This paper was written for my AP English Literature class in 12th grade. It was a research paper and the culminating project for the class.

Individuation as an African American in Literature

            The struggle of assuming and balancing both Self and Shadow Self in the archetypal sense of identity is universal. Individuals have enough trouble recognizing both sides of their consciousness, and when a person is perceived as only one or the other, attaining individuation becomes even more difficult. African Americans, who have been historically discriminated against for centuries, are often perceived as only their Shadow Selves. Despite any progress an individual African American makes in this archetypal journey, he or she will often be restrained in fully understanding and claiming their identity by close-minded societal perceptions. There are two ways of handling these limitations: an acceptance of and passivity towards overcoming blatant discrimination, or a much more assertive individual proclamation with a strong sense of identity. While Ralph Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man struggles throughout the novel to get others to see him for anything but his Shadow Self and in reaction completely assumes his Shadow Self, James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time claims his identity as a synthesis of both Self and a redefined Shadow Self and thus attains his individuation. Although Ellison’s narrator is a well-educated young man with great potential, he faces discouraging prejudice from many people who cannot see him for more than his color and the Shadow Self that his blackness implies. He eventually succumbs to the societal pressure and totally assumes an alternate, invisible self. On the other hands, James Baldwin is not passive and instead concludes that blacks and whites have the same Shadow Self of negative characteristics, and with this strong assumption of his identity he can advance himself in his archetypal journey to individuation. Baldwin in The Fire Next Time serves as the forceful extension of Ellison’s Invisible Man, becoming successful in accepting both Self and Shadow Self and ultimately achieving individuation.

In Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison’s nameless narrator’s understanding of his Self begins as a very positive, personal evaluation. This novel begins with the narrator in his college experience at a prestigious Southern school. He attends on an honorable scholarship and is obviously intelligent and well-read. Furthermore, he is known for his eloquence and speaking skills on campus. His self-evaluation is glowing: “I visualized myself an as a potential Booker T. Washington” (Ellison 17). The Invisible Man’s formative college years, for the most part, affirm his positive view of himself. Later in the book, the Invisible Man finds a job working for a union that advocates for minority interest rights, especially the rights of African Americans. In his early time there, he finds success through his speech-making abilities and becomes a foremost advocate for African American causes in a union that is quickly gaining influence and a following. During one of his speeches, he speaks for the black collective and makes the defiant statement that “we will be dispossessed no more!” (Ellison 346). By the conviction in his speech, it seems the narrator is confidently on his way to fully claiming his identity and attaining individuation. He begins to feel fulfilled because he is finally using his skills and talents to their full potential, and also receiving expressive affirmation for his work. This fulfillment contributes to the Invisible Man’s strong and positive sense of Self and he is confident that the world sees him this way too.

When Ellison’s protagonist in Invisible Man begins to encounter the prejudices and biases people have against him, he becomes acutely aware of the Shadow Self that both his blackness and education imply and the fact that people only see him for that Shadow Self. The Battle Royal chapter in the novel is a hallmark representation of this. The narrator arrives under the impression that he is to deliver a speech but is shocked to learn that he must first fight his fellows in a boxing ring, which Ellison uses to symbolize “the blacks being socially confined” (German), and be subject to the whims and amusement of the crude, white male crowd. This treatment sends a strong message to the young Invisible Man: he, and all blacks, must be degraded to be in the company of white people (Jarenski). The narrator experiences even more racism when he attempts to strike out on his own. The Invisible Man takes great pride in his respect for and civil behavior towards everyone, regardless of race. However, neither whites nor blacks saw this as a good thing and rather a reflection of his perceived Shadow Self’s negative implications being realized. The whites in the novel were obviously skeptical of a black man with seemingly good intentions and because of their preconceived notions about the character and intentions of African Americans were likely to see the Invisible Man as a Shadow Self. Even something as simple as throwing out litter is suspicious and turns into a shocking episode because of his skin color and the narrator receives a verbal lashing: “Don’t try to hand me that simple-minded crap. I know what kind of garbage it is. You young New York Negroes is a blip! I swear you is! I hope they catch you and put your ass in jail!” (Ellison 323). This furthers his realization that many people only see his blackness and by extension his Shadow Self. The narrator’s fellow “brothers”, white and black men in the same union, also see and fear his outwards Shadow Self when they begin to feel that the agenda he advocates in speeches is contrary to their group’s ideology and interests. Their suspicion arises from the narrator’s education and what they perceive as characteristic selfishness to the educated black Shadow Self. Overall this is very discouraging to the Invisible Man because his job often requires him to mediate between blacks and whites or blacks and blacks and neither sees him as he sees his Self. Both sides take it one step further, going from disagreeing with him to chastising and punishing him, and overall this becomes a huge detriment to his progress in attaining individuation.

