Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination

2206 Words5 Pages

Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination While most fictional characters are given a voice with which to express themselves, that voice usually does not stray beyond their realm of fiction and therefore is restricted from the power of the real world. The imaginary black man that Susan Smith falsely claimed had abducted her children in 1994, however, existed in reality in the minds of the American public for nine days until the truth surfaced about her infanticide. Cornelius Eady’s poetry cycle, Brutal Imagination, serves to give that imaginary black man (hereafter referred to as Zero), a voice that draws power from his simultaneous existence in both the real and fictional realms. Zero’s voice serves to explain a variety of aspects of his existence, including assertions of his own innocence, criticisms of Susan Smith, explorations of his paradoxical nature, and social commentary regarding the notions of free will versus powerful exterior forces. Zero is the product of Susan Smith’s and Cornelius Eady’s imaginations, and therefore lacks his own capacity for free will. Eady, however, allows Zero the seeming capacity for free thought and opinion, and therefore the opinions expressed by the character will hereafter be declared to be those of Zero, rather than Eady. Lucid of his lack of free will, Zero admits, “I float in forces / I can’t always control” (17). In the effort to discover what these external forces are, he feels compelled to explore his origins that caused his inception in the mind of Susan Smith. The attempt is made to explain various hypothetical examples of potential interactions that led to his ultimate creation. He assumes that at a young age, Susan was told that that “All [blacks] do... ... middle of paper ... ...t actually be dead. “And here is the one good thing: / If [Zero is] alive, then so, briefly, are [the children]” (7). This abandonment of reality did not necessarily happen or may have been transient, but Zero simply maintains its existence as a possibility. Though described as “dull in his invented hide” (28) by “Uncle Tom in Heaven,” Zero is actually quite complex in his desire to articulate his ideas about his brief life with Susan and his life eternal. His complexity is compounded further by his paradoxical nature, especially his simultaneous existence as a “real” man and as a fictional product of Susan Smith’s brutal imagination. As an eternal symbol of the oppressed and abused, he could be said to maintain a symbolic reality regarding the existence of external forces acting against the oppressed, stripping them of the extent of their free will.

Show More
Related

  • Junot Diaz No Face

    1722 Words  | 4 Pages

    No Face is living in an unfortunate situation where he needs to constantly run away from people’s hostility towards him.  People who encounter this central character “wish him to fall” and for “him to be gone.”  Only but three other characters show empathy and compassion towards No Face—Padre Lou, the Canadian doctor and the owner of the beauty shop.  Even his own family members are portrayed as distant or negligent to No Face.  It also seems like he is disowned by his parents. In No Face, Junot Diaz, explores the effects on families and particularly boys and young men when absent fathers and therefore a lack of suitable role models, poverty and the potential for an apparent better life in the US, pervade their very existence. He copes with his lack of a relationship with his father by, not only lying about his whereabouts, pretending that he is in the US, but by creating a superhero in his imagination where he can right wrongs and is always "fighting evil."  Not only was he harassed verbally, but he was also confronted by a group of boys who wanted to physically hurt him and “turn him into a girl.”  He responded to these environments in a way that shows he is beyond fear and revenge.  Instead of cursing or fighting back, he genuinely believed in a strength that lies within him.  When No Face was being ambushed by a group of bullies, He proclaimed “STRENGTH” while the “fat boy” was

    Read More

  • Prejudice in "King of the Bingo Game"

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.

    Read More

  • Experiences And Challenges In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stories are often left untold or forgotten. The stories that are deemed profound or are remembered are of fact or evident to the masses. The stories that make up history, such as the African Americans’ fight for equality, are made up of concrete events that were witnessed. On the contrary, stories like the narrator’s in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man are generally overlooked because they are focused on an individual’s experience. This is due to the theory that humanity is naturally self-involved, but also ashamed because the majority of our experiences consist of challenges. The narrator’s story was filled with past humiliations that were the major cornerstones to his identity. He illustrated the significance of embracing our humiliations, or

    Read More

  • Consumerism And Materialism In Less Than Zero By Bret Easton Ellis

    1516 Words  | 4 Pages

    Less Than Zero is a debut novel of Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985. It is a novel that is geared toward mainstream than literary fiction audience. Although Less Than Zero was loosely adapted into a movie in 1987 by 20th Century Fox, Ellis argued that there was no connection between the film and the novel except for the title, names of the characters, and the location of Southern California. By 2010, Ellis wrote his forthcoming novel Imperial Bedrooms the sequel to Less Than Zero. Overall Less Than Zero is a genre of fiction.

    Read More

  • The Invisible Man

    934 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ralph Ellison speaks of a man who is “invisible” to the world around him because people fail to acknowledge his presence. The author of the piece draws from his own experience as an ignored man and creates a character that depicts the extreme characteristics of a man whom few stop to acknowledge. Ellison persuades his audience to sympathize with this violent man through the use of rhetorical appeal. Ethos and pathos are dominant in Ellison’s writing style. His audience is barely aware of the gentle encouragement calling them to focus on the “invisible” individuals around us. Ralph Ellison’s rhetoric in, “Prologue from The Invisible Man,” is effective when it argues that an individual with little or no identity will eventually resort to a life of aimless destruction and isolation.

    Read More

  • Jazz in Invisible Man

    1453 Words  | 3 Pages

    Margolies, Edward. “History as Blues: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1968. 127-148. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski and Roger Matuz. Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale, 1989. 115-119. Print.

