Elements of Blues and Jazz in Ralph Waldo Ellison's 'Invisible man'

Abstract

The concern of this dissertation is to show that Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is indebted to the blues and jazz traditions, and that Ellison uses the two traditions from which to draw material for his novel. By tracing the evolution of the blues tradition and the jazz tradition during slavery and after the abolition of slavery, the reader will be able to learn and discern the salient characteristics of the two Afro-American musical traditions. After this has been done, an entire section will be dedicated to bring to light those elements that belong to the jazz tradition such as improvisation and syncopation. Finally, this will be followed by another section that focuses on Ellison's use of techniques borrowed from the blues tradition. The first objective of this section will be to show how Invisible Man is a typical blues autobiographical chronicle. The second purpose will be to divulge the role of colour symbolism and blues instruments in conjunction to the blues tradition. I will then direct my attention upon blues-singing folk figures. I will follow this by a discussion on the use of masks, underlying messages, and recurring motifs. In other words, the stance taken in this dissertation promotes the view that by drawing sources form the blues and jazz traditions, Ellison has succeeded in promoting the idea that 'America is woven of many strands' (IM, 465) of which Afro-American culture forms part.