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Early 20th-Century American Literature Videos 11 videos
You might be hearing a chorus of farewells if you recommend A Farewell to Arms as the next read for your Fabulously Feisty Feminist Book Club.
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The Great Gatsby is set in and around New York City and Long Island. On the big L.I., there are two areas known as "West Egg" and "East Egg." East...
Invisible Man 41453 Views
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Description:
You’re one in a million, buddy. Er...actually, more like one meaningless speck in a sea of billions. Makes you feel kind of insignificant, right? Nobody knows how that feels better than Ralph Emerson’s invisible man, as he loses his identity and picks up a few fun new ones, such as “liar”, “trouble maker”, and “most likely to sneak into a movie theatre without paying.”
Transcript
- 00:06
Invisible Man, a la Shmoop. Do we all feel invisible at times... without
- 00:14
the advantage of being able to sneak into locker rooms?
- 00:18
As the wisest person on the planet once said . . .
- 00:20
. . . everyone wants to be validated. We all have a need to be heard . . .
- 00:24
. . . and accepted for who we really are . . . But with 7 billion of us taking up breathing
Full Transcript
- 00:29
space . . . . . . it can get a little tricky.
- 00:31
In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, our unnamed protagonist feels unseen by others in society
- 00:36
. . . . . . because, as he says, they refuse to
- 00:39
see him. They slap on plenty of labels . . .
- 00:41
. . . like 'liar' . . . . . . or 'trouble-maker' . . .
- 00:43
. . . but never get beyond assumptions to understand who he really is.
- 00:47
Kind of makes us wonder . . . . . . if we all aren't feeling a little bit
- 00:50
invisible. You would think that with all the opportunities
- 00:54
to get to know one another . . . . . . feeling "seen" would be less of a problem
- 00:58
than it used to be. But it seems like just the opposite.
- 01:02
People have simply invented new ways of ignoring each other . . .
- 01:04
. . . while continuing to wrap each other up in convenient packages.
- 01:08
Our protagonist in Invisible Man, for example, gets more labels slapped on him than a package
- 01:12
headed for Timbuktu. Strangers see him, and instantly make judgments.
- 01:17
And usually they're not very accurate ones. Being reduced to a bunch of adjectives can
- 01:21
make anyone feel invisible . . . . . . and certainly doesn't make our Oprah
- 01:25
happy. But maybe it's not just society's fault.
- 01:30
After all, we're not always honest about how we represent ourselves.
- 01:34
Our boy in the book takes on a couple of different identities.
- 01:36
A total waste, in our opinion, because if you're going to have multiple identities,
- 01:40
it would be nice if at least one of them was a superhero.
- 01:43
Who knows - maybe we're afraid we won't be liked if people know who we truly are . . .
- 01:50
. . . so we invent someone who will get us what we want . . .
- 01:52
. . . even if we know we'll have to face the music someday.
- 01:55
So, why can't we feel comfortable showing people who we really are?
- 01:59
And why do we care so much about what other people think?
- 02:02
Does it have anything to do with the labels we're so quick to slap on each other?
- 02:08
And would we all feel less invisible if we stopped doing it?
- 02:12
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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