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Who Was Buckeye The Rabbit Analysis

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1. “‘But you don’t even know the difference between the way things are and the way they're supposed to be. My God,’ [Bledsoe] gasped, ‘what is the race coming to? Why, boy, you can tell anyone you like- sit down there . . . Sit down, sir, I say!’” Relectanly, I sat, torn between anger and fascination, hating myself for obeying.” (Ellison 142) In this quote, Dr. Bledsoe is yelling at the narrator for the immature way he handled Mr. Norton by taking him to Trueblood’s cabin and the Golden Day. As he is yelling, Bledsoe repeatedly ushers that the only way black people can please a white man is to tell them a lie. After the narrator threatens Bledsoe that he will expose the truth to Mr. Norton of his expulsion from the school, Bledsoe retaliates …show more content…

This alludes to the imagery of folklore because Br'er Rabbit an example from old folktale with its origins drawing back to Africa. This references Ellison’s purpose through the use of motifs, specifically symbols of racism because folklore were symbols for how African Americans dealt with the world. They identified themselves as the characters in the well-known folk tales similar to how the narrator of Invisible Man identifies himself as characters such as Br'er Rabbit, which is characterized as a clever, likable character. Br'er Rabbit is cunning and uses his intelligence to avoid/escape difficult situations, and the narrator is compared to him because he also attempts to use his intellectual ability to find his way out of tough situations. This is evident as the narrator leaves the factory hospital because he not only has a new identity and sense of himself, but he also can only remember specific folklore, an important symbol of racism in his life, as he moves

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