The Iowa Review
Volume 19
Issue 3 Fall
1989
An Interview with Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Richard Kostelanetz
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Ellison, Ralph and Richard Kostelanetz. "An Interview with Ralph Ellison." The Iowa Review 19.3 (1989): 1-10. Web.
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Article 2
An Interview with Ralph Ellison Richard
Kostelanetz
RK: What follows is an interview that I did with Ralph Ellison for the
BBC in the fall of 1965. Keep that date inmind when you hear some of
as one of America's
these replies. His reputation
best writers
one novel, which was
in 1952. Invisible Man
published
only
on
is based
received
the
National Book Award the following year and in 1965 a large poll of
American
critics and writers
of the post-war
period.
born in Oklahoma
Ellison,
he has been
youth
studied music
haunted
judged
Invisible Man
to be the best
in 1914, once wrote
City,
of a renaissance
the
ideal
by
at Tuskegee
single novel
that from his
man.
He
first
in Alabama,
then sculpture in New
interest. He has also worked
in
University
before writing
became his dominant
In addition to fiction
audio-electronics
and as a professional
photographer.
criticism of jazz, literature, and culture. He has lectured at
he has written
York,
and from 1970-79 was the Albert Schweitzer
universities,
many American
is particularly
What
Professor at New York University.
if not
impressive,
awesome about Ellison,
is not only the diversity of his cultural interests but
he achieves in those he chooses to favor.
the high excellence
RK:
Your
of essays Shadow and Act
I have wondered
and like others,
who
collection
Sprague;
you look at him
is dedicated
isMorteza
to Morteza
Sprague? Do
as a hero or as a friend?
a
was a
Sprague,
graduate of Hamilton
College,
professor of
a
and hardly older than several of his students. As Tuskegee
fresh
English,
man I took his senior course in the nineteenth
He
novel.
Century
English
RE:
Morteza
was
an honest
teacher, for when
Iwent
to him about Eliot
and such people,
to
attention
much
and
them
that
given
they weren't
me what
to do about it: the
at
But
he
told
taught
Tuskegee.
places to find
discussions
and criticism.
he told me
he hadn't
at Tuskegee ?it wasn't until we
I didn't know Albert Murray
Although
made contact in New York City that we became friends ?he was also one
of Sprague's
students. Then,
after graduating
and pursuing
graduate
on the staff of the
studies elsewhere, Murray
joined Sprague
English de
and they became close friends. Yes, I consider Sprague a friend
partment
and dedicated my essays to him because he was an honest teacher.
1
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®
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first as a composer
Tuskegee
to become
there as one who wanted
RK:
You went
RE:
Iwent
. . .
to
a composer,
because
Iwas a trumpeter. They
had a good band and an orchestra.
music
L. Dawson,
school. They
also had William
thriving
who
had become
quite
famous
as a choir
director.
The
they
had a rather
a composer
choir
Tuskegee
opened Radio City Music Hall when Iwas still in high school; this really
got me excited! It didn't seem possible that Imight
at Tuskegee.
I got the offer of a scholarship
go to Julliard,
but then
RK: Did you feel at all disadvantaged being in a Negro college in the
South?
RE: No, I didn't feel disadvantaged. Oddly enough, the library,which
was
so
important
time there?worked
was what
I needed.
a rather well-rounded
a lot of
library. I spent
one
there
year. I always hung around the stacks; that
I knew about Kittredge
of Harvard,
and so on; those
in the air. A few of us used to talk about how nice it
to me, was
names were
people's
have been, ifwe
would
could have attended Harvard,
and to have studied
under such teachers, but the sense of being disadvantaged was nothing
that
bothered me. You got there to study music
It
and you studied music.
ex
at a Negro
wasn't
any easier because you were
college. You always
a little later on you would
that
finish there and then go somewhere
pected
else; perhaps to Julliard, where you were pretty certain that you would get
some of the best. But the teachers themselves
held degrees from Oberlin
and the Boston Conservatory,
and so on. Hazel Harrison
had been one of
prize pupils who lived in his Berlin house along with a few others,
out of
like Percy Grainger,
before the rise of Nazism
drove the non-Aryans
to
?I
She
had
Prokofiev
used
handle
Prokofiev
Germany.
manuscripts
Busoni's
at Tuskegee!
