferred action as a re-subjectivization of the
traumatic event in order to explain its lingering effects, which causes the subject to
reconstruct himself so that he can attach meaning to his psychical pain(Lacan, 2006:
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257). Thus, the storytelling motif embraced by the protagonists in each novel is an
attempt to overcome the haunting experiences of an older self, to empower one’s self
with the recognition of prior disillusionments, and to be reborn as an autonomous
individual ready to be integrated into society.
At the end of The Catcher In The Rye Holden addresses the readers from a
sanitarium, and his closing lines indicate a promise of recovery. Through Phoebe’s
mediation and his frank narration, he is able to create meaning out of a seemingly
meaningless existence filled with loss and images of death. He admits that he still has
issues to resolve regarding the prospects of his future, yet at the same time he tells the
readers that his fury has subsided and he misses everyone, even such despicable
characters like Maurice. His compassion even for people who mistreated him and his
longing for human interaction shows his readiness to become a part of society as an
individual.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest opens with Chief Bromden’s paranoid
ramblings about the life in the asylum and how the system he calls the Combine
emasculates the inmates of the hospital psychologically. He warns the readers that he
has been silent for so long that his narrative will probably seem like the words coming
out of the mouth of a lunatic. Yet his story takes a different turn the more he talks about
his past. His anxiety about revealing the truth behind the walls of the hospital is slowly
replaced by calmness and peace as he finds a mentor and a guide in the figure of
McMurphy. His tutelage under McMurphy teaches him to rejoin the outside world after
rediscovering his repressed individuality. That is why at the end of his narration the
Indian Chief decides to return to the lands of his forefathers and carry on the family
traditions, ripening into a self-conscious member of society.
The episodes of Invisible Man are situated between two sections called the
Prologue and the Epilogue. These two sections function as the frame of the story and
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reflect the narrator’s observations and self-criticism regarding his “pre-invisible days”.
The narrator, looking back at his life from his dark den of contemplation, is capable of
making acute commentary about his earlier naiveté, his willingness to submit to the
stereotyping he witnessed at the hands of authority figures, and his blindness resulting
from his lack of inner wisdom. As he writes down his memoirs, his former blindness
turns to spiritual insight. Deciphering the long sought after message behind his
grandfather’s words, he prepares to leave his tranquil hole for the chaotic world above.
Brooding over his experiences makes him realize that running away from society is not
the answer, that although he is invisible he still has a social role to play. Accepting his
existential responsibility for himself and all humanity, he chooses to face the public that
was so eager to deny him his identity in the first place.
In consequence, the anti-heroes of J.D. Salinger, Ken Kesey and Ralph Ellison
present the readers with a panorama of the post-war era in the United States. They
embody in spirit the general tendencies of a period in American life, during which the
changes taking place in the social fabric of the nation is reflected in the works of
literature. Whereas the protagonists’ initial subordination to paternal authority may be
based on public’s inclination towards conformity inherent in the 40s and early 50s, their
eventual revolt and efforts of self-definition may be considered a portrayal of the
political activism of the 60s. With their personal awakening they shed a light upon the
growing awareness of the people and the transition from conformism to activism on the
political field. Their struggle against imposed identities and restrictions parallel the strife
of the minorities in the post-war America that attempted to make their voices heard. It is
no wonder then that the protagonists of the novels have either marginalized or ethnic
backgrounds. To quote a famous motto of that era, as anti-heroes their personal struggle
becomes political, their aspirations as individuals mirror that of the community they
represent. Their inevitable re-integration into society at the end of their journeys
indicates their recovery, both on the individual and the communal level.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by the Authors:
Salinger, J. D.: The Catcher In The Rye, New York, The Modern Library, 1951.
Ellison, Ralph: Invisible Man, London, Penguin Books, 1965 [1952].
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