Despite the narrator in Invisible Man acknowledging his invisibility very early in the novel, he only embraces it when he realizes that the alternative is being known only for his Shadow Self. In the earlier parts of the book, the narrator works to be visible because he surmises from one instance that a large component of his invisibility is literal and physical, and thus he believes that if he makes himself heard, others will see him for his Self. When he moves to New York City, the Invisible Man realizes this is not the case. The narrator’s invisibility does not, for the most part, come from a physical cause but instead “occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom [he has] come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality” (Ellison prologue II). Even more discouraging, whatever the narrator does to reaffirm his sense of Self, such as becoming an activist and working under white men, seemed to backfire and only further focuses everyone on his Shadow Self. Warren French eloquently describes this archetypal struggle as “a series of nested boxes that an individual, trapped in the constricting enter, seeks to escape, only to find each box within a bigger one that is more difficult to escape because it presents problems for which the captive figure’s previous successes have not at all prepared him.” To a young man who thinks of himself as moral and intellectual, the Invisible Man’s inability to elevate himself above a perceived Shadow Self is highly frustrating. Eventually he feels left with no choice but to embrace his invisibility because the alternative is only being known for his Shadow Self. By resigning himself to being invisible, the narrator gives up his previously established sense of Self. Furthermore, the fact that Ellison did not produce a sequel to tell of the Invisible Man’s reemergence could potentially suggest that Ellison saw no positive resolution to his protagonist’s archetypal journey to individuation and thus leaves him resigned to invisibility (French). Thus, by the end of the novel the narrator has fully embraced invisibility and descended underground, away from the watchful and vengeful eyes of society.

The protagonist of Invisible Man ends the novel in a stunted state of his archetypal journey, abandoning his outward Self and assuming a literal Shadow Self entirely; however, he finds positives in his invisible Shadow Self and outlines his plan to attain individuation despite societal prejudices. Although the novel concludes with no individuation for the narrator, he has begun his journey back to achieving a sense of self and sets his goals on individuation. Previously the narrator saw his blackness as the cause of his invisibility and thus thought it was a hindrance. However, once he embraces invisibility, he finds that it has provided him with an avenue to be alone with his thoughts and escape the negativity that his perceived Shadow Self brings upon him. The epilogue of the novel already provides evidence to his progress in diagnosing his Shadow Self: “The fact is that you carry your sickness within you, at least I do as an invisible man. I carried my sickness and though for a long time I tried to place it in the outside world, the attempt to write it down shows me that at least half of it lay within me” (Ellison 566).   Also, the Invisible Man is no longer passive about attaining self-actualization and finds liberty in invisibility. He is proud that “after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled” and declares that “I am an invisible man. Thus I have come a long way and returned and boomeranged along from the point in society toward which I originally aspired” (Ellison 564). Individuation requires both courage and honesty and while above ground and “visible” the narrator lacks the bravery to proclaim his identity and be honest with himself about his strengths and flaws. However, once he is underground, the narrator sets a goal to emerge when he has the strength and support to assert that he is not merely his Shadow Self and thus gives himself a new guideline for what “Self” means to him. This promise makes the “reading of Invisible Man a heroic narrative of the ultimate repossession of a dispossessed self” (Neighbors) and gives the book a hopeful conclusion. The Invisible Man’s relegation to invisibility and the introspection it allows gives him a first step back to individuation and although the conclusion of the novel has no resolution, the journey in underway.

