Austin Villanueva Ap Lit
10/1/12
Invisible Man/ Ralph Ellison Criticism: Importance of Jazz
The author of the article is telling us that jazz music and jazz musicians were a big influence in all of
Ralph Waldo Ellison’s writings. Jazz music was used by Ellison to represent a couple of main ideas that
he incorporated into almost all of his essays, novels, etc. To Ellison, jazz defines the African American
culture. One way that he used jazz music was by using it as a form of communion. He believed jazz to
be a form of bringing people together. Not only that, but he also believed that it brought out one’s
individualism among the group of people they play their music for. Ellison believed that jazz also
represented the true American democracy. It set people free and allowed people to be treated equally
while listening to this type of music. Another way that Ellison used jazz music was by comparing jazz
concerts/songs and jazz musicians to their religious counterparts. He had believed that when jazz
concerts(when played right) were parallel to religious songs and the Word of God because of how
much power it had in bringing the majority of the African American people together much like how
God’s Word does with great numbers of people. Also, the author of the article says, Ellison refers to
great jazz musicians, such as Louis Armstrong, as being a priest in his “Church of Jazz”(Pinkerton). The
article also has examples of jazz from Invisible Man. It shows how in the book, bebop, which is a new
style of jazz, is used in the story to represent the narrator’s search for his identity as an individual and
the “American democratic ideal”(Pinkerton). Jazz music played a key role in not only Ellison’s writings,
but in the African American culture as a whole.
The article could have been more interesting than it was, but was hard for me to fully grasp everything
that the author was saying. I was very confused at some parts, partly because the author was jumping
from one idea to another. Some of the diction and language used kind of threw me off, so I couldn’t
really take in everything that I feel I would have if I knew all of those words. Also, it had references in
which I had not heard of which clouded my understanding even more. Other than that, I think I got the
main point of the article pretty well, but not all of the minor details and examples. I dealt with the
issue of not understanding by reading it over and over. Also, I looked up words that I did not know,
which helped me a lot, especially when I didn’t understand the sentence that I was reading at all.
Yes, the literary work did provide a new insight for me. I gained the knowledge that jazz was very
important to the African American culture and what they stood for. I had no idea, before reading this
article, that any type of music, let alone jazz, could have such a huge impact on such a big group of
people, or even an entire race. The fact that it had so much influence on the culture, really amazes me.
I believe that the message of the work is that, as I said earlier, Jazz played a huge role in not only
Ellison’s works but in the African American culture and lifestyle as a whole. The point of view that the
author of the article, Steve Pinkerton, expresses is that Ralph Ellison treats jazz music as, basically, his
religion. My response would be kind of negative because I’m a Catholic and I believe that anything that
people worship or treat as a religion that isn’t of God, is idolatry. However, I’m not Ralph Ellison and
times were different back in his time, so if jazz was the best way for him to feel free spiritually, then so
be it. Next, a reoccurring theme that I found in the article was identity. Pinkerton repeatedly brought
up the word identity in the article when talking about what jazz music did for people. It helped them
find their identity and I feel like this really ties into Invisible Man because one of the main themes in
the story is identity or lack thereof. The narrator is a black man in a white man’s world and is basically
still a nobody even at the end of all of his struggles and hardships throughout the tenure of the book.
Ralph Ellison gave lectures and speeches on African American culture and creative writing styles. For
around seven years he put the majority of his efforts into helping out the African American community
and believing that the U.S. was a place of achieving opportunity and promising goals. This is relevant to
Invisible Man because, Invisible Man is what came out of his efforts, and hard work.This just shows
that Ellison's theory about the U.S. was correct because he achieved great success in writing this book.
Also, Ralph attented college at the Tuskagee Institute in Alabama. This is important to Invisible Man
because the college that the narrator attended was based off of Tuskagee. Ellison was accepted into
Tuskagee because they needed a trumpeter for their band. In Invisible Man, as I’ve just learned, jazz
plays a huge role and one of the main instruments in jazz is a trumpet. Lastly, when Ellison turned
twenty three years old, he became a prominent member and contributor to the Communist Party.
However, during Invisible Man, Ellison really criticized the Communist Party; their actions and beliefs,
which severed all ties he had with them.
Pinkerton, S. (2011). Ralph Ellison's righteous riffs: Jazz, democracy, and the sacred. African American
Review, 44(1), 185-206,329. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1009712055?accountid=2616