The Ambiguities of Dreaming in Ellison's Invisible Man
Author(s): Robert E. Abrams
Reviewed work(s):
Source: American Literature, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Jan., 1978), pp. 592-603
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924776 .
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The Ambiguitiesof Dreamingin
Ellison's InvisibleMan
ROBERT E. ABRAMS
University of Washington
It was a strangeevening....
Under the spell of the reeferI . . . descended,like Dante,
into. . . depths.And beneaththe swiftnessof the hot tempo
therewas a slowertempoand a cave and I enteredit and looked
around. . . .-RalphEllison,
InvisibleMan'
...
.
66
. .
HlIE ARTIST,"
Ellisonhas stressed,
mustbe capableofdescending
I "intothe deeperlevel of his consciousness,"
openinghimself
to an "innerworld wherereasonand madnessminglewith bope
and memoryand endlesslygivebirthto nightmare
and to dream."
This "inner,"oneiricuniverseis as much the "province"of the
creatoras it is of "thepsychiatrist."2
And in Invisible Man dreams,
drug-inducednightmares,
and other hallucinatory
statesof consciousnessbecomeEllison's"province"as he exploreshuman personalityand imaginationin depth.A blackAmericanauthorpenein his fiction,
trating,
throughthesociallyvisiblepersona-aboveall,
throughstereotypes
and formulaswhich have conventionally,
and
delusively,definedblack identityin America-Ellison becomesa
surveyorof "activity,
dreamlikeyet intense,"transpiring
"on the
darkside"ofthe"mind."3He seeksa fullerunderstanding
ofhuman
consciousness
by probingits dream-plots
and hallucinatedimages.
Criticism,however,which has steadilycontributed
to our understandingof Ellison'snovel overthe years,has yetto grapplesatisfactorily
withthisdimension
ofhisart.4
1 All references
to InvisibleMan in thisarticleare to the VintageBooks Edition (New
York,1972), notedparenthetically
in thetext.
2 Shadowand Act (New York,I966),
p. I09.
3 Ibid., p. ix.
4 Therman B. O'Daniel, in "The Image of Man as Portrayedby Ralph Ellison,"
CLA Journal,X (June, I967), 278, brieflyobservesthat InvisibleMan "is sprinkled
throughout
with dreams. . . -some resolvedand some unresolved";WilliamJ. Schafer,
in "Ralph Ellison and the Birthof the Anti-Hero,"Critique,X, No. 2 (I968), 8I-93,
writes that Ellison "probes the unconscious" through "hallucinatoryfantasy"; but
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Dreaming in Invisible Man
593
in InvisibleMan is to
Certainly
to exploreoneiricphantasmagories
in ambiguity.
foregotidilyone-dimensional
and to traffic
definitions
Closelyscrutinized,
the novel'smostvivid and frightening
nightmaresresistclear-cut,definitive
interpretation.
Metaphoricimages
Orientaand situationssuggestmultiplemeaningssimultaneously.
tion in time and space becomesproblematic.Riddles and puns
abound.Visualeuphemisms
gnaw at theedgeofconsciousness
while
eluding,throughsomefinalambiguity,
fulldetection
and disclosure.
In his hallucinatory
phantasmagories,
Ellison catapultsconsciousnessintoan ominousbut evasiveworldof semi-revelations,
where
withoutfully
nebulousshapesand formsinsinuateand half-expose,
clarifying,
an elusivereality
recedingbeyondgrasp.
Dreams,nightmares,
in InvisibleMan, then,
and hallucinations
elude cognitivemastery.Sometimes,it is true,theyinvitepsychoanalyticinterpretations.5
Ellison,influenced
by Freud,hypothesizes
that "the distortedimages that appear in dreams. . . quiver in
the . . . mind" at least with "hidden. . . significance,"like
"muggershauntinga lonelyhall."' But muchin Ellison'shallucinatoryfantasies
defiesevena Freudianperspective
of thedreamas an
equivocatingyetdecipherable
idiom.The ultimatequestionis: beyondFreudianacts of censorship,
why,in Ellison'snovel,should
dream so rudelyshatterwaking epistemological
imassumptions,
mersingconsciousnessin an anarchicallysurreal universeungoverned
bywakingprinciples
and modesoflogic?