    Read More

  • Racism and Identity in Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man

    2213 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Ralph Ellison’s novel The Invisible man, the unknown narrator states “All my life I had been looking for something and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was…I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself the question which I, and only I, could answer…my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!” (13). throughout the novel, the search for identity becomes a major aspect for the narrator’s journey to identify who he is in this world. The speaker considers himself to be an “invisible man” but he defines his condition of being invisible due to his race (Kelly). Identity and race becomes an integral part of the novel. The obsession with identity links the narrator with the society he lives in, where race defines the characters in the novel. Society has distinguished the characters in Ellison’s novel between the African and Caucasian and the narrator journey forces him to abandon the identity in which he thought he had to be reborn to gain a new one. Ellison’s depiction of the power struggle between African and Caucasians reveals that identity is constructed to not only by the narrator himself but also the people that attempt to influence. The modernized idea of being “white washed” is evident in the narrator and therefore establishes that identity can be reaffirmed through rebirth, renaming, or changing one’s appearance to gain a new persona despite their race. The novel becomes a biological search for the self due through the American Negroes’ experience (Lillard 833). Through this experience the unknown narrator proves that identity is a necessary part of his life but race c...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bennett argues that the debunking of intentionality as a primary means to effect, “loosens the connection between efficacy and the moral subject, bringing efficacy closer to the idea of the power to make a difference that calls for response”. Bennett contends that this power is “possessed by nonhuman bodies too” (32). If beings or things without intentionality can have effect as an actant, as Bennett suggests, then these items deserve more respect than I had previously given them. Bennett challenged my assessment that the ability to have directed thoughts was of primary importance to a being’s value. Now, I am questioning my standards and beginning a journey to redefine my values in a way that accommodates for the new influences and perspectives presented through this course. The view of matter as vibrant causes a newfound respect for questions that I used to dismiss so

    Read More

  • Themes of Alienation and Control in James Joyce's Araby

    1851 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... is not at all that he imagined. It is dismal and dark and thrives on the profit motive and the eternal lure its name evokes in men. The boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that does not exist except in his imagination. He feels angry and betrayed and realizes his self-deception. He feels he is “a creature driven and derided by vanity” and the vanity is his own (Sample Essays).

    Read More

  • The Illusion of Racial Identity

    3988 Words  | 8 Pages

    (5) Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness translated by Hazel Barnes(New York: Washington Square Press, 1956), pp 432-434.

    Read More

  • Noughts and Crosses

    1286 Words  | 3 Pages

    Noughts and Crosses is an in depth story which explores the issues of racism and prejudice and the effects they can have on society. Blackman has created a world of her own in complete contrast to the society we live in. By doing this she has impacted her readers, challenged our contexts and allowed the reader insight into the effects of racism and the suffering it can cause. Blackman has effectively used a range of narrative techniques to bring her world to life giving the white reader a taste of the discrimination blacks have suffered for centuries, provoking feelings of empathy and understanding. By turning the world upside down, Blackman makes her readers see things more clearly.

    Read More

  • The Film Analysis Of The Grand Budapest Hotel

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many believe that if you are not positive life can be very dreadful. Gustave gets sent to jail on false charges and whilst in jail Zero visits him and sees that that he has two black eyes. Zero asks: “What happened?” M. Gustave: “What happened, my dear Zero, is I beat the living shit out of a sniveling little runt called Pinky Bandinski, who had the gall to question my virility. Because, if there 's one thing we 've learned from penny dreadfuls, it 's that when you find yourself in a place like this, you must never be a candy ass; you 've got to prove yourself from day one. You 've got to win their respect. You should take a long look at HIS ugly mug this morning.” [Takes a sip of water and laughs] M. Gustave: “He 's actually become a dear friend.” In Gustave’s position he admits that being in jail is not fun, but you must be the best that you can be at all

    Read More

  • The Homeless Man

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    With both hands resting lightly on the table to each side of his white foam cup, Otis stared into its deep abyss of emptiness with his head bowed as if willing it to fill again, giving him a reason to enjoy the shelter that the indoors provided. I could almost touch the conflict going on inside of him, a battle of wills as if he was negotiating with an imaginary devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. I sensed a cramp of discomfort seizing his insides, compelling him to flee, then a silent resolve, as if a moment of clarity had graced his consciousness.

    Read More

  • David Benatar And Derek Parfit Analysis

    1941 Words  | 4 Pages

    The question of whether existing can be judged as a benefit or a harm, or if this judgment can even be made, has been addressed in the writings of David Benatar and Derek Parfit. In his paper Why it is Better to Never Have Come into Existence, Benatar progresses the view that it is always a harm to have been brought into existence. Parfit, however, takes a different position on this question, arguing that a person can be benefitted from being brought into existence in his paper Whether Causing Someone to Exist Can Benefit This Person. For the purpose of this paper, I will begin by offering a brief summary of each author’s main claim, and then provide a critique of their arguments. I then will then offer an objection from the point of view of

    Read More

  • The Meaning Of Being And Nothingness By Jean Paul

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jean later on the book moves on to talk about nothingness. Jean describes as nothingness as not. It has no type of being. Meaning it has to aspect of any sort of being. it s hard to wrap your mind around this but without nothingness there wouldn't be nothing as beings. One can not exist without the other. Jean later says “ because nothingness resides in man-and only in man- he can never be identified with himself” jean said this to show and explain that we as beings can never be content there's always changing ideologies,perspectives, interests, and etc, that we can never be satisfied we are always looking for something better. As beings we are separated from self by nothingness.as man we have nothingness with himself, that nothingness can separate us from present all the way to his past. Nothingness could be said

    Read More

More about Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination

Open Document