the+body+and+decolonization

by umar keoni umangay April 9, 2014
 * Parallax BwO and (un)Visible Effects of Leather in Ellison's "Invisible Man"**

Introduction and Intent: The discourses towards the activity of decolonization come with many interpretations. I would link it to a “parallax embodiment." By that I mean that defining our interpretation and construction of reality is a complex conversation of bodies without organs (BwO). The viewer as subject, whether it is oneself or that of objects, changes with positions (theoretical, temporal, geographical, social) and that the object and moments of pondering are fluid manifestations and transformation.  This bio-political critique links the conversations, activities and practices of objects towards interpreting the spectacle and desire of the indigenous and their diaspora and their movements in and out of the liminal space of colonization.

This blog submission uses Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" as the background and interpretative scaffold of objects to address multiple means of colonization that intersects historical and geographic changes. The particular object for conversation and interpretation is "leather." Let us consider the object of leather briefcase as an object of metamorphosis and desire of colonization. Leather is organic and manipulated through chemical processes to serve a purpose -- a second encasement. Once it held the organs of the animal, and during Ellison's narrative, it is holding contents, memories and movements of the narrator. This leather case and interacting with the narrator becomes bodies without organs in a DeleuzeGuattarian sensibility. The term "leather-bound" contains multiple narratives. Memories, aspirations and defiance are held within and without.

The Face: An emergence of interpretation comes with notions of time. For example, temporal aspirations comes with leather: "... her leather-brown face was filled with sadness" (Ellison, 1952, Prologue, 21/30) and the narrator can relate desire of freedom and moments of memory lapses with the old woman. Freedom and emancipation are terms beyond bodily reach.

The Briefcase: Time continues to intersect the body as the narrative of identity moves the body of the narrator and in a sense as the reader/listener from the high school graduation to the early years of university life. The body is strong by surviving a battle royal, yet not far from home, and sense of mission and desire of dream and place enslaves the narrator: "...bloody saliva forming a shape like an undiscovered continent drooled upon the leather ... I felt an importance" (Ellison, 1952, Chapt. 1, 44/47). There is a connection to the diaspora of the native/slave and the bodily fluid of blood (containing the life-force) placed upon the the briefcase. It is a form of baptism - a bodily connection of narrator to the briefcase that is dripped upon and then quickly wiped away. The leather-bound case becomes part of the body of the narrator. It is this moment in time and in place defined by his "overlords" that he smells the "fresh leather" and finding a scholarship document within the case. The decomposition of the geography of the undiscovered continent (re: Africa) is absorbed into the leather albeit the prior action of wiping it away. This reminds me of deCerteau and the text of "Walking in the City." The intersections of designed community and the viewpoint through the movement of the body. There are moments of actual physical mobilization that are divergent from the structured streets and pathways. Experiences of our senses may be subjective and may be wiped physically away and re-mapped to the desire such as "advancement" into tertiary level schooling. Thus, geography changes the body and the body changes geography. The blood on the briefcase enacts a transference of past histories onto the leather, wiped off but remaining, and the senses of desire for education emotionally overcomes the absorbed history.

I would bring our conversation to the intersecting body tied to the briefcase made of leather and is one of constant bodies in the text that mirrors the metamorphism of the narrator. The briefcase is won and will carry meaning. It is also wrapped in skin and may reveal and hide contents. Ultimately, our narrator discloses the body: “I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed” (Ellison, 1952, Chapter 1, para. 2).

The leather-bound briefcase can be swung about in defiance. In moments of frustration, fear, emancipation, the narrator: “felt in my brief case, feeling papers, shattered iron, coins, my fingers closing over Tarp’s leg chain, and I slipped it over my knuckles, trying to think, I closed the flap, locking it. A new mood was settling over me” (Ellison, 1952, Chapter 25, para. 82), the leather case gets trampled on with an “oily footstep” leaving an impression that upsets the psyche of the narrator. It marks a point of the body releasing and the narrator further enflames the building by throwing kerosene.

The Wallet: The Moroccan-leather wallet from Mr. Norton had a colonial intersection (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 2, p. 87/89). Decolonization activities in West Africa embodied in the naming of place for that leather and the colour of red are significant of site of struggle, violence and movement of the “the red menace” and the Cold War tensions between U.S.A and Soviet Union. The capital exchange for Trueblood’s narrative is a tension between bodies – the colonized plantation worker and the trustee.