I
FreudAlthoughTrueblood'sdreamis themostcharacteristically
ian dreamin the-novel,even in this case Ellison reachesbeyond
in these cases as elsewhere,fails to explorethis facetof the novel with the
criticism,
depththatit surelydeserves.
5 Ellison, in Shadow and Act, p. I23, writesof his educationat the Tuskegee of
the Ig30s: "So in Macon County,Alabama, I read Marx, Freud, T. S. Eliot. . . ."
Psychoanalysis
is clearlyone of the intellectual
movementsin the backgroundof Ellison's
novel and is probablyas germaneto criticism
of InvisibleMan as, say,the conceptof the
"Great Chain of Being" is germaneto criticismof earlierliterature.But one must be
cautioushere: Ellison knows Freud just as earlierauthorsknew the dominantthinkers
of theirage-knows him withoutfollowinghim rigidlyin his art. FrederickJ. Hoffman
emphasizesin Freudianismand the LiteraryMind (Baton Rouge, La., 1957), pp. 93-94:
"Freud . . . influenced the writing of our time. . . . But he did not, except for a few
minorexamples,controlthe act of creation.. .
suchthatit invariably
changesoriginaldoctrine.
6 Shadowand Act,p. 283.
.
The power of aestheticindependenceis
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594
American Literature
not exwakingconsciousness
intoan oneiricuniverse
ultimately
as in the Freudian
terms.Certainly,
plicablein psychoanalytic
veris a refracted
dream,whatone glimpses,fromone perspective,
sion of interiorpsychodynamics.
A dark drama of the psycheis
converted
obligingly
intoa displacing,figurative
languageof metonymsand analogues.Beyondthe profuseand exoticimageryof
Trueblood'snightmare-soactualeventsin thewake of the dream
confirm-incestuous
cravingslurk.In thenightmare
itself,however,
only oblique, metamorphosed
versionsof these cravingssurface,
leavingthe cravingsthemselves
censoredand unnamed.The "fat
meat" initiallysought,the entryinto a womb-likeclock with
"crinklystufflike steelwool on thefacing,"thejourneythereafter
down a "hot and dark . . . tunnel" (pp. 44-45)-such
wild and
profuseimageryprovesto be the sign of perceptional
cautionand
fear.Dreamingconsciousness,
its own eroticwish,
half-shunning
and disguisesit.Trueblood's"dream-sin"
elaborately
distorts
(p. 48),
as he termsit, eventuallyresultsnot fromdreamingbut froma
breakdownin dreaming.Too muchpressureoverwhelms
floodgates
whichhisequivocating
dreamimagesstruggleto keeppartlyclosed.
But how completely,
finally,
does the equivocatingmachinery
of
dreambreakdown forTrueblood?"I don'tquite remember
it all"
(p. 44), he confesses,
acknowledging
thatportionsof his nightmare
stilllie buriedbelow the surface.Even the imagesrecalledappear,
to be, in psychoanalytic
upon closerscrutiny,
parlance,"overdetermined"-thatis to say, seem to be expressingmultiplemeanings
Trueblood'sincestuous
simultaneously.7
entryintohis daughterprovides one way-certainlya primaryway, confirmedby waking
events-of decodinghis queer hallucinatory
entryinto a wombclock. But the violentbreakingaway fromthe lady in the dream,
theforcingopen,thereafter,
of thewomb-clock,
thejourneydown a
"hot and dark . . . tunnel," and the fantasy,finally,of immersion
and drowningin watercould also suggesta longingto enterthe
womb as a refugefromsexualityand its emotionalturbulence,
a
longingfora lostuterineoblivionbeyondsexualityand time.Perhaps severalmotivesare expressedin Trueblood'sdreamsimultaneously,in keeping with the principle,advanced by Ellison in
7 See Freud's commentson "overdetermined"
dreamsin The Interpretation
of Dreams
trans.JamesStrachey (New York, I965), pp. 31I-339.
