Connections

As I watched a movie tonight, The Cider House Rules directed by Lasse Hallström, I came to realize there is a clear relationship with the book we are reading, Invisible Man. As an orphan, Homer Wells was raised by a doctor, he lives his entire life with them so he has some medical experience. Homer gets tired of the medical practices that are being done by the doctor (abortions), so he decides to leave. 


As he will work picking up apples, he will live in a house of black people, they all work with apples, however when it is out of season all of them except Homer leave for vacations. After some time they come back and Homer figures out Rose, the only female that lives in the house is pregnant. Eventually Homer tells a female friend of his and she comes to him saying that Rose (the father of female Rose) is the father of the baby. This directly relates to Trueblood´s relationship with his daughter. Both of the men got their daughter pregnant. At the start, Mr. Rose denies it but when he is told Rose is pregnant Homer does an abortion on Rose.  

Are you satisfied?

After all the incidents Mr. Norton went through, he finally arrives to the campus of the school.The driver has lots of things in his mind to say but he keeps them to himself. Thinking about his possible consequences for all the bad things that happened to Mr. Norton he is freaking out. He just wants to apologize and tell Mr. Norton how he hates the people they had seen before, even if they were also black  He is trying to be the perfect driver, the perfect student the perfect human, waiting for approval on behalf of the white race. This reminds me of Edna Pontellier and how she is constantly trying to be the perfect wife. Just like the driver, she is willing to hide her real feelings and thoughts to seem perfect. The old Edna would follow every command made by Mr. Pontellier without doubt. Her life is being directed by a male, just like the invisible man´s life is being directed by the white.

Everyone tries to impress others, but eventually they start to realize how it doesn´t make sense. Once Edna gets tired of being the perfect wife she revels, and it all ends with her suicide. With the invisible man, he decides to be invisible, please no one, he turns aggressive and defensive.

Pretending

After his conversation with Trueblood, Mr. Norton is in shock. He feels very weak once he gets in the car and asks his driver to get some whiskey. The nearest place is the Golden Day and there are lots of veterans visiting. The invisible man tries to get the drink and take it outside but it is denied by the owner of the bar. With no other option, Mr. Norton is brought into the bar.

Through out the entire "adventure" the driver is always thinking of white men. First of all, he is really scared of being responsible for the health of a white man, if Mr. Norton died, it would be the drivers fault. Always trieng to be like the white men, the driver takes whatever is given to him by them. Trying to impress them to be one of them.

So Mr. Norton´s condition gets worse before it gets better, although, once in the bar with a little of whiskey in his mouth, his body reacts and is no longer unconscious. As he begins to improve, there is a fight in the bar that makes him worse again. He ends up being pushed under the stairs and the driver tries to find him. Once it happens, the invisible man is scared and is screaming without even realizing it. A patient that used to be a doctor comes and helps him carry Mr. Norton to a room where he can be cured.

The doctor acts like a normal person, he talks to the driver and tells him what to do. He makes Mr. Norton better and they continue to talk. Everything is fine when suddenly the doctor starts to seem a little crazy. Telling Mr. Norton how the driver is "invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of [his] dreams, sir! The mechanical man!" The man starts to ask Mr. Norton questions about his interest in the school and laughs because of his answers, then he suddenly stops and starts talking about the drivers admiration towards the white, how they consider the white men to be gods. Finally allowing them to leave, they hurry out of the room.

The connection that appears to be in this part of the book, is that the crazy men try to seem normal, to be like normal men, just like the black race tries to be like the white race, always following whatever they order.

Protection is everything

The not yet invisible man is asked to drive a white man called Mr. Norton. While driving through an unknown street they encounter a log cabin. Jim Trueblood and his family live in here. Once Mr. Norton is told that the daughter is pregnant by her father, he is anxious to talk to Trueblood.

This man tells Mr.Norton how it was all because of a dream. He explains how the wife attacked him once she woke up and realized what he was doing. With surprise, the mother reacts aggressively and with reasons she reaches for his double-barrel shotgun. The man tried to stop her but she was so angry, she was protecting her little girl. Nothing could stop her. She throws things at him and finally, she gets an ax. With the recent sharpened, Kate cuts Jim Trueblood´s face.

