Although this was a very short section of Ralph Ellison’s
work and the introduction labels it as a biographical essay, I still felt it
contained many concepts of a memoir. Ellison puts us the readers in time and
space, provides his feelings and reflections and has a story to tell that can
be applied to others’ lives. The message of Ellison’s work revolves around the
idea of the “little man hidden behind the stove,” that is introduced to him by
Miss Harrison.
Behind Ellison himself, Miss Harrison is the second most prevalent
character that is focused on in this short section. Ellison does not do much to
develop her physically in this section but because of her interactions and background
knowledge we find that she is a highly skilled pianist who is well educated in
music and has a multicultural background having lived in Berlin. I personally,
am very visual and like to be able to picture characters and events in my head
and was slightly bothered by the fact he does not describe her. In the introduction
it explains that Ellison refers to her frequently in his writing so I would
assume that earlier in Going to Territory, he gives a detailed account of her.
I would say it is fair to make this assumption because of the amount of detail
he provides later in this excerpt when he is in New York getting his petition
signed.
I felt that Ellison did have reflection in this piece but
still wish there was more. The first time I noticed reflection is at the bottom
of page 281. “Speechless, I stared at her. After the working-over I’d just received
from the faculty, I was in no mood for joking.” “So what did she mean?”
Although this is brief, it gives some insight as to what he was feeling and
thinking at the time. Because the introduction labeled this as biographical I was
nervous there would be no reflection at all.
One section that I particularly enjoyed was again on page
281 and runs onto 282. After Miss Harrison gives her explanation on the little
man, Ellison writes for basically a full page of text. He discusses what was
goingthrough his head, explained the train station, the tradition of music in
Tuskegee and then he finally explains his reaction to Miss Harrison. “So as
Miss Harrison watched to see the effect of her words, I said with a shrug, “Yes,
ma’am”” (282).
Another example of reflection is on page 282 where Ellison
explains what he wish Miss Harrison would have said to him. I really liked this
and wondered if this is what he felt at the time or if this is something he
added because of what he now knows. Either way I feel it makes this seem like a
memoir because it is possible that he made this memory up, much like what we
discussed Monday in class.
One thing I that caught my attention in the second half of
this was the fact that he doesn’t recall what the petition was for. It is
obviously not important to the development of the story but I wonder if this
was written as a memoir, if Ellison would have made up a topic for the petition
or if he would have felt it was just unimportant and would only retract from
the story.
I really enjoyed the style Ellison used with this second
story. He did a good job of setting the scene and then creating suspense for
what was going to happen. I must say that immediately assumed he was going to
knock on the door and not simply walk away because if he walked away there
would probably be no story to tell. I really enjoyed the amount of detail he
implemented in this section and you get some reflection from the detail. He
explains how he is indecisive but very curious, allowing us to get insight into
his character. You also can see he is well educated and cultured but that he
strives on stereotypical judgments as he stands outside the door, explaining to
us what he thinks he will find inside.
In closing I thought the ending was perfect for this
section. He explained how the two stories came full circle. This is much like
Bachdel with two separate stories connecting to make reason in a person’s life.
I wonder if it hit him in that instant or if it was through reflection that he
realized this was the time he first discovered the little man. The way he
writes it, it is thought to have been the decisive moment where he remembers.
I would like to piggyback off of what John mentions in his post about the petition. Ellison says he does not recall what the petition was for: "As a member of the New York Writers' Project, I was spending a clammy, late fall afternoon of freedom circulating a social petition in support of some now long-forgotten social issue that I regarded as indispensable to the public good" (283). In this passage, I felt as though I learned a lot about Ellison's character. As a young man, he was clearly passionate about the social issues of his time, and he wanted to make a difference in his community. However, in retrospect, he mocks his efforts and sees how possibly naive he was. I also like how he comes out and says that he does not remember what the petition is for---there's a sense of honesty in this. He may not remember the reason for the petition, but he does remember the words of Miss Harrison, and I think this is important in his memoir. He places a deep level of significance on the words of Miss Harrison and the epiphany he had concerning those words because this is what stuck with him all these years. He does not place significance on the petition because now it means nothing, it is no longer important. My point is that I like that he says he does not remember it and I think this is very "memoir-ish." There are details in our memories that we will not remember because they were not as significant as other details that we do remember. Sure, we could make it up, but isn't it even more powerful when we admit that we can't remember? As I mentioned before, I think there's this honesty that he portrays as well, which is important in a genre that is crafted around truth with a little bit of fiction thrown in.
ReplyDeleteI think that Ralph Ellison does a good job in this excerpt from Going to the Territory at telling two different experiences in two different periods of his life and then tying them together. The first part of the memoir, Ellison's piano teacher tells him that he should always play his best because there will always be a “little man behind a stove,” or someone who is educated in the ways of music, regardless of where he is playing at. Ellison doesn't believe her until three years later where he finds these men. At this point, he is through playing music and is working as a writer and circulating a petition. He goes to a black apartment building and overhears common, “foul-mouthed,” working-class African Americans arguing extensively about the Opera.