(I900),
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Dreaming in Invisible Man
595
"mask"of thesocially
Shadowand Act,thatbehindthesimplifying
but "amenacted and visible "I," one discoversnot certitudes,
maybe avoiding
The dream,in itsequivocatingfluidity,
biguities."8
expressionpartlyto accommodateitselfto
literal,one-dimensional
may
of subjectivereality.Such complexity
theinherentcomplexity
becomefalsifiedwhen translatedinto a less fluidand ambivalent
withwhichpsycholanguagethanthatofdreaming.This possibility,
drivesa wedge into the
nevertheless
analyticdream theoryflirts,
knowable,if,in practice,
assumptionof a putatively
psychoanalytic
a visionmay
self.9How conclusiveand definitive
largelyunconscious
be possibleof theself? Behindpublicgesturesand forms,
ultimately
is one truthdivulgedto Truein theprivatedepthsof a nightmare,
motivesclamorforacknowlincongruous
blood,ordo numerousand
edgementbecauseall are equallytrue?Has Ellisoncreatedthe epiof the
sode of Truebloodand his nightmareto clarifyperceptions
selfor,in keepingwithotherportionsof InvisibleMan (especially
the chapteron Rinehart),to manifestthe self in polymorphous
and ambivalence?
multiplicity
the opening fantasiaof the novel indicatesthat
Significantly,
Ellison suggests,"the poet's truelandream-language-"perhaps,"
of multiple
guage.- may consist,in the mannerof a palimpsest,
one upon theother.Such "language"is likened
textssuperimposed
to a musicalscorecomposedof manystrands,forit emergesas a
and expression.In the complex
formof consciousness
multilinear
experiencedby Ellison's narratoras he smokesa
phantasmagoria
music,timethickensas well
reeferand listensto Louis Armstrong's
are revealedto exist
possibilities
as advances;variousand conflicting
"And beneaththe
now:
in the same ambiguous
simultaneously
8
Shadow and Act, p. 70.
Interpretation,and at times comes very close to a vision of the self as ultimately not knowable
through dream. "Trains of thought . . . diametrically opposed to each other," he
acknowledges, may be "represented by the same elements in the . . . dream" (p. 354),
and the dream, indeed, may give rise to three or more interpretations,and "the fact that
the meanings of dreams are arranged in superimposed layers is one of the most delicate
"One is inclined to regard the dream. . . problems of dream-interpretation"(p. 253).
thoughts that have been brought to light as the complete material, whereas if the work
of interpretationis carried furtherit may reveal still more thoughts concealed behind the
dream. . . . It is in fact never possible to be sure that a dream has been completely
interpreted.. . . The possibility always remains that the dream may have yet another
9 Freud, read closely, wrestles anxiously with this problem throughout The
meaning"(p. 3I3).
10 Shadow and Act, p. 257.
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596
American Literature
swiftness
ofthehottempotherewasa slowertempoanda caveand
I entered
a
it and lookedaroundandheardan old womansinging
. . . and beneaththatlay a stilllowerlevelon whichI
spiritual
saw a beautiful
girlthecolorofivorypleadingin a voicelikemy
. . . and belowthatI founda lowerleveland a more
mother's
rapidtempo. . ." (p.7).
One moment
of timein thisfantasia
ambiguously
deepensinto
multiple
and conflicting
possibilities,
and in otherfantasias
space
turns
outtobe equallyambiguous.
Thoughlittlediscussion
ofspace
appearsamongelucidations
ofpsychoanalytic
dreamtheory,
spatial
and warpagescontribute
distortions
to themacabre,
dreamlike
atmospheres
ofworksbyDe Quincey,
Dodgson,
andEdgarAllanPoe.
