Existing

In chapter six the main character meets with Dr. Bledsoe about the repercussions of the events that passed with Mr. Norton during the drive. When the young man gets very upset with Dr. Bledsoe and acuses him of lying about his punishment, the older black man teaches him a lesson about his role in educated society: "you're nobody, son. You don't exist - can't you see that?" (143). This statement calls to mind the title of the book, how the head of the school calls the young man invisible and nonexistent even as he gains an education in an excellent university. Yet then he claims that he does not get told what to do or think by white men - Dr. Bledsoe claims that he is not invisible. And by the events of the novel so far the reader can see that indeed he is not. "Telling white folks what to think about the things [he] know[s] about" is how Dr. Bledsoe describes his life (143). However, Dr. Bledsoe's words seem contradictory. How can he be so visible and the young man so nonexistent? Was Dr. Bledsoe not invisible as well as one point? At some time in his life he must have been in the same place as our main character, just a black man in school. How can Dr. Bledsoe deny the young man's identity so concretely when he has risen from a similar place to be the powerful, respected, and visible black man that he is now?
Dr. Bledsoe calls this reality "a nasty arrangement" that he doesn't always like (143). He emphasizes that it was not his doing: "[he] didn't make it, and [he] know[s] he can't change it" so he worked with the white system to get himself into his position of power and would turn his back on every other person of his race just to stay there (143). Dr. Bledsoe sends a message to the young man about how to rise up to a position of such power as has the older man. I doubt the young man will follow the older man's advice in the end, as we already know he ends of living underground by stolen light, but I will keep an eye out for threads of this passage throughout the rest of the story as I have a feeling that Dr. Bledsoe's strategies and position will appear again.

Ozymandias Poem/Song

If this doesn't work, here's the link.

Green, Green Grass

In chapter four grass appears quite often, surrounded by different contexts. The green grass is first mentioned as the "quiet greenness": where the narrator possesses "the only identity [he] had ever known" (99).  This conveys a sense of tranquility and contentment, as green is a soothing colour that represents life and vitality, especially when associated with plants. The green grass here shows the vibrant life and identity that the university has given the narrator and how he may lose that if he leaves.
The next appearance that grass makes is in a message that a girl sends to her boyfriend. "Just tell him that the grass is green..." she instructs our narrator, and explains that it is a secret code that her boyfriend is sure to understand (105). Again the green grass seems to represent vitality. The girl's message is cryptic and intriguing, its simplicity makes the reader want to know the complexity behind the plain words. This intrigue shows the intelligence and curiosity of the university culture. Green grass here displays vitality of the mind in the narrator's university surroundings.
And then the narrator's roommate mentions that green grass one more time. He suggests that the narrator take "a gal and show her how the moon rises over all that green grass on the Founder's grave, man..." and the narrator responds with a blunt "go to hell" (107). The context surrounding this instance of the green grass is more negative than the others with the narrator's rude response and the roommate referring to grass on top of a grave. There are also obvious sexual implications behind the roommate's suggestion of why the narrator should take a girl up there. However, the slight negativity and sexuality hold tension and energy. This energy is just as viable and just as relevant to the university life as the other, more positive, energies.
Overall, the green grass in this chapter appears to represent the energy and life through which the narrator has been able to build an identity for himself at the university. Throughout this chapter the narrator is unsure of his future at the college, so the aspect he loves most about it keeps appearing to show how relevant this vitality is to the narrator's life and how empty his life would be without it.

A Stab

As the narrator drives through the campus with Mr. Norton in the back of the car, suffering in the aftershock of their encounters, he has an internal dialogue going on. He is describing the tranquil university scene around him with a trance-like aura when "in the brief interval [he] heard a cheer arise. [His] predicament struck [him] like a stab" (99). The shorter second sentence appears like a short, sharp knife into the rest of the calm, imagery-filled sentences. In this moment, as the narrator feels he is losing control of the car, he slams on the breaks. The short 'stabbing' sentence effectively slams on the breaks of the description and allows the narrator's realization to fully register in his mind: that he had lost control of the situation with Mr. Norton and was now unable to stop the events that would unfold as a result.

Men of Venom

The scene in Invisible Man where the main character describes his experience delivering his speech for the town’s leaders is shocking. The imagery of the entire scene is incredible, and the unbelievable actions of people who are supposed to be respectable and decent are made believable. 

The main character’s fear of the situation is made apparent with:

“But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused to darkness. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths. I could hear the bleary voices yelling insistently for the battle to begin” (21).

Here the narrator calls reference to his home full of light, which we learned about in the prologue with the terror that he feels without light. We begin to see how the character’s experiences shape him into the man who introduced the story. He is terrified of being blind and does not like darkness, so when he is out of this part of his life he fills everything he knows with lightness.

He also expresses his fear, in that moment, of the powerful white men that surround him. He has seen them drunkly follow their impulses with the blonde dancer, and he knows that he is not safe. The narrator knows that he cannot trust the people he is surrounded by because they are compulsive and greedy. They are only looking out for their own entertainment. It is curious that our character calls the men he is afraid of ‘cottonmouths’ because cottonmouth snakes are usually dark in colour, while the men he fears are white. Cottonmouth snakes have white mouths, so perhaps he was referring to the venom that comes out of them. 

