The Invisible Man

So far I think that the book is still pretty good. The beginning of Chapter 11 starts out with the narrator waking up in a hospital and alls he sees is a doctor standing over him, with one of those light things on his head. The doctor has him swallow something to make become unconscious again. When he wakes up again the doctor keeps trying to figure out what his name is. It says though how all the narrator could think about was his pain. He couldn’t even remember why he was at the hospital, They are using electric shock therapy on him one doctor wants to continue with it the other doesn’t arguing that it’s rather primitive. And at some point the idea of castration was brought up and I had no clue where that came from or even more so how what would help. Also that they wouldn’t being using this on some other man who had a Harvard or New England background but its different cause he’s of African American descent. I think that is a very good point, I never thought that you could even do these types of things to someone with out consent. It also says how the effects are like a lobotomy. That’s like what they did to “crazy” people in mental hospitals and it has horrible effects. The idea of racism comes up a lot in this book. One of the doctors makes a comment about how the narrator seems as if he is dancing when he is hit like the electric shock, saying “they really do have rhythm”, meaning black people in that sense. That is definitely a racial statement referring to African Americans as “they” as if blacks are a different species or something. The doctors still try to figure out the narrators name but he can’t understand him so he writes down on a card WHAT IS YOUR NAME? At this moment the narrator realizes he has no clue who he is. I can’t even imagine that feeling; it has to be absolutely awful. Waking up and not remembering anything about your life, how old you are or who you are, not even what your name is. It’s just got to be the worst and scariest feeling ever. The doctors continue to write a bunch of things down that relate to his identity to try and figure out who he is. They begin asking questions about Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear which I guess were two characters from folktales that were first introduced to
America by African slaves. I think that too is a very racist comment just to assume because he is black and to go from asking his name to questions about some story. This part of the story was a little confusing to me I guess that these questions did start to being back some of his memory. He starts to form himself a new identity but still there’s no way for him to get rid of his whole culture and the problems that seem to always arise because of his race, he still is going to have to deal with racism. I think that the doctors were a big part of this chapter and racism was a central theme. Those doctors were very racist from the very beginning with the electric shocks to the racist comment of “they have good rhythm” to the part that really shocked me to the suggestion of castration. That I found to be a very racist statement in and of itself because they would just be doing that to him for the fun of it I guess seeing that medically there was no reason. Then even to using the stories of the Brer Rabbit to make him remember his identity like every black man was to know that story. In the end of this chapter the narrator his new identity gives him more freedom and looks like things might start looking up for him.

Invisible Man

So far I feel that this book isn’t that bad. I think I like it better than the last book I read, At The Mountains of  Madness. This book seemed to get to the point a little better in the beginning, it didnt drag out like some of the others. So far the narrator of this book doesn’t have a name or anything. Its only known as the narrator. Im guessing that goes along with the title the invisible man. So far in the book too the narrator talks about his grandparents and how they were slaves and how they were freed after the civil war. That part definately interested me, i’ve always beeen interested in the wars and everything. While his grandfather is on his deathbed he talks about comparing black americans to warfare and saying how he felt like a traitor.  He also told the narrator to basically yes whites to death. Now the narrator lives like his grandfather  did. He’s basically haunted by his grandfathers words.  He then goes on to talk about his graduation speech which was pretty much saying that the key to blacks being successful is humility and submission. Then another thing that interested me was his part in the “battle royal” which was part of the entertainment.  Him and some of his other black buddies enter the ring with boxing gloves  and how a naked blonde woman with a flag painted on her chest parades around. Some whites tell them to look, others  threaten them.  Then they were blindfolded and ordereed to pummel one another. The narrator gets defeated in the first round.  After they get to take off their blindfolds and they got led to a rug covered with coins and a few bills all the boys go after the money soon to find out that a electric current runs through the , rug, during this all the white men try to get the boy to fall face first on the rug.  Also his speech  which largely quoted Booker T Washington was talked about a lot. So far I have found this all very interesting and a lot of it has also shocked me. I think it’s going to be a pretty good book, all though it does seem to be pretty long.

At the Mountains of Madness 1 and 2

 Our group is reading At the Mountains of Madness, so far it seems to be very sci-fi. I’m not a very big fan of science so hopefully thats not all it is about. It also doesn’t really seem to be like any of the other books that we have read so far in class, theres not very many connections that I can make between books, at least not as far as I can see. But as far as the group aspect of this book goes I think we are doing a good job, we are all working good together and finding lots of good stuff for our wiki. Also in class we have talked about canonical and non canonical themes. So far I don’t really see how our book applies but maybe soon we will understand a little bit better. Another thing about this book is the author uses big words and a lot of scientific words which makes it really annoying and hard to read sometimes. Hopefully the book will pick up a bit and become more interesting or if not hopefully we will atleast find a way to connect it to class and the other books students are reading.

Our group is now done with reading out book. The book I think was interesting because it had a lot in it about science and stuff but at the same time that made it confusing for me at some points. I’m not very interested in science so sometimes it was very hard for me to keep reading. Even though the book definately does pick up a bit after the first few chapters.  It also can be interesting at somepoints because there is a lot of suspense to it so you have to keep reading to find out whats going to happen. But then there is a lot of things that go on in the book that you really have to analyze to even understand whats going on or what it even means which makes parts of the book were very confusing. Another thing that our group noticed is that our book wasn’t really like anything else we have read in class or the other books students our reading. It was hard to find cannoical themes from the list that applied to our book and even the ones that did I think barely did. But overall I think our group did a good job at finding information for the wiki and trying to understand and analyze what was gonig on in the book.