Andamongthe"dimensionless"
ofInvisible
(p. 349) hallcinations
Man,macabresubversions
of thelawsof backwardand forward,
nearand far,becomegraphicreflections
of hallucinatory
ambivain oneiricspacein thenovelis immersion
lence.Immersion
in the
epistemologically-and
psychologically-problematic:
what is
wishedfor but dreadedis paradoxically
distancedand yetapproached.In Trueblood'snightmare,
for example,"Broadnax's
house"(read: "Broad"and "ax"-ultimately,
incestand terror
of
incest)sits"upon a hill,"and"I wasclimbin'
up there.. . . Seems
likethatwasthehighest
hillin theworld.The moreI climbedthe
farther
houseseemsto git" (p. 44). Moreaway. . . Broadnax's
in
of theego itselfmaybecomeequivocal
over, dreamthelocality
as it emerges
in severalareasof a dreamscape
simultaneously,
enof an ambivagagingin contradictory
dramas.The fragmentation
lentegointocontradictory
morevividly
is nowhere
figures
apparent
"neither
ofdreamthanin a sequence
ofhypnagogic
hallucinations,
butsomewhere
in between,"
ingnorofwaking,
experienced
bythe
andpsychological
in thefinalchapter
narrator
ofthenovel.Motives
in thesephantasmagories.
On theone
becomeparadoxical
postures
a visionof castration
narrator
hand,thehallucinating
experiences
to
and politicalorganizers
as trustees,
collegepresidents,
struggle
and variousformsof selfhood,
of reality,
imposevariousversions
witha
hisresistance,
uponhim.Discovering
theycome"forward
him-so
and flingthemaway,depriving
cuthis genitalia,
knife,"
wouldseemto imply-ofthepowerto
thismetaphor
ofcastration
shapepubliceventson anytermsbuttheirown.He feels"painful
at
andseemscapableonlyofironic,
andempty"
despairing
laughter
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Dreaming in Invisible Man
597
thosewho,blindedby what Earl H. Rovittermstheircapacity"to
as powerimages,""are ultimately
see and to be seenin stereotyped
of his vision,he seemsreless as he. Yet while,in theforeground
duced to an ineffectual
luciditythatcan findits outletonlyin dea bridge,beneaththeapex of whichhis genitalia
spairinglaughter,
catch,slowlycomes alive as if drawinglife fromthosegenitalia.
like . . . an
It beginsto "moveoffto whereI couldnotsee,striding
ironman" whose"legs clangeddoomfullyas it moved.And thenI
up, fullof sorrowand pain,shouting,'No, no, we must
struggled
stophim!'" (pp. 429-43I).
narrator's
foreground
The hallucinating
gesturesand words becomeovershadowedand overruled,in this
complexvision,by thebackgroundimageof this"ironman,"who
an alternative
versionof thedreamer's
wouldseemto be embodying
he voiceshis
In theforeground
of his phantasmagoria,
personality.
protestthat"we muststophim." The headlessautomatonstriding
back
away fromhim,however,would seemto reflect
"doomfully"
in a form
morevengefulpersonality
to him an unacknowledged,
suggeststhis) fromhis
severed(its veryheadlessness
disquietingly
in short,wouldappearto be
ostensible
ego and will. His nightmare,
a
ambivalent
ego inhabitingcontrathe nightmareof fractured,
The hallucinatingnarratorin the
dictoryfiguressimultaneously.
laughter,
"painfuland empty"and reducedtoineffectual
foreground,
benton vengeance,
heedlessly
and the"ironman"in thebackground,
versions
ifpolarand contradictory,
wouldbothseemto be authentic,
ofthesameself.
and stancesmayturn
In dream,then,mutuallyexclusiveattitudes
be backward,
outto be equallyvalid,or forwardmaysimultaneously
be oneself.In dream-so goes the
or anothermay simultaneously
long,equivocatingsermonin the openingfantasiaof the novelshouted.
". . . blackis . . ." thepreacher
"Bloody. .
"I saidblackis . .
. .
"Preachit,brother
". . . an' blackain't .
.
"Red,Lawd,red:He saidit'sred!"
"Amen,brother.
.
11 "Ralph Ellison and the AmericanComic Tradition,"Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, I (Fall, I960), rpt. in Donald B. Gibson,ed., Five Black Writers
(New York,I970), p. IoI.
