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6c3d38a
|
I could hardly get to sleep for dreaming of revenge.
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revenge
ralph-ellison
invisible-man
|
Ralph Ellison |
|
92bf04e
|
"I can hear you say, "What a horrible, irresponsible bastard!" And you're right. I leap to agree with you. I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me? And wait until I reveal how truly irresponsible I am. Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement."
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|
invisible-black-men
invisible-man
racists
blind
racism-in-america
|
Ralph Ellison |
|
23d6254
|
That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their INNER eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality.
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|
invisible-black-men
invisible-man
racists
blind
racism-in-america
|
Ralph Ellison |
|
5ef7524
|
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me.
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|
literature
ralph-ellison
invisible-man
civil-rights-movement
|
Ralph Ellison |
|
33f7fae
|
Then too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy.
|
|
invisible-black-men
invisible-man
racists
blind
racism-in-america
|
Ralph Ellison |