In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin projects a very strong sense of Self due to his widespread influence and his persona in this book acts as the assertive voice of the Invisible Man after he reemerges, eager to individuate. Baldwin had a very similar background to the fictional protagonist of Invisible Man. He was well-educated and well-spoken and because of these traits had the ability to harness a lot of people’s attentions and command a lot of personal efforts. When he wrote The Fire Next Time he was already a well-established author with a large following in the United States and thus had the affirmation to further and enhance his sense of Self. His assertiveness is the characteristic that the Invisible Man hoped to project once he emerged and thus Baldwin is the nonfictional extension of the Invisible Man’s journey to individuation, building up from the bottom point.

Baldwin begins The Fire Next Time with a personal letter to his nephew and in it asserts his strong views, which he has cultivated throughout his life and experiences, that contribute to his sense of Self. In the novel, Baldwin admits that he struggled to find someone to emulate while he was growing up but because of this created his own sense of Self at an early age. He attended a prestigious high school in Harlem and, for his early articles, received a scholarship that allowed him to travel outside of the country (“James Baldwin”). These experiences made Baldwin more informed and worldly and exposed him to an even wider range of views on race, all of which contributed to his personal relationship with his race and morality. Because of his convictions, Baldwin is certain enough to make decisive and condemnatory statements about racial prejudice in his introductory letter: “I know what the world has done. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it” (Baldwin 5). An integral part of Baldwin’s grappling with Self and Shadow Self are his ruminations on the dynamic of black and white and thus decisive statements like this are key in his novel. Overall, Baldwin had a strong sense of Self and this is the crucial first step to attaining individuation.

Baldwin redefines the Shadow Self in The Fire Next Time and in the first part of his novel he contends that since blacks and whites, as humans, have the same potential to be bad and responsibility to be good, blacks and whites have the same Shadow Self. Shadow Self is traditionally defined as a more individual archetypal characteristic; that just as everyone has their own exclusive sense of Self, they would also have flaws and a dark side unique to them. However, Baldwin uses race as a way to convey that everyone has a similar framework to their Shadow Self: “Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals precisely and inexorably what they do not know about themselves” (44). He continues to draw similarities between the black and white Shadow Selves and contends that all humans have the same rudimentary Shadow Self in that everyone has the same responsibility to be a good person and thus has the same ability to not be a good person. By unifying both sides on the idea of Shadow Self, Baldwin also highlights shared interests and directly links the benefits and burdens of blacks to whites and vice versa. He focuses on the significance of both groups’ archetypal similarities to the fate of America declaring, “We, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation- if we are really, that is, to achieve our identity, our maturity, as men and women. To create a nation is a hideously difficult task: there is certainly no need now to create two, one black and one white” (Baldwin 97). By broadening the definition of Shadow Self from individual to a greater collective, Baldwin cretaes a better understanding of the Shadow Self and gives everyone a step up in their individual journeys to individuation. Rather than one group hindering the self-actualization of another like in Invisible Man, Baldwin sets a standard through this new definition and because of his influence and steadfast sense of Self, has a platform to advocate his new ideas.