Seen as Invisible

The prologue to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man does an excellent job of catching the reader's attention and making them wonder what on earth he is talking about. That was definitely my reaction. Effective intro, I kept reading.  I read for an hour (exactly, used a timer and everything) and one of the most interesting parts to me was the second paragraph on the first page.
This paragraph captures the character's feelings, also not just his feelings but his reality. This paragraph captures his life and what it feels like everyday to be him. It is also interesting because it is looking back on what has already happened in the story, yet these are events that the reader does not know.
The diction is undeniably intellectual, especially at the start, when he uses phrases like "biochemical accident to my epidermis" (3). But the register is not informative, the tone is not didactic. The tone of this paragraph strikes me as matter-of-fact, with phrases such as "that invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact" and "I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either" (3). Yet these somewhat formal statements have an air of sarcasm. The narrator switches from speaking in the first person to the second person, as if he is directly addressing the reader with "you often doubt if you really exist" (4). This second part of the paragraph has a more genuine tone as the narrator's sarcastic description of his situation fades and is replaced with the realities of what he feels about how he is treated. As he speaks in the second person, the reader is more connected and more able to empathize with events and feelings being described.
This whole paragraph actually is quite sassy, right up to the last sentence "and, alas, it's seldom successful" (4). Overall, it sounds mainly bitter. Yet not in an angry and gloomy way. He is unhappy with the situation but he accepts it and recognizes it, and then proceeds to find ways to avoid it in his life.
I think this paragraph was important to establish that fact, to let the reader get to know their narrator and main character. Now we have a basis from which to view the character and his actions throughout the novel because we have met and understood the character he is at the end of the story. This paragraph shows him after he's been through everything that we are going to read about, so we will watch his character develop while knowing the end result. And it will certainly be interesting.

Finally Awake

The last page of The Awakening by Kate Chopin is interesting and meaningful, an excellent conclusion to an extremely thought-provoking novel. At the end, Edna is naked and swimming into the ocean all alone. We don't know anything of Robert or her family, what she told them or how she got back to Grand Isle, but there she is swimming naked in the Gulf. On the last page she is just starting to feel exhaustion.
She is thinking of the note that Robert left for her. Her tone is desperate and frustrated as she thinks of him, et it drifts into peace as she drifts further into the ocean. She realizes now that he never had, and never could have, understand what she wants and needs. Just within her brief conversation with Doctor Mandelet Edna realized that he was thinking along the same lines as her, that to talk to him could have saved this situation. A talk with someone who understood her feelings and point of view could have prevented this. Yet Edna does not seem to show remorse for not speaking with the doctor. She seems at peace with herself, knowing that her infatuation with Robert would have only ended in heartbreak. They never would have really worked out. She appears to know this, and now that the "shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone" she has no way to turn back anyways (214). Edna rests confidently with her decisions.
When she looks ahead of her, "into the distance," Edna feels the terror that she felt during her first solo swim bubble up within her (214). Its as if she looks ahead into the wide ocean, and she looks ahead into her future. The latter is looking much shorter than the former, and this gives her a start. The terror of death that anyone would feel when looking straight into the face of it. And then her terror "sank again" and she was lost from the present (214).
Her mind goes back to a simpler place, where she was safe from men and marriage and water. It creates images of sound, it sounds like a summer with "the hum of bees" and "the barking of a dog" (214). Though what really makes it look like summer to me was "the musky odor of pinks" that filled the air (214). Summer is flowers and colours and relaxing sounds, exactly what Edna experiences in her last moments. The scene which she pictures as she dies is very vague and open to interpretation, yet I feel like it is a scene from Edna's childhood where she was with her family and everything was safe. She did not have to worry about everything that would come to affect her in the future. I believe she went back to being a little girl as she died, as she goes back to the ocean and to the beginning of where these ideas began.
As Edna goes back to the place where it all began in oder to end her life, one wonders if this is in an attempt to take it all back. Once these ideas entered her life she lost so many relationships with the people around her, she hurt her family and didn't even go to her sister's wedding. And in the end she could never be with the one she truly loved anyways. Going back to die in the gulf at Grand Isle could be an attempt to kill the ideas along with herself, as she does not reach the freedom of love with Robert as she had first wanted.
Yet then thinking back on what kind of person Edna Pontellier is, one must disregard that theory. Over the course of the novel, the year that she takes to change her life, Edna becomes fearless and confident in herself. She takes every action she wants to without a blink in the direction of the people it may hurt. She acted, thought and felt any which way she wanted to. I don't think she would have lost this quality of self respect and interest at the very end. Especially because it was society and the people around her keeping her from a life of love with Robert, I know she wouldn't think twice about hurting them in order to get what she wanted for herself. Then one must conclude that Edna returns to Grand Isle to die for reasons other than killing the ideas which set her free. This is the place where she truly fell in love, where she learned that she might become independent and where she discovered that she actually had the strength in her to work for this dream of freedom. Edna must have gone back to the gulf at Grand Isle to truly feel the freedom that she had been working towards. There, alone in the ocean, not restricted by a family, a society, or even a swimsuit, she was free to do whatever she liked with no judgement because there was no one to see her. She was just alone with the light that had taught her freedom and the sea which had shown her it was possible. Feeling more at home in the ocean than anywhere else, Edna decides to spend her last moments there and at peace with the things she has discovered about herself and the decisions she has made in order to make those discoveries.