Eloquence and Invisible Man

Readers of Ralph Ellison have tended to understand Invisible Man as a rejection of the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose name may seem to turn up in the novel as what Alan Nadel calls "an author of false hopes." This essay takes up the relationship between Emerson and Ellison by placing them in dialogue over the subject of eloquence. Both writers were drawn to comparisons between spoken eloquence and musical acumen: for Emerson, the eloquent orator's audience becomes an "instrument" of sorts, while for Ellison the audience is akin to a duet partner with whom eloquent speakers concoct spoken performances qua improvised composition. I place Emerson and Ellison in this context in order to undermine the idea that Invisible Man is an anti-Emerson novel, and to demonstrate the extent to which Ellison, himself an accomplished jazz performer, understood both his written and musical craft—along with the self-definition these crafts entail—as Emersonian in scope.