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(salient parallels) in Song of Solomon and Invisible Man


valerius 1 / -  
Mar 17, 2012   #1
Please let me know if the following intro paragraph reads well/ the thesis can be found obviously enough and is argumentative/clear enough. Thank you so much!!

Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man are a pair of narratives that bear a number of salient parallels: both are classic fixtures of the African American literary tradition, both concern the journey of a young, black, male protagonist, and both deal with the protagonist's racially charged quest for meaning and identity in early to mid-20th century America. But the parallels stop here when one considers the portrayal of women in each of these texts; such is the disparity, in fact, between the treatment of female characters in these two narratives that women actually occupy utterly divergent roles in each author's tale. The question of these novels' treatment of women is an important one to examine because any text that seeks, as these two novels do, to meaningfully explore the heritage, tradition, and journeys of a particular culture or people must obviously give, as a minimum, some degree of weight and meaning to the part played by women in those traditions and journeys. In Song of Solomon, women are not only significant to the plot but they are portrayed as essential to the protagonist's self-discovery and identity; in Invisible Man, conversely, the opposite portrayal is seen: female characters are represented as playing no meaningful part in the narrator's search for identity and are only important as figures in relation to the male characters. This paper will suggest that where Morrison's Song of Solomon uplifts, glorifies, and gives importance to women, Ellison's Invisible Man belittles, degrades, and marginalizes them; as strong as Morrison's positive portrayals of the importance of women in the protagonist's journey are, Ellison's negative portrayals of them are equally potent.
chalumeau /  
Mar 18, 2012   #2
Here is the meat from the paragraph:

A meaningfully exploration of a particular culture or group requires at least some small consideration of women's role: past, present, and future. ** In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, women are not only significant to the plot, but are essential to the protagonist's self-discovery and identity. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, female characters play no meaningful part in the narrator's search for identity; they serve as distractions, bętes noires, and _____. Whereas Morrison's Song of Solomon uplifts, glorifies, and praises women, Ellison's Invisible Man belittles, degrades, and marginalizes them.

**A transition is necessary saying why the authors chose to examine women at all.

Criticisms:
-- "Salient parallels" sounds a little off-key to me. Plus, you go on to state that the parallels stop, so they weren't really salient after all?

-- "Divergent roles" indicates that the roles had similar starting points. Is this the case? Do you mean "different" or "distinct" or "disproportionate" or even "mutually exclusive"?

-- I shy away from words such as "opposite," because it's a black-or-white term. There's little room for discussion.
--Your thesis is not there yet. It's a good start though.


Questions:
1) How are women essential to Morrison's novel? Are the characters more authentic? Why?
2) Sometimes artists depict grotesqueness (marginalization) in order to say that _____ is morally wrong. Do you think Ellison would fit here? Or, do you think his novel inferior? Why would he choose to "belittle, degrade, and marginalize" women? What purpose does it serve? You may need to read some historical documents from the time period.

3) Ideally, your thesis should state why the authors are doing what they are doing. Why did they write the characters the way they did?


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