As Ellison’s narrator of Invisible Man learns the arguments of the Brotherhood so well “that I could repeat them in my sleep” (310, Signet edition), he fails to see his own manipulation by its white Cyclopean leader, Brother Jack. The IM seeks what he has always sought, a “social responsibility” approach to equality, allowing others to lead and promote, tease and cajole, betray and oppress him. It should be no surprise, then, that his Brotherhood promotion is at the El Toro bar, he and Jack’s images “reflected” in the painting of a bull and matador. Ironically, the IM is impressed by the discipline and skill of both Jack and the matador, yet completely fails to identify himself as the bull. As a future “leader” of Harlem district, his fate is tied to that of the people he will direct. Manipulated by the Brotherhood, the Invisible Man and the blacks of Harlem—foolish as that matador’s bull—fail to recognize the “grace” of white manipulation, and thus for Ellison inevitably accomplish their own defeat.
That the IM is the idiot bull is plain enough. Jack speaks frankly and openly, revealing the truth of his intentions while the target of them. He reveals his strategy to persuade: “Say what the people want to hear, but say it in such a way that they’ll do what we wish” (311). What does this mean, though, when Jack’s opening gambit with the IM is to offer him the role of “the new Booker T. Washington” (264)? This magical invocation of the IM’s idol instantly brings him on board, becoming a red-caped goal which doubles as a veil: the bull should be charging at the matador, but instead it is directed to the illusion. Ellison doesn’t want us to miss the image of IM’s foolishness, though. Just above him at the El Toro is a calendar where a pink and white girl reveals the date as “April One” (311).
Unlike the bull, however, the IM can even recognize the skill and power of the matador who dupes him. As he awaits Jack’s declaration of promotion, the IM contemplates the matador’s image, “the swirl of calm, pure motion” and the master’s “pure grace” (311). The strategy of the master then, is one of movement, or at least the illusion of movement, the deception that there is something artistic about his work rather than exploitative. When Jack first parades the Booker T cape before the IM, he moves slowly and carefully himself, “picking up his glass slowly and taking a long swallow” before making the offer (264) and the IM is “strangely excit[ed]” (265). This Jack the Bull-fighter playfully describes the “cardboard image of a cold steel civilization” (311), perhaps the steel of a matador’s sword, and then describes the techniques of manipulation, the middle ground between the real and the illusion, the “ideology and the inspiration” (311) which must be employed. The matador must keep the bull moving, must offer the bull an image which mesmerizes it, and must keep his bestial prey close enough to slay if he loses control. This bull has been hypnotized, trained by Hambro’s lessons, and yet even while he sees the deception, he does not recognize his role in it.
This will prove his undoing, of course. Worse even then misidentifying himself in the bar’s metaphoric mirror, the IM is convinced he himself is becoming a master matador. “’Master it,’” Brother Jack said, ‘but don’t overdo it. Don’t let it master you’” (311). Jack is speaking openly about their relationship, and his warning ironically is the mastering stroke: in appearing to train the IM as a master, Jack keeps his bull close. Moreover, the IM will take the training and move on to turn Harlem to riot, just as Jack plans.
As I continue working, here are some starts to later paragraphs:
Harlem in parallel looks first to Clifton and then to the IM as leaders, masters—though duped ones—in their own rights . . .
What never occurs as an option to the IM or Harlem bulls is that they might overthrow the matadors, that they might be “thrown skyward on the black bull’s horns” (311). . . .
Once a bull spins out of control, however, the true master must wield the sword. Jack’s has been in plain view all along; the note of betrayal he writes to the IM keeps him off balance. His recognition that the note is Jack’s sends IM finally and for all out of Harlem and into the sewers, essentially ending the dance. . . .
The same fate awaits Harlem, which—rather than revolt against the manipulators—turns upon itself in a debauched riot of self-immolation. As Dupre, Ras, and others will demonstrate, the bull is fully capable of impaling itself on its own horns. There is no social advancement, only death for any who pretend to name themselves, who suppose that a bull can win. . . .
The greatest irony, of course, is that Ellison’s master matador is hardly far-sighted himself. Jack’s “grace” is only in contrast to the utter blindness of Harlem’s blacks. The Cyclops tends its sheep; and the one-eyed Jack remains king in a novel of endless cycles of pseudo-epiphanies. Ellison is ambiguous on the point. Jack never remarks on the paintings in El Toro directly, he simply chooses the bar. He never seeks the accolades of spectators to his art, but merely describes its science to those who listen. And when he laughs, the IM can never tell “if he was laughing at me or with me” (311). If the former, he is merely a matador and the IM sees the duplicity through a veil; if the latter, however, Ellison may be suggesting that the line between white master and black bull is thinner than we suppose.