AP English

"I watched him empty the graduate back into the tank and noted carefully when he went to another marked SKA-3-69-T-Y and refilled it.  Next time I would know."

In thinking of my thesis sentence as a promise, I only now have to look at it for clues for organizing my essay.  Each element of my complex thesis can be broken down into sections of my paper.  No longer do I think of my essay as paragraphs but as "sections" of argument which may be 1 or more paragraphs. 

Organizing these sections is best if it is according to the progression of my argument. I no longer think of my essays in terms of 1st most important reason followed by 2nd most important, etc.  I don't think of it in terms of talking about scene 1 then scene 2, etc. or even chronologically according to the novel.  I look at what I wish to argue and let my sections and paragraphs build upon one another, always moving deeper and deeper into theme.

More, each of my sections will likely have a number of rhetorical devices to bolster my interpretation:

• Topic sentences which argue an idea (instead of plot summaries and such)
• Lots of text directly quoted to show how I found my interpretations
• Lots of discussion and explanation of the text I offer in terms of analysis of diction, imagery, detail, syntax, tone, and the like.
• Connections between different parts of text to push toward motifs (repeated patterns of ideas) and themes (full arguments/opinions by Ellison)
• References to history and other extra-textual sources (sources beyond my original text/novel) as necessary to make my point.

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The obscure encoding "SKA-3-69-T-Y" of the black dope from Liberty Paints in Invisible Man reveals the white strategy of separating the substance of black power from its name in order to render it impotent; ironically, the strategy only exposes white deceit.

The red sections of my thesis draft sound like significant arguments that I will have to make. I will definitely end with the ironic exposure because I need to show the real effect after I prove the initial effort by whites.  I think I need to talk first about white strategies first, followed by the idea of separation of substance and name that moves more directly to the encoding and impotence.  I still want to use the ideas I thought about earlier, too, and I need to work in more of the text directly.  Here is my first draft of an outline:

Intro/Thesis: [I almost never worry about my intro before I write a paper.  It will take care of itself later.]

Body:

I. The IM's confusion of black dope can be seen as his personal failing or as something intended by whites.

1. IM is definitely not thinking straight.
1. The IM believes he is "not supposed to think," according to Kimbro.  This angers him, but he goes ahead and makes the mistake.
2. But the IM, still bitter from Bledsoe's betrayal, is suspicious that Kimbro will do the same: "You can't trust any of them."
3. This leads to IM's brash act of quickly choosing the wrong paint.
2. But the whites set this up.
1. "Each [tank] with a puzzling code." <--Ellison's obscure diction.
2. And IM acknowledges this: "It was not my fault and I didn't want the blame."
3. And the whites control the deception, not only in its manufacture, but its use: "That's paint that will cover just about anything."

II.  The white strategy is to separate black power from its name, confusing the two.

1. The black dope is similar to the concentrated remover; they appear to have the opposite effect.  But the names are similar.
2. Black dope is the insertion of black into/behind the white, creating an impure substance which appears more white, "Optic White."
3. Concentrated remover thins the white, revealing the grain: "It had a gray tinge."
4. One is an illusion of purity (which black creates) but is not pure; the other reveals the impurity/impossibility of white.
5. By making the names the same, the whites "hide" the truth of what each is, perhaps in an effort to "cover up anything." Brockway tells him that the white is so powerful that "you can paint a chunka coal and you'd have to crack it open . . . to prove it wasn't white clear through!"

III. The goal is to make blacks impotent by hiding their power potential beneath the white.

1. Blacks are so confused that they participate in the deception.
1. IM of his own mix: "That's certainly white all right," eager to agree with Kimbro.
2. Brockway: "I got me a three hundred dollar bonus for helping to think that up."
3. The gov't buildings and the "freshly decorated campus buildings" are in it. Even the black college confuses its potential and accepts the illusion (white money).
4. Golden Day was painted white but now the paint is fading and the boards had a "satiny, silvery, silver-fish sheen."  More like the remover here which leaves "the grain of the wood."  And the GD is an exposure of white corruption/power.
2. In each case (dope and remover), though, the deception is evident for someone who sees clearly.  Whites, blacks, and IM do not.
1. Whites/Kimbro: "A gray tinge glowed through the whiteness and Kimbro had failed to detect it."
2. Blacks/Brockway: "If it's Optic White, it the right white."
3. IM: Chose the tank which "smelled most like the dope" and "congratulated myself."
4. IM:  He does see it, but refuses to understand it: "wondering if I was seeing things. . . ." And "I closed my eyes for a moment and looked again and still no change.  Well, . . . as long as he's satisfied. . . ."