I didn't play the piano beyond
the small tech
manuscripts
on one's harmonic
to work
I
needed
but
learned a great
exercises,
nique
deal about music
and the related arts from Miss Harrison.
of being a Negro when
you don't think about the problems
to get an education. When
you're trying
you're in the classroom,
you're
not
is
about
the
that
before
the
you,
thinking
specific problem
larger socio
are
?even
aware
that
you are Negro,
logical problem
quite
though you
and that in leaving the sanctuary of the college you're likely to run into
Anyway,
. . .
and even violence
discourtesy,
turn to writing?
I turned to writing
before I realized what
possible discomfort,
RK: How
did you
RE:
2
Actually,
had happened.
Sometime
been around the elev
during my high school days, it must've
to me. The school nurse,
enth grade, I had a very bad cold that just
clung
saw me on the street one
was still
Miss Waller,
she
day?I
coughing ?and
made me go to a lung clinic at one of the
to wait in a recep
I
had
hospitals.
tion room with
all these obviously
ill people.
Iwas rather horrified and I
began to try to describe what was going on to some of the people who
were around me. Iwas
doing it in the style, I thought, of O. O. Mclntyre,
who was a syndicated columnist who used to appear in the Oklahoma
City
The next thing I
papers. I remember that as a first doodling with writing.
to set to verse a
on the swamp
did was
country by the Southern
thing
writer Albion Tourg?e.
I took this to the American
literature teacher and
at me
as
though I had gone out of my mind,
interest in the class itself. I got passing
shown too much
never tried to do any
or shown any real interest
writing
he looked
was
because
I hadn't
grades but I had
in literature as it
I read quite a lot; so you have that in the back
taught, although
was
or with
It
that I did consciously
any intensity, but
ground.
nothing
those were
the beginnings.
The other thing was,
reading the prefaces of
being
Shawwhen Iwas in high school. A friend's parents' libraryhad all of Shaw
?
I think the first one I read was a
and I thought
those prefaces
to
preface
?
most
Candida
I remember
but there it was.
that in my
incongruous,
themes in school, I tried to get some of the Shavian
in
my writing
quality
but there again, no one paid any attention to it and I didn't take it
seriously.
was the
RK: What
point after that?
RE:
The point after that was that I became
letters after I read The Waste Land.
modern
all the commentaries
reading
Wilson's
Axel's
that
Harriet
Castle,
of criticism.
very, very much involved with
Iwas so intrigued that I started
I could find. Among
them Edmund
Monroe's
book
of criticism,
and Babette
I read a lot of Pound, and Eliot's essays. Evi
was
I
dently
poetry during those days,
actually trying my hand at writing
because years later Al Murray pointed out to me that he had found some of
In
my attempts in a library book. I suppose I blanked that out of my mind.
Deutsch's
cidentally,
book
a decent
I never wrote
there at Tuskegee:
writing
began
was a forecast of what
Iwas
poem, but
again without
going
to do.
the conscious
Itwas
concern with
that it
my being conscious
a kind of innocent word
play. Then I came toNew York during my junior year (1936) intending to
work
that summer
after I'd been
in New
and return. That
York
didn't work
Imet Richard
Wright.
out,
He
but
a few months
asked me
to review
3
a book for the
New Challenge,
that he'd come to New York to
magazine,
he asked me to do a short story. I had
edit. After my review was published,
never tried to do a piece of fiction, never in my life! So Imade my first at
to the
tempt at a short story atWright's
suggestion. My story got
galley
a
and his fellow
stage, but then, thanks to dispute between Wright
was
discontinued
before my story could be published.
editors, the magazine
was
I
that's
but
how I got started writing
fiction.
disappointed,
Naturally,
proof
did you find in Eliot?
RK: What
a sort of
one
imagery for
thing; I found overtones of
religious
a
saw
own
I
I
also
could
which
with
my
background.
style
pattern
identify
to
is
close
of
?that
which
of improvisation
very
jazz.
improvising
quality
RE:
I found
I say this but it grows out
people think I'm being pretentious when
to
a
the classics, just as Armstrong
of
similar and quite American
approach
take a theme and start im
ofthat period would
and any other jazz musician
Most
to any number
of
respects to Aida,
course
came
out
or
to
in
to
music.
All
the
this
operas,
religious
light opera,
It was these pinpoints
of familiarity
that made me
of the improvisation.
to solve the mystery.
want
The Waste Land had the quality of a conundrum
provising.