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AmericanLiterature
598
"Blackwillgityou .
"Yes, it will
. .
". . . an' blackwon't .
"Naw,itwon't!"
"It do
.
. .
"It do,Lawd
. .
"Halleluiah .
.
". . . an'itdon't."
"Blackwillmakeyou .
"Black
.
. .
you."
orblackwillun-make
Lawd?"(p. 8)
"Ain'titthetruth,
II
Dream-languagein the novel,then,equivocates.It assumes,in
mutuallyexclusivestancesand tones,or suggests
speechand gesture,
foregroundeventsthat clash
or proffers
multipleinterpretations,
with backgroundevents.In dream the psychesimuldissonantly
a meaningwithoutentaneouslysaysyesand saysno, by distorting
ofthesame
interpretations
conflicting
tirelyerasingit,bypermitting
figuressimultaneously.
symbol,or by inhabitingcontradictory
Ratherthanservingto definethe self,the dreamingpsychemultiof personality
thatvisionof theessentialfluidity
pliesit,reinforcing
dramatizedby B. ProteusRinehart.This slippery
and consciousness
thoughtsand inhabitcontradictory
figurecan thinkcontradictory
in a "seething,hot world" without"boundaries"(p.
sensibilities
376). Beyondstatic,definingformsof selfhoodand belief,Ellison
suggests,a fluidand problematicessencelurks,containingwithin
Such a visionof human
possibilities.
itselfmultipleand conflicting
unseizablecould have come
and consciousness
as essentially
identity
a book
out of thepagesof Melville'sThe Confidence-Man,
straight
An
on InvisibleMan Ellison has acknowledged.'2
whoseinfluence
open-endedpsychology-whatRovit terms a vision of "fluid
to be foundat theheartof Ellison'snovel
amorphousidentity"13-is
12 See Shadow and Act, p. I8I,
where Ellison stresses: "Rinehart is my name for the
personificationof chaos. . . He has lived so long with chaos that he knows how to
manipulate it. It is the old theme of The ConfidenceMan."
13 "Ralph Ellison and the American Comic Tradition," p. IO9.
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Dreaming in InvisibleMan
599
whereall faith
justas it lurksat thecenterofMelville'slaterfiction,
collapses.There all
in sociallyauthorizedidiomsof self-definition
reachinginwardonlyleads to the discoverythat"deep, deep, and
stilldeepermustwe go, if we would findout the heartof a man;
intowhichis as descendinga spiralstairin a shaft,withdescending
out any end. . . ." Ellisonsimilarlygazes intothe "darkness...
surwithin"the"mind"(p. 437). Oneiricimagesthatspontaneously
facefromthedepthsofthepsychein hisnovelquiverwithequivocatIf thisbe thelanguageof theessential
ing,ambivalentsignificance.
behindits outselfand of its essentialconceptualpredispositions
a languageadmittingof multiple,
ward masks,it is, accordingly,
a language of paradox, aminterpretations,
even contradictory
and cognitive
dissonance.
biguity,
To peerdownintothedepthsof dreamin Ellison'snovel,then,is
back
and equivocatingworldreflecting
to gaze intoa contradictory
of humansubto wakingreasonwhatMelvilleterms"the mystery
all "profounderemanations"fromwhich "never unjectivity,"15
and haveno properendings."'"Moreover,
raveltheirown intricacies,
all wakingdefensesagainstthe oneiric
as InvisibleMan progresses,
no rationalrefuge
universegiveway.Ellisonallowshis protagonist
figuresin literature-unlike
fromit. Unlike otherdream-haunted
VicDodgson'sAlice,who can fleeback intoa tidy,well-regulated
that
the
torianuniverse,unlikeeven De Quincey,who can claim
is that the would-be
"moral" of his hallucinatory"sufferings"
should be forewarned"-Ellison'shero is left,at the
opium-eater
close of the novel,withoutany standpointbeyondthe incongruity
and dissonanceof dreamtowardswhich to fleefromit and from
whichto judge it. As the novel advances,receivedmoral and inall but collapseforInvisibleMan, who sees
tellectualfoundations
throughone tidy illusion of orderlinessafter another.Homer
of themodernblackexperienceaccordingto
Barbee'senvisagement
the biblicalparadigmof the PromisedLand and BrotherJack's
world-indogmatismmoltintoan inscrutable
rigid,pseudo-scientific
14 Pier-re; or1 The Ambigutities,ed. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, an( (G. Thomas
pp. 288-289.
