Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.
Time Magazine (27 March 1964)
Commercial rock ’n’ roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music … an obscene looting of a cultural expression.
Shadow and Act (1964)
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.
Prologue
It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful.
Prologue
The truth is the light and light is the truth.
Prologue
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?
Prologue
"I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open..."
Chapter 1
I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
Chapter 1
Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.
Chapter 1
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and
writerA writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. He was born in
Oklahoma City, OklahomaOklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...
. Ellison is best known for his novel
Invisible Man, which won the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in
1953The year 1953 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* January 22 - The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opens on Broadway....
. He also wrote
Shadow and ActShadow and Act is a collection of essays by Ralph Ellison, published in 1964. The writings encompass the two decades which began with Ellison's involvement with African American political activism and print media in Harlem, Ellison's emergence as a highly acclaimed writer with the publication of...
(
1964The year 1964 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Jean-Paul Sartre becomes head of the Organization to Defend Iranian Political Prisoners....
), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and
Going to the Territory (
1986The year 1986 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Michael Grade. Controller of BBC One, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.-New books:*Kingsley Amis - The Old Devils...
).
Early life
Ralph Ellison, named after
Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, was born in
Oklahoma City, OklahomaOklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...
, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap. Research by Lawrence Jackson, one of Ellison's biographers, has established that he was born a year earlier than had been previously thought. He had one brother named Herbert Millsap Ellison, who was born in 1916. Lewis Alfred Ellison, a small-business owner and a construction foreman, died when Ralph was three years old from stomach ulcers he received from an ice-delivering accident. Many years later, Ellison would find out that his father hoped he would grow up to be a poet.
In 1933, Ellison entered the Tuskegee Institute on a scholarship to study music. Tuskegee's music department was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by the conductor William L. Dawson. Ellison also had the good fortune to come under the close tutelage of the piano instructor
Hazel HarrisonHazel Harrison was an American pianist, known as the premiere black pianist of her time.Harrison was born in La Porte, Indiana, and spent most of her childhood home schooled. In her 20s Harrison went to Europe for employment and education. She spent most of her time in Berlin performing recitals...
. While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent increasing amounts of time in the library, reading up on modernist classics. He specifically cited reading
The Waste LandThe Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
as a major awakening moment for him.
After his third year, Ellison moved to New York City to study the visual arts. He studied sculpture and photography. He made acquaintance with the artist
Romare BeardenRomare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
. Perhaps Ellison's most important contact would be with the author
Richard WrightRichard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, with whom he would have a long and complicated relationship. After Ellison wrote a book review for Wright, Wright encouraged Ellison to pursue a career in writing, specifically fiction. The first published story written by Ellison was a short story entitled "Hymie's Bull," a story inspired by Ellison's hoboing on a train with his uncle to get to Tuskegee. From 1937 to 1944 Ellison had over twenty book reviews as well as short stories and articles published in magazines such as
New Challenge and
New Masses.
Writing career
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Ellison joined the
Merchant MarineThe United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...
, and in 1946 he married his second wife, Fanny McConnell. She worked as a photographer to help sustain Ellison. From 1947 to 1951 he earned some money writing book reviews, but spent most of his time working on
Invisible ManInvisible Man is a novel written by Ralph Ellison, and the only one that he published during his lifetime . It won him the National Book Award in 1953...
. Fanny also helped type Ellison's longhand text and assisted her husband in editing the typescript as it progressed.
Published in 1952,
Invisible ManInvisible Man is a novel written by Ralph Ellison, and the only one that he published during his lifetime . It won him the National Book Award in 1953...
explores the theme of man’s search for his identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of an unnamed black man in the New York City of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and
James BaldwinJames Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
, Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate and self-aware. Through the protagonist, Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their alienating effect. The narrator is "invisible" in a figurative sense, in that "people refuse to see" him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel, with its treatment of taboo issues such as incest, won the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1953.
In 1955, Ellison went abroad to Europe to travel and lecture before settling for a time in Rome, Italy, where he wrote an essay that appeared in a Bantam anthology called
A New Southern Harvest in 1957.
Robert Penn WarrenRobert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
was in Rome during the same period and the two writers became close friends. In 1958, Ellison returned to the United States to take a position teaching American and Russian literature at
Bard CollegeBard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
and to begin a second novel,
JuneteenthJuneteenth is the title of African American writer Ralph Ellison's second novel , published posthumously as a 368-page condensation of over 2000 pages written by him over a period of forty years. It was originally written without any real organization, and Ellison's longtime friend, biographer and...
. During the 1950s he corresponded with his lifelong friend, the writer Albert Murray. In their letters they commented on the development of their careers, the civil rights movement and other common interests including jazz. Much of this material was published in the collection
Trading Twelves (2000).
In 1964, Ellison published
Shadow and ActShadow and Act is a collection of essays by Ralph Ellison, published in 1964. The writings encompass the two decades which began with Ellison's involvement with African American political activism and print media in Harlem, Ellison's emergence as a highly acclaimed writer with the publication of...
, a collection of essays, and began to teach at
Rutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
and
Yale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, while continuing to work on his novel. The following year, a survey of 200 prominent literary figures was released that proclaimed
Invisible Man the most important novel since World War II.
In 1967, Ellison experienced a major house fire at his home in
Plainfield, MassachusettsPlainfield is a town on the northwestern edge of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, about 25 miles east of Pittsfield and 30 miles northwest of Northampton. The population was 589 at the 2000 census...
, in which he claimed more than 300 pages of his second novel manuscript were lost. This assertion is challenged in the 2007 biography of Ellison by
Arnold RampersadArnold Rampersad is a biographer and literary critic. The first volume of his Life Of Langston Hughes was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He was born in Trinidad and Tobago....
