Symbolism Week 4

When the Invisible Man returns back to Harlem, he soon sees that the Brotherhood has drastically declined in numbers, and he must help gain back their followers. The narrator is waiting to be called to the strategy meeting as mentioned by Brother Jack; however, he never receives the call; therefore, he hurries to headquarters to find the meeting is already in progress. The narrator suddenly realizes the other members completely intended to exclude him. Furious, he leaves the building and goes to shop for shoes, but he spots: “Clifton, riding easily back and forth on his knees…his arm pointing stiffly at the bouncing doll as he spieled from the corner of his mouth” (Ellison 433). Furthermore, when Clifton moves the dolls; they appear to move of their own accord, but they actually move only when pulled by their strings. This symbolizes that black Americans continue to live like marionettes, their motions absolutely determined by white puppeteers. The stereotypes and expectations of a racist society compel them to behave only in certain ways, move according to certain patterns, never allowing them to act according to their own will. As Clifton pulls one of the doll’s strings, he subtly ridicules the Brotherhood’s ideology: “He’ll kill your depression and your dispossession” (Ellison 432). In addition, Clifton’s peddling of the dolls symbolizes a more complex attitude toward race relations than a simple acceptance of stereotypes: he seems to offer a veiled commentary on the racial stereotype of the grinning, “yes”-saying “good slave” as he urges his listeners to stretch the doll by the neck and not worry about breaking it. This imagery conveys the black man is like a toy being stretched to the limit with the white man not worrying about the pain and suffering the black man endures, only testing him for his breaking point.