Tanselle (Evanston, Ill., I971),
15 The Confidence-Man,
p. II2.
ed. HershelParker (New York, I971),
16
Pierre,p. 14I.
17
Confessions of an English OpitmniEater, c(l. Alethea Hayter (Baltimore,
I97I),
II4-II5.
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pp.
6oo
American Literature
for
. . . tooambiguous
forlearnedclassification,
"tooobscure
itself
thenarrow
"outside
words"(p. 332).Stepping
themostambiguous
bediscovers,
Ellison'snarrator
borders
of whatmencall reality,"
an anarchic,
absurduniofhuman"certainties,"
yondthe"pattern"
andtojudgefinally
todefine
His capacity
direction."
verse"without
and
so that,in theEpilogue,"I condemn
breaksdowncompletely,
and
sayno andsayyes,sayyesandsayno[,] . . . denounce
affirm,
of oracle
. . .defend"(pp. 435-438).If therewerethepossibility
universeof InvisibleMan, that
problematic
in the bewildering,
a fountof
lie in dream,traditionally
mightconceivably
possibility
wakingreason.But to descendintohalwisdomthattranscends
depthsin Ellison'snovelis to lose"one'ssenseof time
lucinatory
modelsshattered,
(p. ii), toseeone'sbasicperceptional
completely"
world
multidimensional
in a prevaricating,
to becomeimmersed
(p. 8). Dreamis "ambivalence"
principle
wheretheonlygoverning
as in Dodgson'sAlice'sAdvenMan is as anarchic
ingin Invisible
via
as a revelation,
whichhasbeenexplored
turesin Wonderland,
"beneath
lurking
universe
ofa fluidandparadoxical
"dream-vision,"
andconvention.""18
thought
ofWestern
theman-made
groundwork
and
tidiness
visionisresisted,
ambiguous
evenin dream,
Certainly,
not
does
easily
definition
aresought.
Ellison'shero,likeDodgson's,
of oneiricexfluidity
himselfto the equivocating
accommodate
only
however,
fromitsperils,
His hungerfordeliverance
perience.
in disorienting
nighthimto fiendish
jokesand reversals
delivers
overbythetaunting
presided
aregenerally
mares.
Thesenightmares
rusesmockand confound
whosesurreal
ofhisgrandfather,
figure
in epistemlessons
important
jokesoffer
earnest
reason.Suchsurreal
are
thatphenomena
ofassuming
thedangers
ology.Theydramatize
in
a
areclosedand fixed finite
and thatentities
rational
necessarily
andconclusive
universe:
of
ThatnightI dreamedI was at a circuswithhim[fitdream-setting
and equivocations].
thatlureand fool,of reversals
set-ups
prevaricating
caseandreadwhatwasinsideandI did,
. . . He toldmetoopenmybrief
an official
envelopestampedwiththestateseal; and insidethe
finding
I would
and I thought
I foundanother
endlessly,
and another,
envelope
fallof weariness.. . . "Now open thatone." And I did and in it I found
said. "Out loud!"
an engraveddocument.. . . "Read it,"mygrandfather
18See Donald Rackin, "Alice's Journeyto the End of the Night," PMLA, LXXXI
(Oct., I966), 3I3.
