The Literature Book

259

See also: Les Misérables 166 – 67 ■ Their Eyes Were Watching God 235 ■

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 291

T

he African-American civil

rights movement of the

late 1950s and 1960s

sought to end racial segregation

and discrimination in the US

through protest and civil

disobedience. Authors such as

James Baldwin, Maya Angelou,

Richard Wright, and Ralph

Ellison engaged with the

movement, writing about the

systematic disenfranchisement,

overt racial discrimination, and

state-sanctioned violence that

pervaded the US.

An isolated activist

Born in Oklahoma in 1914, Ralph

Ellison first studied music at

Tuskagee Institute in Alabama,

but later moved to New York to

pursue courses in the visual arts.

Here, he met Richard Wright and

was influenced both by his writing

and his communist affiliations.

Following service in the merchant

navy in World War II, Ellison

became disillusioned with left-

wing ideology and began writing

Invisible Man, a book concerned

with political and social protest.

Ellison found a new form for the

protest novel, removed from earlier

realist and naturalist works. His

style was idiosyncratic, both in

structure and narrative, describing

events based on his experience of

being a black man, and what that

meant in a personal and public

perspective in American society.

The book’s narrator is invisible,

unnamed, and completely alone:

society chooses either not to

see him, or to ignore him. He

lives underground, mirroring the

segregation of African-Americans

at the time. In his isolation, the

narrator reflects passionately on the

path his life has taken—from public

speaker in his youth, to disgraced

college student and mistreated

worker in a white factory in Harlem,

to involvement with the politically

ambiguous Brotherhood. The

narrator muses over the injustices

he has suffered in life, but finally

he concludes that he must live a

life that is true to his nature and

his wider responsibilities: he is

ready to emerge into the world. ■

POSTWAR WRITING

I AM INVISIBLE

UNDERSTAND SIMPLY

BECAUSE PEOPLE

REFUSE TO SEE ME

INVISIBLE MAN (1952), RALPH ELLISON

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The civil rights movement

BEFORE

1940 Richard Wright’s Native

Son discusses the criminal

roles that white society creates

for African-Americans.

1950 African-American writer

Gwendolyn Brooks wins the

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with

her collection Annie Allen. It

charts a woman’s move from

individual freedom to more

engaged ideas of progress.

AFTER

1953 In Go Tell It on the

Mountain, James Baldwin

reflects on his own life and

involvement with the church

as an African-American,

showing both its positive

side and its oppressive hold.

1969 Maya Angelou’s I Know

Why the Caged Bird Sings

expresses the author’s

changing responses to

the violence of racism.

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