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Ralph Ellison

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In 1930, attended Tuskegee Institute for music. In 1933, moved to NYC to get job- there met novelist Richard ... 1937-44 Wrote lots while working various jobs ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Ralph Ellison


1
Ralph Ellison
2
Biography
  • 1913-1994
  • Raised in Oklahoma City by mother (father died
    when Ellison was 3)
  • Named after Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • In 1930, attended Tuskegee Institute for music
  • In 1933, moved to NYC to get job- there met
    novelist Richard Wright- who encouraged him to
    write-
  • 1937-44 Wrote lots while working various jobs
  • In WWII was in merchant marine wrote Invisible
    Man- his breakthrough work.
  • Continued to write teach until death in 1994.

3
Relationship to Other Figures
  • In Invisible Man, deals in detail with
  • Washington- his narrator attends Tuskegee-
    ultimately rejects Washingtons philosophy
  • DuBois- is greatly influenced by Dubois writing-
    see Double Consciousness
  • Garvey- The character Ras the Exhorter closely
    modeled on Garvey and his followers
  • Also communists.

4
Themes- Invisibility and Double Consciousness
  • D.C. that blacks simultaneously view themselves
    through their own eyes AND ALSO through the lens
    of racist white America.
  • However, white people refuse to see black people
    at all, due to the guilt actually seeing them
    would cause, thus making them disappear

5
Themes- Self Aware
  • Unlike Hughes and Hurston, Ellisons characters
    are educated, articulate, and self-aware
  • Thus, doesnt speak in dialect, very
    philosophical, etc.
  • Like DuBois, in that low culture, dialect,
    etc. not celebrated sort of embarassing
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