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Dreaming in
Man
Invisible
6oi
"To Whom It May Concern,"I intoned."Keep This Nigger-Boy
Running."
in myears.(p. 26)
ringing
I awokewiththeold man'slaughter
In keepingwiththe old man's equivocatingdeathbedutterance-a
puzzle" (p. I4) which,in itsparadoxesand ambivalences,
"constant
designedto
and seemsdeliberately
interpretation,
invitesyetbaffles
oneiric
do so"9-theold man himself,in his grandson'sinnermost,
He proffers
mocksreasonwith surrealirrationality.
consciousness,
visionwhich,had wakingInvisible
thatgiftoffluid,ever-ambivalent
Man initially
acceptedit,wouldhavekepthimfromfallingforthose
letters,writtenby Bledsoe,which actuallykeep
"'official"-looking
itself
him "running"fora time.In dreamtheprincipleof certitude
and thus that subspeciesof certitudewhich allows
is subverted,
to diddledolts.
equivocators
Indeed,the openingfantasiaof
In thissensedreaminginstructs.
introducedby an equivocatingsermon,evolves
the novel,fittingly
intoa parablepreachingparadoxand ambivalence.Down into the
descendsin thePrologue.Seeking
depthsofdreamEllison'snarrator
he comesupon an "old singerof
a passagewayout of ambivalence,
spirituals"(p. 8) who seemsto promise-but,as it turnsout,only
serveas an
ofa dream-figure-to
withtheexasperating
deceptiveness
In Jungiandreamand confusion.
oracleamidstso muchturbulence
as a figureof the"Anima,"a
she mightbe interpreted
symbology,
mediatingagentbetweentheconsciousselfand thatwithintheself
What she has to say,
which"exceedsthelimitsof consciousness."20
seemsawesomelyimportant
in the mannerof muchdream-speech,
however,it remainsonly marand profound.Closelyscrutinized,
thenbaffled"thenthoughtful,
ginallycoherent.First"surprised,
across the old
flash
they
as
moods,
note how these fluctuating
woman'sface,firstinvite,thendeflateexpectation-sheneverquite
managestocomeoutofherverbalmaze:
19 In the Epilogue,in the struggleto definethat "constantpuzzle," Ellison's narrator
writes:"And my mind revolvedagain and again back to my grandfather.... I'm still
plagued by his deathbed advice. . . . Perhaps he hid his meaning deeper than I
thought,perhapshis anger threwme off-I can't decide. Could he have meant-hell,
he must have meant. . . . Did he mean . . . ? Did he mean to . . . ? Or did he
mean that . . . ? Was it that we . . . ? Or was it, did he mean that . . . ? Had he
seenthat . . . ? . . . I can'tfigureit out; it escapesme" (pp. 433-434).
20 See C. G. Jung,"Two Essays in AnalyticPsychology,"
in The Portablelung, ed.
JosephCampbelland trans.R. F. C. Hull (New York,I97I), pp. I48-I62.
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602
AmericanLiterature
"Old woman,what is thisfreedomyou love so well?" I asked around
a cornerofmymind.
"I doneforgot.
thenbaffled.
thenthoughtful,
Shelookedsurprised,
It
thenI thinkit'sanother.
It'sall mixedup.FirstI thinkit'sone thing,
how
I guessnowit ain'tnothing
butknowing
gitsmyheadto spinning.
to say what I got up in my head. But it's .
.
. hard. .
.
. Ever' time I
andI fallsdown.Or ifitain'tthat,
starts
towalkmyheadgitstoswirling
and wantsto killup thewhitefolks.
it'stheboys;theygitsto laughing
that'swhattheyis
They'sbitter,
. .
"Butwhataboutfreedom?"
"Leaveme'lone,boy;myheadaches!"
I lefther,feeling
dizzymyself.
(p. 9)
"Freedom,"then,is knowinghow to saywhatis in one'shead? But
one's head is "swirling."Or if it "ain'tthat,it's theboys,"who are
and yet"laugh,"and yetwant to murderthewhitefolks.
"bitter,"
back fromher
The narratortriesto lurethisdizzyingpseudo-Sibyl
but she will not be lured,and he leaves her
dizzyingdigressions,
feelingdizzy himself.His longing to nestle against this "old
woman,"drawwisdomfromher,and findreleasefromparadoxand
ambivalenceis not fulfilled.Indeed, what followsis implacable
must
dizzy and empty-handed,
judgment:the dreamingnarrator,
"git outa here and stay. .
