Baron's Booknotes
on Invisible Man
"This is a complete and thorough website for teaching Ralph Ellison's Invisible
Man." Included here are pages on "biographical
information, chapter summaries, critical commentary on characters, and themes."
Teachers should be aware that the site "contains so much information. .
. .students could literally read the website in lieu of the novel." This
is an "excellent source of information for the instructor who is teaching
Ellison for the first time. . . .and has limited prep time.
DISSENT:
Decoding Ralph Ellison
Often overlooked or omitted in any biographical study of Ralph Ellison is
a discussion of the myth "that he published only one book, and that his
entire authority as a writer and intellectual rests on this one work."
Gerald Early, writing in Dissent magazine in 1997, does a fine
job of exploding this myth by showing the "historical importance"
of Ellison's Flying Home and Other Stories, a collection of most
of his pre-Invisible Man fiction, and two collections of essays:
Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory, which set forth his
views as a literary critic and public intellectual." Also included is a
fascinating discussion about Ellison's relationship with his good friend Richard
Wright and many other facts not usually found in other studies of Ellison.
Ralph
Ellison's Invisible Man
Three English classes at West Springfield High School in Virginia have developed
three excellent Web pages on Ralph Ellison and his novel, Invisible Man,
as class projects. Each page includes chapter summaries of Invisible Man
with analysis of characters, symbols, motifs and quotations, "ancillary
topics such as jazz and social studies relevant to the period, biographical
information on Ellison," and several pertinent links. This site would be
a great model for a similar class project.
Ralph
Ellison's Invisible Man
For students doing "advanced work" on Ralph
Ellison's Invisible Man, this site has value because of the "manner
in which Ellison's themes and concepts are viewed via their social/cultural
implications." Included are "four critical essays on Ellison's book,
chapter summaries, and a reading list on Ellison." Perhaps of greater interest
to scholars is "the outstanding list of links available," featuring
"pertinent discussions of Ellison's use of communism, repression, the African
American community's values. . .and the narrator's invisibility."
