Sam AAL

          Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison draws important distinctions between two types of people. The first type of person is represented by Dr. A. Herbert Bledsoe, the President of Tuskegee University. Bledsoe represents black people who are willing to conform to the desires of the white people in charge in order to get ahead and gain social status. The second type of person is represented by the unnamed veteran (I will be calling him The Vet). He is essentially the opposite of Bledsoe in the way that he does not value white validation/success over being true to himself and his race. Throughout the book, The Narrator (the invisible man) is seeking to determine what he does and does not value, and is attempting to identify his values relative to the aforementioned two groups. He does so by learning from the people around him. Bledsoe’s way of thinking can be described as cold and calculated. One of the best quotes demonstrating how Bledsoe thinks can be found in chapter 6, page 143: 

by Sam Newman                  Richard Wright’s (1940) Native Son was written to demonstrate how systemic racism can (and does) affect specifically Black men. Poor living conditions, gang culture, and discrimination in employment and law enforcement all play a huge role in Bigger’s life, causing him to become who he is (a deplorable character) and keeping him that way. The very first instance of Bigger’s circumstances’ affecting him is seen in the first few pages, when Bigger must kill a rat. “‘I got ‘im,’ he muttered, his clenched teeth bared in a smile,” and “Bigger took a shoe and pounded the rat’s head, crushing it” (pg 6). This is a very normal day for Bigger. Most upper middle-class White families (the target demographic for this book) probably had never seen a rat in their homes, because their homes were in better condition and in nicer locations. It is never said but it is implied that this kind of daily instance had conditioned Bigger to be desensitized to violence, which is