.
." Banished from longed-for,uterine
he is chasedthrougha "darknarrow
depthsback intowakefulness,
passage" furtherand furtherfromthe old woman, yearningfor
"tranquility. . . I felt I could never achieve," until he resurfaces,
messageis
"fromthisunderworld"(p. io). The subversive
finally,
refugeevenwithin,no
thatthereis no message,no epistemological
tobe found.
orenlightenment
harborofelucidation
III
then,Ellison, who "in
WritingInvisibleMan at midcentury,
Macon
County, Alabama, . . . read . . . Freud,"
nevertheless
nondreamscapesin an ultimately
paintedbizarreand subversive
Freudian spirit.InvisibleMan collapsesthe Freudian distinction
and deceptive)and the
dream(prevaricating
betweenthe manifest
latentdreamcontent(putatively
definable).Fromthedisintegration
orientation
to
of thatsurface-depth
paradigma radicallydifferent
as an idiom of irreducibleambiguitiesemerges.
dream-language
And "perhaps,"to referagain to Ellison'shypothesis
quotedearlier
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Dreaming in Invisible Man
603
in thisarticle,
"thepoet'struelanguage
is thatin whichhe dreams,"
I assume,thattheproblematic
bywhichEllisonmeansto suggest,
and paradoxesand dilanguageof dream,withits incongruities
of
vergent
possibilities
suggested
all at once,is theleastfalsifying
and mayevenprovidea modelforartitself.Certainly
languages
Invisible
Man,a mostdreamlike
novelin itstotaleffect,
struggles
toreplacerigidcaricatures
ofreality
witha formoffiction
registerIt subverts
ing experience
in authentic
fluidity
and dissonance.
racistcaricatures-meager,
diminishing,
cruel-thefiction
becoming
"those
formunothing
lessthanan epistemological
weaponagainst
las" whichhavebeen"evolvedto describe
mygroup'sidentity."'"
ButEllison'snovelwageswaron reductive
formulae
of all kinds,
radicalfluctuations
offormand startling
tonal
managing,
through
andterror,
blendsofcomedy
through
reversals,
ofpace,and
changes
a punning,
ambivalent
voice,to remainperpetually
off-balance
and
conceptually
fluid.Beyondracistcaricatures,
beyondBrotherhoodlike dogmatism,
would
beyondcheapHollywoodstereotypes-"I
be charming.
LikeRonaldColman"(p. I25)-the modern
American artist,
as Ellisonwell knows,is bereftof iconography
in a
problematic,
dissonant
world.Significantly,
in a centralepisodein
thenovel,PrimusProvoandhiswife,evicted
andstanding
forsaken
in Harlemsnow,aresurrounded
bya "jumble"of folkartifacts"'knocking
bones,'. . . nuggets
ofHighJohntheConqueror,
..
a dimepierced
witha nailholeso as tobewornabouttheankle. .
forluck"-which
"a pangofvaguerecogelicit,
in Ellison's
narrator,
nition"andyeta deeper"pang"of"dispossession";
fortheyremain
andguidance
largely
"confounding"
(pp. 205-207). The orientation
oncemadepossible
bya oncecoherent,
culturally
mandated
symbologyhavebeenirrevocably
lost.22The modernAmericanartist,
black
orwhite,
mustforgehisvisionoutofradicaldisinheritance.
Ellison
makesa virtue
ofthisnecessity,
discovering,
in theabsenceofa cohesivemetaphysic,
as wellas a horror
adventure
ofintellectual
seaand the nonHe offers
sickness.
bothin boththehallucinatory
ofhisnovel.
hallucinatory
portions
21
Shadow and Act, p. xvii.
Marjorie Pryse, in "Ralph Ellison's Heroic Fugitive," American Literature, XLVI
(March, I974),
5-6, writes: "Keats's term 'negative capability' comes close to characterizing the move North, as Faulkner and Ellison explore it....'
The movement
northward "cuts' Ellison's hero "off from community"-from a stable definition of
realityand of selfhood imposed upon the individual by the group.
22
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