Essay on Use of the Bird Motif in Invisible Man - 2374 Words

Use of the Bird Motif in Invisible Man Abstract: According to A Handbook to Literature, motif refers to a recurrent repetition of some word, phrase, situation, or idea, such as tends to unify a work through its power to recall earlier occurrences (264). One such type of motif which has seemed to receive less critical attention is Ellisons treatment of birds. Hence, my aim in this essay is to examine the references to birds in Invisible Man, attempting to show how Ellison uses the image of the bird to symbolize various forms of entrapment. In a 1965 interview, when asked his view on the role of the novelist, Ralph Ellison stated the following: I think that the good novelist tries to provide his reader†¦show more content†¦After the debut of Invisible Man in 1952, one reviewer wrote: This is an angry book filled with symbolism which confuses as well as expands its meaning beyond its apparent depth (Byam 284). According to A Handbook to Literature, motif refers to a recurrent repetition of some word, phrase, situation, or idea, such as tends to unify a work through its power to recall earlier occurrences (264). One such type of motif which has seemed to receive less critical attention is Ellisons treatment of birds. Hence, my aim in this essay is to examine the references to birds in Invisible Man, attempting to show how Ellison uses the image of the bird to symbolize various forms of entrapment. In Chapter 1 of Invisible Man, Ellisons unnamed protagonist relates the Battle Royal scene. The narrator describes the white female dancer, saying She seemed like a fair bird-girl girdled in veils calling to me from the angry surface of some gray and threatening sea (Ellison 19). With this metaphor Ellison suggests the lure that the white female represents to the young black boy. In Chapter 2, Ellison builds on the ornithological leitmotif, as the narrator contrasts the rather pastoral college campus How the grass turned green in the springtime and how mocking birds fluttered their tails and sang (34), with the nearby road to the insane asylum, which asShow MoreRelatedCritical Analysis: Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man Essay1651 Words   |  7 PagesEllison’s Invisible Man, we are presented with an unnamed narrator whose values and potentials are invisible to the world around him. Throughout the entirety of the novel, we see the unnamed narrator, also known as the Invisible Man, struggle in an attempt to uncover his identity buried beneath African American oppression and an aggregation of deception. Ellison shows us how lies and deceit may serve as a grave but invaluable obstacle to one’s journey to find their identity. 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