History As Fiction 2022 Posts

Invisible Man: puppet on a string

Throughout Invisible Man, Ellison hides many metaphors that relate to the narrators life. From the reoccurring theme of running to the coin bank at Marry's, but one particularly interesting one was the doll that pops up before the climax of the book. He stumbles upon Clifton (who he doesn't notice till later) advertising and selling racist puppet dolls. Like everyone else, the narrator finds himself sucked into the doll fascinated with how it moves, he doesn't even realize Clifton is the one selling the dolls nor does he get upset that they're racist dolls. The police eventually come and everyone runs away and the narrator grabs a doll off the ground later putting it into his brief case (another reoccurring metaphor). Upon picking it up he finally realizes how the doll was able to move, it had tiny black strings which Clifton were using to move it in such a way. This scene essentially creates a puppet on a string metaphor. In many ways, the Narrator is the puppet on t...

Kindred: Dana's Shift in Mindset

Throughout our time reading the novel, Octavia Butler's Kindred , published in 1979, has proven to hold many plot twists and pull on our heart strings. Not only does the book raise questions on slavery and race, but also on the system the United States was founded on, and it does so by adding the element of time travel. Dana's narrative is so complex that it leaves us filled with questions even after the end of the book. From the start of her time travel, Dana is aware that she is different than the other slaves but must act the part the best she can. She begins by trying to fit in as best as possible, but quickly realizing she can't assimilate to this lifestyle. Not only that, but she instantly thinks of ways to fight back and help the other slaves. She hates seeing other slaves get whipped and talked down upon, and wants to help them at almost all costs. However, by the end of the novel we see a much different side of Dana; she get's used to plantation life to the poi...

Sag Harbor

This is going to be one of my more informal blog posts as I prepare to graduate and reflect on my time at Uni. I want to connect a lesson I've learned to Benji's ideology of "the other boy," based off the prompt we received earlier this quarter. I think that Benji tries to separate himself so much from the younger version of himself because he's reminded of the time that him and his brother were neglected. I also think that some part of him might feel like a failure because he was trying so hard at the time to protect him and his brother from going shooting in the first place. But then his brother found a way around it and that'a how the whole mess started. All resulting in Benji getting hurt. This is an interesting aspect to explore but I really want to focus on why he tries so hard and yet fails to separate himself. I think the reason why Benji can't truly separate himself from the younger version of him is because he quite literally still has a part of...

Lili's Blog :)

Search This Blog