“Purpose, Passion and Perception”
DISCLAIMER: IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M GOING TO WRITE HERE, YOU SHOULD GO READ THIS AGAIN. THIS IS MY VIEW ON THE BOOK, AND ON THE VERY GENERAL IDEA “PURPOSE, PASSION, PERCEPTION.” EVERYONE DID THIS DIFFERENTLY LAST YEAR, AND THIS IS JUST SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT. ALSO I NEED THIS HERE IF MY DATA DECIDES TO DIE AGAIN AND I NEED SOMETHING TO LOOK BACK AT.
Summarizing what Stebbins wanted us to get from the book by quoting my essay. In short, I’m just giving you my interpretation of the general idea she presented to us, which is cyclicism and the fractal-like embedding of the Purpose, Passion, Perception cycle in the book:
Basically:
The [author] insist[s] that time is more accurately described as cyclical, and emphasize[s] that the ability to move from one stage to another is essential to progress.
The cycle that’s presented can be summarized as a cycle of Purpose, Passion and Perception:
In Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the linear world view of the narrator is counteracted by the novel’s construction as a series of cycles within cycles. Each cycle can be broken down into three stages: ‘Purpose,’ ‘Passion’ and ‘Perception.’ These three stages are evident within the course of the narrator’s story, but are also built into the actual framework of the novel. They are directly related to the three sections: the prologue, the story and the epilogue. The motif of water appears frequently throughout the novel to either highlight or foreshadow moments of ‘Passion’ – where the narrator gets so caught up in what he’s doing that he is unable to accurately understand the world around him.
The first step of the cycle is Purpose:
The narrator promises to prove, through the telling of his life story, how he came to realize that he was invisible. This is his Purpose. The Purpose stage of the cycle ties in directly with the struggle to assert one’s own humanity. It serves as the narrator’s reason to exist at a particular moment in time. […] Despite the preaching of cycles from the narrator, we see hypocrisy in his actions. He stays within the underground lair, and seems to live in that one moment. He has no plans for the future but to say underground, and he mentions that “…[T]o see around corners is enough… [but] to hear around them is too much; it inhibits action” (Ellison 13). Therefore, while it is necessary to acknowledge the cyclical nature of time and to “see” it, one cannot view it in its utterly complete state and “hear” it too, without getting overwhelmed to the point of “inhibit[ed] action.” Here we see the author emphasize the catch in the cyclical nature of time. “Contradiction is how the world moves,” so each stage or “node” of the Purpose-Passion-Perception cycle must be carried out to completion in a linear fashion before moving on to the next stage. Since the narrator has completed his Purpose by verbalizing his plan to explain invisibility, he moves on to the Passion, or the actual events in his life that made him realize he was invisible.
Then comes Passion:
The Passion stage is where the character acts on their purpose in some sort of struggle to prove their humanity. The Passion stage continues on until the character is capable of realizing that he has gone overboard and that he is no longer capable of proving his humanity through that route. The realization is the Perception state, but if a character refuses to reflect on their life and their past, like the young narrator, the Passion stage can continue on for a very long time. […] The Passion stage must continue until there is something in that node of time that he refuses to do. Then the illusion of the “real” linear time is destroyed.
And last is Perception:
The epilogue takes place right after the story ends, and the narrator has stopped penning his autobiography. It is the section where Perception occurs, where the narrator realizes that he can no longer rely on his old habits to get him places, and must find a new Purpose to take risks for. […] The narrator has learned more than the fact that he needs to look back on his life more and analyze it in order to be able to grow. He has realized that he can no longer stay underground, that “[e]ven hibernations can be overdone, come to think of it.” He continues on, saying, “Perhaps that’s my greatest social crime, I’ve overstayed my hibernation, since there’s a possibility that even an invisible man has a socially responsible role to play” (Ellison 581). Unlike in the beginning of the novel, where he plans to stay underground, looking back at his past and telling it to his audience has made him realize that more progress must be made. […] His safe place has become his place of distorted reality as time has passed. The author intends to portray the narrator as constantly moving, never able to stop because “…live you must, and you can either make passive love to your sickness or burn it out and go onto the next conflicting phase” (Ellison 576). The stage of “passive love” to a “sickness” are the aftereffects of staying in a state of distorted reality for too long, those moments denoted by the presence of water. The author stresses that the linear bouts of passion that people are bound to experience do not amount to any progress until they have been reflected on and internalized (Perception) and a new path has been chosen (Purpose). Through use of the water motif and the cycle of life, Ellison urges his readers to reflect on their lives and be open to more growth as individuals, and to realize that the path to progress is the boomerang between contradicting “nodal” points in life.
And I somehow managed to tie Hamlet and Crime and Punishment into the same thought on the motif use. I have no idea how I did it, but it was fun.