Then
he would
pay his
so you were
to trace the thing down
anyway,
really trying
own
mind.
whole within
your
American
RK: What's
about The Waste Land?
and make
it
in the
it's American
from its being the creation of an American,
rather ruthless assault it makes upon the literature of the past. It assumes
sense of life and his
it recasts in terms of Eliot's
it abstracts,
possession,
RE:
Aside
sense of the
of language, of poetry,
possibility
. . .
in its references
Also American
and of culture.
RK:
RE:
Eliot
would've
is full of American
folklore.
He
knew
from St. Louis,
been
a lot about it. It
quite
not to have been aware
inescapable, coming
that you get in this country of cultural forces,
of the odd juxtapositions
For the
it's all mixed.
cultural products;
high culture, popular culture,
is
and everything
poet, he can mix them up any way he wants. Anything
reverence which
to be used, and there is this kind of irreverent
are apt to have for the
Americans
good products of the past. I think you get
there
all ofthat in Eliot.
RK:
So when
tradition,
RE:
4
but
means not only the classical
speaks of the tradition, he
around him in St. Louis?
the tradition of cultural materials
Eliot
I think so. This is often missed but I think it is very much there for
to listen. It amuses me that "under the
the eye, and the ear that iswilling
comes
out
of aNegro
line
under
the
boo"
bam,
song written
by Cole and
a group of
in one of their popular musicals
of the 1890s, when
Johnson
dominated
the American musical
stage.
Negroes
RK:
Unlike
America,
some other Afro-American
near Harlem.
indeed,
writers,
you
choose
to live in
Why?
RE: Living here is the only living that I could do as a novelist. I lived in
I had the Rome
Prize. But, for all of its diffi
Italy for two years when
to
I
of
the
States. Now
face
the
United
that's one
had
culties,
challenges
Because I have to hear
do I live always close to other Negroes?
thing. Why
is language, and there is aNegro
the language. My medium
idiom, in fact
I have to hear that
there are many Negro
idioms in the American
language.
or any American
to.
in
I
A
have
my ears,
sounding
place like Harlem,
is almost Eliza
has an expressiveness
about it which
community,
Negro
in speech in the streets. There's a lot of humor
the language is always feeding back to the past; it's throwing up wis
it's throwing up patterns and I never know but when
I'm going to
to
street
in
is
the
the
of some
which
be
going
something just
making
of fiction that I'm trying to write.
bethan.
and
dom,
hear
piece
RK:
are revealed
Things
as a
Is it fair then to speak of Harlem
ghetto?
I think that this is one of the most damaging misuses of a concept
RE:
a cultural
States. A ghetto
has ever come about in the United
implies
That's
distance.
religious
It came
RK:
RE:
RK:
to describe
That's right.
... on the Lower
where
that
and
the term came from.
the Jewish
East Side
neighborhoods
. . .
. . .
Not only the Lower East Side but it comes from Europe, aswe know,
and it had a content there which obscures further the relationships between
American whites
and American Negroes.
for one thing, for an
Language
?
so to
other the patterns of myth
of universal myths,
speak, of Christian
RE:
in terms of Negro
and so on as they have been given embodiment
to
not
too
at
It's
look
difficult
and see the Hercules
John Henry
patterns.
to look. It's
If you are aware of the connections,
if you know where
myth.
myth,
not
too unusual
of a Negro
sermon, for instance,
to look, or to the
if you know where
to see that the rhetoric
can be traced back
to
Shakespeare,
not
I'm
saying that these very often unlettered minis
metaphysical
ters have read John Donne,
but on the other hand they are possessors of a
living tradition.
poets.
5
have read John Donne.
now that the great tradition of nine
find
you
right. Actually
com
in oratory ismost
alive within
the Negro
teenth century eloquence
so much
it
in
it
We
but
find
find
don't
you
anymore,
Congress
munity.
in the churches.
among Negroes,
especially right
RK:
And
RE:
That's
have heard people who
RK:
This
RE:
Yes,
is because
it is still more
it as primitive,
upon
culture is more oral?
Negro
oral than literary but itwould be amistake
American
because
it is informed
by
to look
con
the usual American
cerns.
mean
By this you
culture?
