invisible man

In my novel, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, he time period is going through racist relations which makes everything more complicated. I can relate to this novel because some of the same stereotypical events have happened to me. Even though today is passed those times everyone, not only African Americans, have been through some type of racial problem.

Throughout the entire novel the narrator finds it hard to establish who he really is. He sees black on the outside but wants to know his true identity. Furthermore he wants to figure out his purpose in life known as a black man in society. In my opinion the reason why he is called “narrator” instead of a name is because of his missing identity.  Eventually he finds a type of rebirth and joins a “brotherhood”, which makes him feel as though he’s apart of something where he belongs. Later on the narrator finds out that white cops had murdered an African male which was the start of stirring up problems between the two races.  This angers him and he decides to get his community together to act upon the racial situations that were going on. The crazy part is that the “brotherhood” that he was supposedly in turned their back on him because of him trying to act alone. One of the main problems in this novel is people fighting stereotypes with stereotypes. For example when the narrator tried to get in to the brotherhood they questioned if he was black enough. How are you supposed to be a certain type of race? Now a days there is so many different categories under one race it doesn’t make any sense. The authors point was it doesn’t matter what race you are, you can be who ever and whatever you want to be and not have to be impacted or persuaded by anyone else but yourself. Also not to go against a certain race just because they don’t act like the stereotypical person you think they should be.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

What motivated me to read this novel was that I had recently seen the American dub of the film, which showed that the story was complex, covering varying topics from female abuse to crime mystery. With prior knowledge of the story, I figured reading the novel would make it easier to understand the greater in depth the book is compared to the film.

The first fifth of the novel or so lays the setting, characters, and all other necessary info so that the main plot can make sense to readers. With two main protagonists, and each one having different plot lines for the first half of the story, it can be confusing at times. One of the two, Mikael Blomkvist, becomes entangled in a libel conviction with corruption dating back to the fall of Communism, where his target successfully evades being exposed and instead frames Blomkvist. The other, Lisbeth Salander, is in her early twenties and is under government care for being 'socially incompetent', though in actuality she is far from the label forced upon her. More focus is on Mikael through the beginning, but Lisbeth's story picks up interest over time, though I have not reached the 'unique' part of Lisbeth's story just yet in my readings.

One of the interesting aspects of Mikael's plot is the business corruption he is caught in. His occupation being a journalist and a shareholder of the Swedish political magazine Millennium, his work often involves exposing businesses and political figures in an effort to keep the magazine alive. In his most recent publishment however, the person he was trying to expose for business corruption, Hans-Erik Wennerström, uses his money he has gained from malpractice over the years to keep at large and unchecked. This kind of corruption and scandal has taken place numerous times throughout history, which makes me wonder just how much exposure is needed to take down a hypothetical corrupt business with billions of dollars at its disposal. Also, what is not too surprising is that businesses manage to gain this much strength due to lack of government surveillance, which is exactly what happens in the novel. Wennerström gets a large grant from the Agency for Industrial Assistance, a government program in Sweden, back in 1992, when democracy was still spreading over what was once Communist controlled areas of Europe. With both the government and businesses eager to expand their control and assets, little attention was paid towards Wennerström's actions; all the government required was a report of his new business's earnings and spendings. This was easy for Wennerström to fabricate, allowing him to make off with much of the money that was granted towards this new business, though in actuality very little was put towards it. This scenario paints an all too realistic idea of one of many corrupt business practices.

On my next post I'll have more pertaining to Mikael and Lisbeth.