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Early 20th-Century American Literature Videos 30 videos
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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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