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...

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...

Beloved - Haunting and Trauma

Beloved is a novel all about trying to forget the traumatic events of the past even though they keep coming back up. All Sethe does in the novel is try to escape her traumatic experiences, yet they always come back to haunt her, and not only her but others around her. It seems as though the more Sethe tries to repress her memories and the affects of her trauma, the harder it comes back. The most clear example is Beloved, first she haunts as the baby ghost and later she shows up as a real life form. Another example of this is Paul D coming back and living with them, Paul D is a symbol of Sweet Home and the past for Sethe. Not only that, but he has his own stories to tell which interrupt Sethe's understanding of all she tried to forget. Finally we have Denver who most likely reminds Sethe of everything that happened everyday. For example after she escapes Sweet-Home, she tries to forget the tragic stuff that happened to her while she was there. And even though Denver was...

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