. A perfectionist regarding the art of the novel, Ellison had said in accepting his National Book Award for
Invisible Man, that he felt he had made "an attempt at a major novel", and despite the award, he was unsatisfied with the book. Ellison ultimately wrote over 2000 pages of this second novel. He never finished it.
Writing essays about both the black experience and his love for jazz music, Ellison continued to receive major awards for his work. In 1969 he received the
Presidential Medal of FreedomThe Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
; the following year, he was made a Chevalier of the
Ordre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
by France and became a permanent member of the faculty at
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, serving from 1970 to 1980.
In 1975, Ellison was elected to
The American Academy of Arts and LettersThe American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society; its goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York, it shares Audubon Terrace, its Beaux Arts campus on...
and his hometown of Oklahoma City honored him with the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library. Continuing to teach, Ellison published mostly essays, and in 1984, he received the New York City College's
Langston Hughes MedalThe Langston Hughes Medal is awarded annually to recognize an influential and engaging African American writer. Established by the late Raymond Patterson, Professor Emeritus of English at the City College of New York, the medal honors Langston Hughes' life-long commitment to social change through...
. In 1985, he was awarded the
National Medal of ArtsThe National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
. In 1986, his
Going to the Territory was published. This is a collection of seventeen essays that included insight into southern novelist
William FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
and Ellison's friend Richard Wright, as well as the music of
Duke EllingtonEdward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and the contributions of African Americans to America’s national identity.
Final years
In 1992, Ellison was awarded a special achievement award from the
Anisfield-Wolf Book AwardsThe Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards are United States literary awards dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture...
. Ellison was also an accomplished sculptor, musician, photographer and college professor. He taught at Bard College, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, and New York University. Ellison was also a charter member of the
Fellowship of Southern WritersThe Fellowship of Southern Writers is a literary organization founded in 1987 in Chattanooga, Tennessee by 21 Southern writers and other literary luminaries...
.
Ralph Ellison died on April 16, 1994, of
pancreatic cancerPancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
, and was buried at
Trinity Church CemeteryTrinity Church Cemetery consists of three separate burial grounds associated with Trinity Church in Manhattan, New York, USA. The first was established in the Churchyard located at 74 Trinity Place at Wall Street and Broadway...
in the
Washington HeightsWashington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...
neighborhood of
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was survived by his wife, Fanny Ellison, who died on November 19, 2005.
After his death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in the publication of
Flying Home and Other Stories in 1996. In 1999, five years after his death, Ellison's second novel,
JuneteenthJuneteenth is the title of African American writer Ralph Ellison's second novel , published posthumously as a 368-page condensation of over 2000 pages written by him over a period of forty years. It was originally written without any real organization, and Ellison's longtime friend, biographer and...
, was published under the editorship of
John F. CallahanJohn F. Callahan is literary executor for Ralph Ellison, and was the editor for his posthumously-released novel Juneteenth. In addition to his work with Ellison, Callahan has written or edited numerous volumes related to African-American literature, with a particular emphasis on 20th century...
, a professor at
Lewis & Clark CollegeLewis & Clark College is a private institution of higher learning located in Portland, Oregon. Made up of an undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, a School of Law, and a Graduate School of Education and Counseling. Lewis & Clark is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges with athletic...
and Ellison's
literary executorA literary executor is a person with decision-making power in respect of a literary estate. According to Wills, Administration and Taxation: a practical guide "A will may appoint different executors to deal with different parts of the estate...
. It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2000 pages written by Ellison over a period of forty years. All the manuscripts of this incomplete novel were published collectively on January 26, 2010, by
Modern LibraryThe Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
, under the title
Three Days Before the ShootingThree Days Before the Shooting... is the title of the edited manuscript of Ralph Ellison's never-finished second novel. It was co-edited by John F. Callahan, the executor of Ellison's literary estate, and Adam Bradley, a professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The book was...
.
Fiction
- Invisible Man (Random House, 1952) ISBN 0-679-60139-2
- Flying Home and Other Stories (Random House, 1996) ISBN 0-679-45704-6
- Juneteenth
Juneteenth is the title of African American writer Ralph Ellison's second novel , published posthumously as a 368-page condensation of over 2000 pages written by him over a period of forty years. It was originally written without any real organization, and Ellison's longtime friend, biographer and...
(Random House, 1999) ISBN 0-394-46457-5
- "A Party Down at the Square
"A Party Down at the Square" is a short story by the American writer Ralph Ellison, first published in 1997, three years after the author's death. It is a story of a Deep South lynching as perceived by a white boy from Cincinnati, Ohio.- Summary :...
" (short story) in Gwynn, R. S. (ed). Literature: A Pocket Anthology (4th Edition) (Penguin, 2008) ISBN 0-205-65510-6
- Three Days Before the Shooting
Three Days Before the Shooting... is the title of the edited manuscript of Ralph Ellison's never-finished second novel. It was co-edited by John F. Callahan, the executor of Ellison's literary estate, and Adam Bradley, a professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The book was...
(Modern Library, 2010) ISBN 0-375-75953-6
Essays
- Shadow and Act
Shadow and Act is a collection of essays by Ralph Ellison, published in 1964. The writings encompass the two decades which began with Ellison's involvement with African American political activism and print media in Harlem, Ellison's emergence as a highly acclaimed writer with the publication of...
(Random House, 1964) ISBN 0-679-76000-8
- Going to the Territory (Random House, 1986) ISBN 0-394-54050-6
- The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison (Modern Library, 1995) ISBN 0-679-60176-7
- Living with Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings (Modern Library, 2002) ISBN 0-375-76023-7
Letters
- Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray (Modern Library, 2000) ISBN 0-375-50367-6
Sources
External links