IV. Black potential and power is possible if only blacks trust what they know.  White strategies to hide (or make invisible) black power must backfire.

1. SKA-3-69-T-Y is a meaningless code; and its meaninglessness makes black power invisible.
2. Whites give IM false names, each promising a new but illusory power:
1. "Scholar"
2. "Employable"
3. "Booker T"
4. "Brother"
5. "Sambo," "Trigger"
3. The narrator is unnamed, the ultimate erasure of identity and power? Epilogue: "turning slowly from black to albino."
4. Rinehart: Reverses the power of namelessness and makes himself anything to everyone.

Conclusion:

Conclusion paragraphs shouldn't repeat old points, but move forward to themes and significance of what is discovered. 

1. Ellison argues that blacks can only move forward by not participating in white illusion-making.
1. Epilogue: "Weren't we part of them as wall as apart from them and subject to die when they died?" 
2. "Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled 'file and forget.'"
2. Humankind always looks to erase The Other, those who are not them, but in so doing, only exposes insecurity and abandons humanity.

The paper feels like it will be too long.  I may have to cut some of the connections I made while I draft, my next step.

I've been asked to find the significance of the paint tank number which contains the black dope used to make Liberty Paints' white paint the special "Optic White."  Our IM fails to identify the black oily stuff properly, instead using concentrated paint remover instead. He finds both tank labels equally mysterious. His failure nearly gets him fired.

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But there are several ways to understand significance. Poetry, imagery, diction, etc. are not puzzles to solve (there is no deep hidden message behind the obscure numbers) but these numbers are obscure, obtuse, for a reason. My job will be, then, to discover Ellison's reasons for obscuring the clear identification of the black dope, for making it so similar in character but also anonymity to the concentrated remover, for reducing such a volatile formula to a mere number or code.

I am reminded first of all of some poetry we've read recently in a few classes, Carl Holman's "Mr. Z" and W. H. Auden's "The Unknown Citizen."  In each case there is an erasure, an anonymity, around the characters, whether produced by the subject of the poem or the society around him. . . .

Some other questions I'm thinking about:

• Why can't IM distinguish between two opposing ideas?
• Why can't Kimbro distinguish between their effects (he eventually sends the poorer product out)?
• Why not label them clearly?
• Is there a difference between a substance and its label?

This last question intrigues me most.  How close is the meaning of a thing and its name?  If I deprive something of its name (or a meaningful name), does it also lose its meaning?

Anyway, some initial thoughts.  I'll play with these some more before I begin drafting a thesis. . . .

I can see this idea in several other parts of the novel as well, which tells me I am on the right track:

• the naming and renaming of the narrator until he no longer knows who he is or what he can do;
• the hospital scene which occurs soon after this which also attempts to rename/erase through confusion;
• But also Rinehart who can be anything.  In this case, Rinehart has discovered that his confused name is actually the power of invisibility, that the white erasure of identity is actually empowering.
• The term "brother" in the Brotherhood which confuses the power relationships for IM as well.

All of these terms are generic, unrevealing of the substance or power beneath them...

First Thesis Draft:

The obscure encoding "SKA-3-69-T-Y" of the black dope from Liberty Paints in Invisible Man reveals the white strategy of separating the substance of black power from its name in order to render it impotent; ironically, the strategy only exposes white deceit.

It's a little cumbersome right now, and it certainly doesn't capture everything I've been thinking, but it doesn't have to.  It does do a fair job of revealing the "promise" of my thesis, what I will write about.  I'll just tweak it some as I start outlining what my paper might look like.