The Shoes: The narrator notices “the dull gleam of their polished shoe-leather in the rays of the street lamp” (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 6, 3-35) as moves his body towards his confrontation with Dr. Bledsoe. The moment helps me recollect a sensibility of desire. The narrator, early on in his tertiary education is at the moment of challenging the perspective of the functioning student and “model minority.” He follows the shoes and they disappear and he notices that he is at the gates looking out; however, he returns to the building. Shoes are the outward skin/leather of our feet. Shoes desensitize our feeling with the earth, and are boundary bodies that disrupt intersections. Just like the briefcase, it is a layer of our “civilized” construct that somehow tunes our body with the world and yet not touch it. At this moment of disruption, the narrator chose to move the body back into the institution.

The shoes and the movement and the “shell” of the narrator’s feet connect the temporal and geographic moment to the beginning of the novel: “And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man. Thus I have come a long way and returned and boomeranged a long way from the point in society toward which I originally aspired” (Ellison, 1952, Epilogue, para. 4).

There is a scene with the shoe store where the narrator escapes the heat and the noontime movement. Shoes become escape from outside of Harlem, and become a moment of reprise. The smell rather than the sight is the significant sensory experience: “the leather-smelling, air-cooled interior of the shoe store with a sense of relief” (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 20. 17/53). The environment of the shoe store marks the transition of wearing winter shoes to summer shoes. He connects his past as a boy, and his body is renewed “lightfooted” and ready to take on his next challenge.

The pouches: The leather pouches carried by African Americans in New York represent intersections of time, space and geography. There is a connection to “fleetingly of prisoners carrying their leg irons” (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 8, 7/23). The narrator wonders about the travelling body – again, time and space intersect. He notes that these bodies like their leather pouches are unaware of their being, and he desires to follow and find meaning. This time the narrator is moved towards the interview and meeting Mr. Bates.

The whip: There is the connection to Mr. Emerson reading of the letter and artifacts in the office. “Totem and Taboo,” teakwood chair, emerald green silk are examples of the exchanges of the colonial states with the West. The narrator sees distance and the sensibilities of travel and the unknown in that office and his gaze comes towards a symbol of being bound and yet related to freedom/emancipation “bird … throbbing of its bright blue, red and yellow throat” (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 9, 22/56). This office and the body of Mr. Emerson is the “leather whip with copper brads” (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 9, 23/56) since they are all encased in glass/office and are there for display to the world as “Kings of the Earth!” (Chpt. 9, 23/56). The whip, like Mr. Emerson, controls the letters of narrator and his potential bodily advancement.

The divan: There is a hidden body with the leather divan. Outward appearances would have it labelled as long cushioned seat, but it is also part of a “register” in Islamic communities. “Throw your coat on the divan,” (Ellison, 1952,Chpt. 14, 12/52). The extension of the narrator’s body through his shell of his body is covering this divan or logbook. He wants to cover/absorb Islamic texts/logs either for knowledge and/or for hiding. It is dialectic of his desire for knowledge of his past and present dilemma for joining the brotherhood.

The bag: In Chapter 25, a leather bag is the body the holds the money that the narrator pays back to Mary. The sensibility of returning back to the place where his New York body began and helping out the boarding house has sense of completion, savings and care: “ “I think I’ll be all right now,” I said, watching her fold the money carefully” (Ellison, 1952, Chpt. 15, 19/35). The narrator’s body is linked to Mary as mother/spiritual figure. She embodies the “auntie” where you desire to return to and think about in times of trouble.

The (un)leather and (in)visible: I read Ellison’s narrative as identification and situated-ness that displaced and hybridized by the activity, material history, views of the self, and epistemologies. Moments of civil rights and America of the 1930's has resonance and impact even in the 21st century. The body seeks identity and the interactions and intersections. There are many symbols in the book, and this blog examines the idea of leather – once a shell, now a constructed shell with multiple meanings and intersections that embrace, enclose, attract and attack. The leather may also be (un)leather. By that I mean, these shells embody the holder or wearer or user. They are manifested symbols that have psychological and physical power. These leather-bound bodies are conversations of postcolonial impacts and imaginings. It is a becoming of leather as a form of narrartive through its meaning making and senses - taken granted of the visible and the felt/sensuous movement to see the world / multiple entry points of space, time, and history.

Ellison's "Invisible Man" captures and aligns to elements and themes of social theory and the body. This blog hopefully provokes and engages you, the reader, into decolonizing trajectories by developing a DeleuzeGuattarian BwO, and the challenging dialectic of our desires to disappear and yet be relevant. I would propose that there are many ways of interpreting the (un)visible – in working on my own notions of phenomenology and the self as problematic with different perspective shifts and angles of analysis.