Baldwin follows up his new definition of Shadow Self by aligning it with the experience of African Americans; pointing out visible manifestations of the black Shadow Self so that individuals could claim them, like Baldwin did, as a part of themselves and get closer to individuation. The new definition envelops not only the idea that the Shadow Self is comprised of bad qualities but also the concept that what is kept in shadow is hidden. Thus, Baldwin characterizes the black Shadow Self at the time as having aspects of both. As per his previous observation and new definition, obviously blacks, just like whites, have negative characteristics and they make up a significant portion of their Shadow Self. However Baldwin delves further into the social aspect and culture of blacks in things such as their speech and mannerisms that they literally keep hidden or in shadow. He lauds blacks “great strength and great cunning to continually assault the mighty and indifferent fortress of white supremacy” (Baldwin 99) but also points out that a lot of their outward characteristics are influenced by whites, “hewn out of the mountain of white supremacy that stone [blacks] individuality” (Baldwin 100). For example, the ingrained tendency of blacks to act respectfully and use terms of deference towards whites such as “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” (Baldwin 101) while they receive no respect in return. This contributes to the Shadow Self because although it is manifested outwardly, neither blacks nor whites truly realize this occurs because this behavior so embedded in society. While Baldwin acknowledges that some hidden aspects of the black Shadow Self are good and can be left unchanged, he still advocates that blacks at least realize the depths, both physically and internally, of their Shadow Selves. By highlighting this facet of Shadow Self in a novel, Baldwin aims to help many of his fellows attain individuation, just as he seems to have done, by synthesizing an established sense of self with a newly formed definition of Shadow Self. This is crucial because all aspects must be realized before individuation can truly be achieved. Thus Baldwin’s acute observations of the hidden Shadow Self of blacks further their archetypal journey.

Through his realizations about Self and Shadow Self in blacks and whites, James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time recognizes the Self and Shadow Self within himself and thus attains the fulfillment inherent to individuation and urges his fellow Americans to seek the same archetypal satisfaction because he realized the historical importance of having individuated citizens. The Fire Next Time was published in 1963 (“James Baldwin”) and during that decade America was at the most crucial point in navigating race relations. James Baldwin believed that he had the answer to resolve these problems. By first synthesizing the Shadow Selves of both blacks and whites and then synthesizing his own Self and Shadow Self in the novel, Baldwin provides a map for all, but specifically for his fellow African Americans to follow, in order to attain individuation. Furthermore, he extends this archetypal similarity as a primary reason to end discrimination and urges both blacks and whites to join together: “If we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare and achieve our country, and end change history of the world” (Baldwin 105). He claims that since the literal and the archetypal interpretation of both Self and Shadow Self are no different between blacks and whites, the barriers that seemingly separate the two based on skin color are nonexistent too and thus individuated people should be able to definitively end discrimination. Baldwin’s purpose of writing a book detailing his archetypal journey is to provide a guide by which others could emulate to individuate themselves and eventually end racial divisions. In The Fire Next Time Baldwin gives the next generation of both black and white people a guide to individuation that he did not have to follow himself and an honorable goal to achieve once they are individuated.

James Baldwin in his nonfiction novel The Fire Next Time provides the assertive extension and eventual individuation that the fictional protagonist in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man does not achieve. Although Ellison’s Invisible Man began the book with a strong sense of Self, the existing stereotypes about the black Shadow Self soon oppress him and he eventually embraces invisibility in its most literal sense in order to escape a Self and Shadow Self with which he does not identify. James Baldwin, on the other hand, maintains his sense of Self as well as embraces his personal, newly made definition of the Shadow Self and these two instances combined allow him to individuate in his novel. This discrepancy can be explained by the difference in style. Baldwin’s novel was nonfiction and highly biographical and he told the tale exactly how he saw it, detailing his personal journey to individuation. Furthermore, his choice in style allowed him the freedom to propose a solution, with strong archetypal basis, to the rampant discrimination in America. Ellison,   on the other hand wrote a fictional novel, rife with allusion, symbolism, and metaphor to illustrate his views on the struggle for African Americans to cultivate a sense of identity during his lifetime. Thus the two complement each other with the nonfiction work, The Fire Next Time, acting as the extension to individuation on the fictional novel, The Invisible Man.