ReplyDeleteBy the end of the excerpt, Ellison is a changed man and his assumptions about social, cultural, and racial limitations change. Ellison writes strong reflections regarding race, class, and social status. He writes, “my appreciation of the arcane ways of American cultural possibility was vastly extended...the joke, the apparent contradiction, sprang from my attempting to see them by the light of social concepts that cast less illumination than an inert lump of coal.” In addition, Ellison does a good job at describing how shocked he is that these men know so much about the opera, a subject that “their linguistically projected social status” should have prevented them from knowing about. The reader can really feel his disbelief. Ellison can't believe what he's hearing,so he knocks “out of curiosity,” “outrage,” “in fear and trembling,” and “in anticipation of whatever insights” he may find.
What intrigued me most about the Ellison piece was the way he characterizes himself. Through the excerpt, we understand that though educated, Ellison often fell into the pitfall expectations for people based on racial/class/social status. I was impressed with how he was able to show his character as almost a little snobby, saying that afternoon he was "circulating a social petition in support of some now long-forgotten social issue that I regarded as indispensable to the public good" (283). This phrasing read as almost a reflection to me, coming from his current knowledge talking about his past self. I feel he also shows his immaturity in the first section where he talks about how he wanted his teacher to give him more support. I find this to be so interesting because he kind of puts himself down, and shows his weaknesses, which is very brave. Shannon pointed the sense of honesty in this piece, and I totally agree with that. He could easily have painted himself as someone less biased by expectations (especially considering he was somewhat of an activist) but he owns up to his own shortcomings and shows how they affected him and how he grew from them. I think this feeling is what makes the piece so compelling for me.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way when I was reading this, it was nice to see that he was very upfront about his attitudes and conotations; particularly when he mentions how angry he was that the "four foulmouthed black workingmen" would know more about the opera than he would. And I think Ellison's level of honesty and self-description is something that we haven't seen yet this semester. Also, the ending paragraph of this book is what really solidified this idea for me. When he admits that he was faulted and how he got realization and self-understanding from this particular experience.
DeleteI really like the way that Ellison starts out this memoir. He opens up with a confusing statement, saying, “It was at the Tuskegee Institute during the mid 1930s that I was made aware of the little man behind the stove,” (280). I had no idea what he was talking about when I read this, but later on in the memoir Ellison explains what he meant by this. It was symbolic for saying that you should always be doing your best because you never know whose watching or listening.
ReplyDeleteI found Ellison to be pretty genuine in his writing. A lot of times it is hard for us to judge or critique ourselves or our work but Ellison comes out and says that he wasn’t the best at playing music. He tells us that the faculty replaced him in the recital because they didn’t like his playing. He also brings up the harsh criticism that he says burned his ears. To point out his own short comings made him a more credible writer to me.
I also liked how Ellison continues to revisit the “man behind the stove” saying. It is a good life lesson that makes a lot of sense. One thing that I will critique Ellison on was I couldn’t identify his characters as good as some other writers. I found the dialect to be similar to Hurston’s but I thought she did a better job of using her character’s dialect to describe who they were.
The most interesting part for me in Ralph Ellison’s excerpt from his memoir “Going to the Territory” is moreso the placement of the characters. I feel like a majority of our “lesson” that every memoir seems to have, comes very early in the piece from Mrs. Harrison. Usually, I feel like the memoir builds up to the lesson learned by the narrator, in which it all comes together at the end for the reflection aspect. This is different, in which we get our lesson only a few paragraphs in/on the second page of the memoir stating from Mrs. Harrison, “Of course you’ve always been taught to do your best, look your best, be your best. You’ve been told such things all your life. But now you’re becoming a musician, an artist, and when it comes to performing the classics in this country, there’s something more involved” (281). I find this pivotal, because it seems to be a persona changer for Ellison. Also, I found it interesting she said “in this country” since previously stated on the same page that Mrs. Harrison was driven her to the States after the rise of Hitler. I think the flip flopping here works in this piece; it demonstrates Ellison’s personality.
ReplyDeleteAlong with his personality, it can be seen in his nervous dialogue scenes. With Mrs. Harrison he talks strictly in “Yes, ma’am” statements and when talking with the black gentlemen later on in the piece, he is obviously overwhelmed and is nervous when talking to them. Ellison seems to be anxious because of the perhaps premonition that everyone needs to work hard to get what they want in life—a form of the lesson Mrs. Harrison has taught Ellison earlier.