RK:
RE:
In the United
language
if itwere
that Negro
States
culture
can't be anything
but American
it's a part of the general American
culture,
not have the same music
would
English
itself. The American
the
in it
of great numbers of Negroes
and great num
have
learned
their
who
Southerners,
English partially from
This is not true on the other hand where you have people who
not for the existence
bers of white
Negroes.
or who
a different
so
In Harlem,
in fact in most
speak
language.
spoke
a lot of
do not spend most of their time
called Negro
Negroes
ghettos,
as domestics
in white
there. They work
outside.
homes;
They work
care of children,
they're teaching them their
they're taking
they're cooking,
in
their diapers; they are completely
involved
manners,
they're changing
the dances that Americans
do are greatly
America on that level. The music,
a
sense of ele
determined
style, by Negro American
by Negro American
sense of what
the American
gance, by an American
Negro
experience
feel about how an American
should be, by what Negroes
should move,
should express himself. The ghetto concept obscures this. It's much better
to say you have slums. It's an old term and it doesn't
not cultural.
sion. It's economic,
cause asmuch
confu
is
One way inwhich
tradition appears in Invisible Man
the American
are
in the tradition of s tory-telling.
stories
about
experi
People
telling
RK:
ences.
RE:
Yes,
that's
true. And
I connect
this with
in the
problems
to say about the first
certain
had some negative
things
for loose and baggy monsters.
And I happen
person point of view making
to prove, to
at least, was that
to feel that one of the things Iwanted
myself
a dramatic novel using the first person.
you could write
novel.
RK:
6
James,
But
for instance,
the blues
singer
sings
in the first person,
too.
singer is one of the most developed of existentialist
Itwasn't until Sartre began
poets, but we never think about it in that way.
to have his novels
translated here that I became aware that some of the
RE:
Yes,
and the blues
blues were
was
much
RK:
RE: Well,
statements
better
able to embody,
For example?
"Troublin'
of the existentialist
. . .
inNausea
for instance
Mind"
is an example,
than he
position
any number
of Leroy Carr's
. . .
blues
your book is toWestern
you say then analogously
as jazz is toWestern
in effect a product of Negro
music? And,
is still American,
is still Western?
culture? Which
which
RK:
Would
literature
American
are both Western,
are both
just point out that they
they
to use any and
American
has
precisely because they try
everything which
on
music
As
and
for
been developed
literature.
the
music,
great
by great
RE:
other
I suspect
States?which
hand,
United
we
What
American
RK:
Iwould
Yes,
the one body of music
this continent ?is
expresses
that
have with Western
version
of Western
music,
with
so-called
the
expresses
and the blues.
jazz
classical music,
is an
classical music.
do you mean when you say that many
are intended for awhite
audience?
What
writers
which
books written
by Negro
RE: Well,
I think that when you examine these books you will find that
in expressing Negro protest the writer directs his protest, his emotion,
his
even toward awhite
mean
I
I
is
audience.
what
this
that
suppose,
by
plot
tend to be overly
that they are ultimately
about civil
sociological,
an attempt to reveal per
conditions
rather
than
rights,
sociological
certain conditions.
sonality living within
to be
RK:
Isn't there a sense inwhich
the white
audience expects aNegro
the books
about
in America?
of being Negro
angry about the condition
I'm afraid so, and if the conditions were good I think
RE:
white
readers would
wasn't
white.
I mean
expect
that many
because he
to be angry
the Negro writer
that thing operating
underneath.
have
you
use
an
to
I
is dictated not by my anger
try
seriously,
approach which
or
not
of
lack
anger,
any lack of feelings of protest,
by my protest
the logic of the art itself. Iwrite what my imagination
throws up
More
or my
but by
to me
and Imust feed this back throughmy own critical sensibility. That critical
is informed by a sense of life which grows in its
out
sensibility
immediacy
of my being part of the Negro American
I find an oral
group. That's where
7
tradition,
that's where
I found my
closest
are a great part of
my friends were.
friends who
that's where
that's where
my parents were,
content of ideas and
that is the emotional
emotion,
symbols
can
to
is
I
be found, where
release myself,
and dreams,
release whatever
is a kind of ideal reader and that ideal
creative capacity that I have. There
was
a
in full possession
be Negro who
of all the subtleties of
reader would
life,
my
That's where
Imean? Not out of racist mo
and art and politics. You see what
to
tives do I imagine this ideal reader, but
both
give my own experience,
was born with,
I
its
and
that
broadest
which
acquired
possibilities.
Is there any particular person who
is your ideal reader?
RK:
literature
RE:
I don't
No,
think
so. The best reader of course
is the person who has
his color is. Some readers, I suspect
than the author has put into it. And
the imagination,
regardless of what
more
to a work
imagination
bring
when you get that kind of reader you're
you
RK:
very
fortunate
because
he gives
a stature,
let's say, that you haven't really earned.
there are ways of misreading
Invisible Man. One way
Well,
is to think
that it's autobiographical.
that's true. It is not
Yes,
RE:
autobiographical.
the first person narrator?
