The Narrator's Southern Identity

 

Sharecropper by Elizabeth Catlett (1952)

In recent chapters of Invisible Man, the narrator has called his identity into question. As his consciousness has developed (and since he had a lobotomy-like medical procedure performed on him), he has begun to question who he is and the anxieties which seemed to define his consciousness earlier in the novel. A particular aspect of the narrator’s identity which has also been discussed in recent chapters is that of his southern roots.

The narrator initially seems ashamed of his southern identity. We see this most clearly in the scene where he goes into a diner, and proudly denies the server’s suggestion that he would like a traditional southern breakfast. The narrator thinks to himself, “Could everyone see that I was southern?”, clearly self-conscious about being perceived as southern, and views his ordering of an orange juice, toast, and coffee as “an act of discipline, a sign of the change that was coming over me and which would return me to college a more experience man.” He then goes on to say that he “would be basically the same […] yet so subtly changed as to intrigue those who had never been North” (178). The narrator seems to think that having traveled North and adopting northern traits comes with some kind of prestige, the implication being that being southern does not come with the same kind of prestige.

However, after the narrator begins to question his identity and unlearn some of his fears, he seems more inclined to embrace his southern roots when, in a similar situation, he encounters food that reminds him of his past in the south. The narrator happily buys several baked yams, and is “overcome by an intense feeling of freedom—simply because [he] was eating while walking along the street.” The narrator feels as though he “no longer had to worry about who saw [him] or about what was proper” (264). There is still the sense that there is something shameful about embracing his southern-ness by openly eating the yams, but the narrator is less concerned about others’ perception of him than he was earlier in the novel.

As the narrator continues to question his identity, I wonder what role his southern roots will play in his life. The fact that he’s southern seems to be an important part of his character and he seems to be embracing it more and more. However, in the prologue the narrator does not give the impression of having any identity other than his invisibility. Additionally, having any sort of defining personal identity feels rather like a negation of invisibility. Perhaps the important point being made is not about the narrator’s southern identity specifically, but rather about the fact that he is beginning to question the importance of others’ perception of him. If that is the case, then I can see how this development could help lead him to discover his invisibility.

Comments

  1. MitchellSeptember 23, 2021 at 2:47 PM

    The fact that one of the Brotherhood's initial requirements for his "new identity" is that he cut all ties with his family (and therefore the South in general) doesn't bode well for this "embrace" of his southern identity. When the narrator tries to explain to Jack that he identified with the old couple being evicted, Jack tells him he's mistaken (after asking if they are literally related to him). The narrator's new identity seems to have no history, northern or southern, at all--yet there's an irony in the way that he is cast as *both* southern AND northern when he tries to unload his "baggage" of racial stereotypes in chapter 15. In some ways he's both, and in some ways, now that he's "found Brotherhood," he's neither.

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