Ralph Ellison's excerpt from Going to the Territory provided an interesting take on the paper we're currently creating. Yes, it's a rather short section. Too short, perhaps, to consider his two sections actual chapters, but they do provide a certain blueprint for our own papers. As others have pointed out, Ellison wrote about two seemingly unrelated events in his life and ties them together. He even snuck in some Bechdel-like effects when he wrote "Biased toward disaster by bruised feelings, my imagination pictured the vibrations set in motion by the winding of a trumpet within drab, utilitarian structure: first shattering, then bringing its walls 'a tumbling down'--like Jericho's at the sounding of Joshua's priest-blown ram horns" (282). I also found an example of the one-sentence paragraph; something I find I'm afraid/hesitant to use in my own writing for some reason. Ellison didn't use it often, but like Hurston, he used it effectively. After some dialogue between himself and Miss Harrison, Ellison writes "With that, seating herself at her piano, she began thumbing through a sheaf of scores--a signal that our discussion was ended" (282). Not quite as poignant as some of Hurston's one-liners, but it was a nice transition from his dialogue into his inner thoughts and reflection. What I liked most about this piece of writing is the way Ellison culminated with a lesson learned. I think he summed it up beautifully when he wrote "my sense of order restored, my appreciation of the arcane ways of American cultural possibility was vastly extended. The men were products of both past and present; were both coal heavers and Met extras; were both workingmen and opera buffs" (287).
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked about this memoir is that it had a meaning; Ellison is given this advice, which he resents at the time and by the end of his journey, he finds Mrs. Harrison's words to be true. I thought he chose this very relatable concept, at least to me. When you're young, you get advice from adults that you don't really care for or understand at the time, but as you grow older you realize they were right.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of reflection in this short memoir, but I have come to prefer memoirs that let us get inside the writers head and get to know who they are a little better, and I felt Ellison did this. I also thought he was very eloquent in his descriptions. An example of this is on 284 when he is deciding whether or not to knock on the apartment door or not he writes, "Thus, with such a distortion of perspective being imposed on me, I was challenged to either solve the mystery of their knowledge or to leave the building with my sense of logic reduced forever to a level of college-trained absurdity." Though Ellison doesn't really give much visual description in the piece, he manages to pull readers in by describing his emotions and it puts them in the scene in a different way.
Ralph Ellison's Going to the Territory has a great amount meaning behind it along with a lesson learned and a change to the character. The way I viewed Ellison's character when he is first presented is that he is like many college students. He wants to change the world, shake things up, but the way in which he has to accomplish the tasks are meaningless or don't make any sense. Whether it is his upsetting the faculty, not believing his music teacher Hazel Harrison, or believing that his petition isn't worth a damn. He provides a great amount of internal thought process as he is going through this event in his life. One example of this is on page 282 upon completion of his meeting with Miss Harrison he states, “So, I thought, you ask for sympathy and you get a riddle.” He would have much rather received sympathy from her than to learn his lesson properly. He continues to demonstrate this initial character trait when he first goes on his hunt for signatures on pages 283. “As a member of the New York Writer's Project, I was spending a clammy, late fall afternoon of freedom circulating a petition in support of some now long-forgotten social issue that I regarded as indispensable to the public good.” These two different scenes to me bring up how he wants only the best for him and others and has the means to accomplish them, but without any idea, reason, or how to go about them properly. This obviously comes full circle once he meets with the four black men in their apartment. He unravels the mystery of the man behind the stove and begins to understand and reflect that “Where there's a melting pot there's smoke, and where there's smoke it is not simply optimistic to expect fire, it's imperative to watch for the phoenix's vernacular, but transcendent, rising” (287). There is a good amount of reflection in the piece, accompanied with some very well written scene creation, but I felt that this aspect of the piece really stood out to me. Being inside the mind of the character and his dynamic realizations added more to the piece than his reflection. Ellison demonstrated his transformation from point A to point B while at the end really driving home his reflection. This is especially effective because Ellison tells the reader at the beginning what he is going to be in search of, what his problem is, his journey to find his solution, and ends with his conquering of his problem and reflecting upon his journey. Overall I really enjoyed this piece because of the fluid storytelling, the dynamic main character, the lesson learned and reflection, and the overall flow of the words on the paper.
ReplyDelete-Todd Breitenbach
I was also, for some weird reason, struck by the fact that he totally did not remember what this petition was for. I, personally, feel like if I was spending that much time trying to convince people of the greater social good that I would at least remember it. I definitely feel like he remembered the important parts of the story: the man behind the stove.
ReplyDeleteThe entire concept of “the man behind the stove” is so interesting. The idea that anywhere, at any time, some expert in a given subject (here, music) is waiting and could potentially be listening seems almost absurd at first. But the more you think about it, the more possible it becomes.
I think that what I enjoyed the most about this piece was that Ellison allows the reader to see him grow. He flat out tells the reader that his basic beliefs were challenged by these African American men who were opera critics. I enjoy that Ellison allows the reader to share this moment with him. One of my favorite parts about reading these memoirs has been the ability to see the authors grow as people through short stories. So I like that Ellison basically walks his reader through his change. We don’t have to guess how he is changed, he tells us.