I could write
in
RE: Yes, I did this, as I say, as an attempt to see whether
it dramatic
it interesting, make
and give it a
the first person and make
dramatic
drive.
strong
RK:
But
RK:
But
there's a sense inwhich
a
of adverse experiences
catalogue
a correct
interpretation?
Iwould
think that itwas
RE:
inasmuch
as the narrator
Invisible Man might first strike a reader as
in America.
Is this
of an innocent Negro
an incorrect
of the book
and sentimental
interpretation
much
of his ex
stopped
the harsh nature of reality. He
could have
to accept
perience had he been willing
creates much of his own fate. I don't look upon him as heroic in that way.
I
But many white
readers certainly are
think that he made a lot of mistakes.
see that.
so sentimental
about the Negro
thing that they can't
RK:
doesn't
Isn't one of his more
understand
his own
universal
failures
experience.
He
a failure
doesn't
He
of perception?
understand why
he
fails.
so. It's a failure of
and it's a sort of wrong-headed
perception
on
an
desire to summon up, to take
identity imposed upon him by the out
we
know
each individual has to discover himself
well
that
when
side,
very
RE:
8
I think
many
this is done through some sort of pain.
Usually
a
say that this is
tough guy because he goes through many,
have driven him to himself and to his real
should
which
experiences
ity.
RK:
Inwhat
for himself.
and the world
Imust
But
sense does
or the
Negro
is the narrator
the title apply? How
an invisible man?
I wasn't
RE: Well,
specific character,
about
writing
the Negro.
at a
in specific circumstances,
I was
about
writing
time.
The
specific
a
invisibil
ity, there is ajoke about thatwhich is tied upwith the sociological dictum
States have a rough
in the United
that Negroes
time because we
have high
visibility.
RK:
Your
color
is very
RE:
High pigmentation,
ever mistake me for white.
apparent.
so the formula
is true. No
one will
for the narrator of Invisible
the problem
to a certain extent
not assert
invisibility
by
But
is that he creates his own
Man
has it, which
ing himself. He does not do the thingwhich will break the pattern, which
reveal himself, until far along in the book. So he is not a victim. At
a victim. He is aman who
is wrong-headed.
least not merely
on a second novel. Parts
For some years now you have been working
RK:
a
have appeared to critical acclaim. Why
does it take so long to write
will
novel?
a
long time because I have
deep uncertainty
to
I
of
deal
with
bodies
try
large
doing.
experience which
a
to
is such
reduce the American
complex. There
tendency
it takes me
RE: Well,
what I am
quite
ence,
when
a
it centers
For me,
RE:
experience
tion, and project
dilemmas,
form ?that
does
RK:
think is the ultimate
purpose
of your pro
it is to seize upon the abiding patterns of the Ameri
come up within my own part of the American
na
they
those patterns,
those personality
types, those versions of
I think
can
man's
experi
con
I'm
the Negro
experience.
I have to put it aside. It has to gel, then
to it, if I can still see
of de
possibilities
around
especially
a lot?but
stantly writing ?I write
I come back. If I still react positively
then I keep it.
velopment,
RK: As a novelist, what do you
fession?
about
I see as
as
in terms
sounds perhaps
of
symbolic
pretentious
actions.
but
Reduce
I think
it to eloquent
the novel
that's what
?
Oh,
so modest!
9
RE:
Oh,
Do
I don't mean
to be too modest.
that you don't assume that the novelist can have any
you mean
social
power or have any great expansive power or any
great
reforming
great power as a spokesman?
I think that the good novelist tries to provide his reader with vivid de
RE:
RK:
of certain crucial and abiding patterns of human existence. This he
to artistic form.
attempts to do by reducing the chaos of human experience
a fresh vision of
the reader with
And when
successful he provides
reality.
pictions
For then through the symbolic action of his characters and plot he enables
the reader to share forms of experience not immediately
his own. And thus
ex
the reader is able to recognize
the meaning
and value of the presented
as awhole.
This may,
perience and the essential unity of human experience
or may not, lead to social
or
as a
the
novelist
recognition
bring
change
a
an
form of social action, and
spokesman. But it is, nevertheless,
impor
a form of social power.
tant task. Yes, and in its own
right
thanks to Kristen E. Gandrow
helping edit this interview.
With
10
and Rebecca
L. Johnson
for transcribing and