This fight of protection, brings to mind a book we read in the past, The Road. The father has been fighting along with his little boy to survive. They don´t have food and the situation is very dangerous. Everyone wants to eat them. In a part of the book, the little boy and the father are in trouble because they are being attacked by a hungry human. The goal of this carnivore is to kill the boy and eat him. The father, just like Kate, protects his little child and kills the threat.

Both of this parents, are willing to go to any extreme just to protect their children. From hurting the husband or killing a stranger, the important thing is both of these children will be safe thanks to the strength of their parents.      

I am not a singer

All For Rewards

Cruel is the word that best describes the scene. Several men trying to preserve their dignity by fighting others. They are promised lots of things just to be humiliated. The main character with the idea of giving his speech is willing to take lots of pain. He will resist everything just to impress the white men because they can give him a chance. At a part, a man screams to the two final fighters that he wants the big one to win. Our character contemplates the idea of losing on purpose just to satisfy the requests from white men, because this could possibly bring to him greater prizes.

All of the fighters are trying to survive and make it through the evening so they can win some money, blindfolded, they fight each other. The worse part would be the electrified rug. What kind of person sees someone in need, and makes them suffer even more just so they can be entertained? Even though the fighters are aware of the rug, the continue to collect coins, finding techniques and trying to hide the pain by laughing. Giving the observers whatever they want to see.

Our Invisible Man, before, had a huge need of being recognized by society, he tried to please everyone he met, and followed societal standards. He went to the meeting with the intention of sharing his speech, and even after all the suffering, he stands up in front of them and pleases them, excusing himself when he mentions things that make the others mad. With a desperate need to fit in, he is being humiliated, however he looks at it as if he was doing a good thing because the white men accept him. Ignoring all the pain that he felt because of them, he thanks them and tries to become just like them.

During the fighting there are similes used to describe how the bodies of the fighters react to the punches, "A blow to my head as I danced about sent my right eye popping like a jack-in-the-box and settled my dilemma". Also, there is imagery, "blood shaping itself into a butterfly, glistening and soaking into the soiled gray world of the canvas". These literary figures show us how the fighters are really suffering, they help us understand how the fight is real and rough.  

Visibility.

It's ironic how Mr. Pontellier is always acting to be seen by society, he doesn't want to be an outcast and how on the other opposite, the character in Invisible Man is declaring himself invisible. It is clear that Pontellier hides most of his reality to fit into society, he camouflages Edna's decisions, for example when she moved out and he said they were remodeling the house, or when she wouldn't go to the wedding and he went only to excuse her. In Invisible Man, the character doesn't care about society, he lives his way and even commits crimes. He is stealing constant energy supply from Monopolated Light and Power saying, "it allows me to feel my vital aliveness". The reason why he does it, is to teach the company a lesson. While he was trying to fit in society, this light company took lots of his money so now he does this as revenge. The character in Invisible Man tries to teach society a lesson. He takes matters into his hands, for example that night he got into a fight with a man on the street. Trying to get some respect, the character tries to make the blonde man apologize, with no result, he starts kicking him, thinking that there has to be some kind of respect. Then it just came to his mind that it is possible that the man hadn't actually seen him, just as he was about to kill him. Perfect timing.

At the beginning of the book, there seem to be a lot of similes and metaphors. The invisible man compares himself several times to different things. He uses a simile to say he is invisible "like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in the circus sideshows", most times these heads aren't seen because they are ignored by the crowd just like everyone ignores him. He then uses a metaphor to question whether he actually exists or if he is only a phantom in the mind of others. He not only compares his invisibility but he also compares his actions to those of visible man. After having kicked the man, he compares his actions with the actions of a drunken man. It's ironic that he compares himself to a drunken man, because humans under the influence of alcohol seem to be everything but invisible. They are loud and they are constantly moving around, disturbing others. The reason he compares his actions to this man is that drunk men usually don't think their actions through, so when he attacks the man he bumped into, he feels thoughtless.