Thought vs. Action in Invisible Man and Hamlet

Thought vs. Action

Paradox of thought

Shown in Structure

• juxtaposition and antithesis

"I must be cruel only to be kind"

-Hamlet to Gertrude 3.4.299

"There's a stench in the air, which, from this distance underground, might be the smell either of death or of spring- I hope of spring and in the smell of thee as in the smell of me. And if nothing more, invisibility has taught my nose to classify the stenches of death."

-Ellison, 580

"A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en him at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service-- two dishes but to one table. That's the end... A man may fish with a worm that hath eat of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm... a king may go through the process of a beggar."

-Hamlet to Claudius 4.3.22-35

"...the endd is in the beginning and lies far ahead."

-Ellison, 6

thought=action iff truth is involved

Identity

• "zombie"
• "mechanical man"
• "automaton"
• the vet pg 94-95

Action without thought is useless.

"I fell to plotting ways of short circuiting the machine. Perhaps if I shifted my body about so that the two nodes would come together-- No, not only was there no room but it might electrocute me. I shuddered. Whoever else I was, I was no Samson. I had no desire to destroy myself even if it destroyed the machine; I wanted freedom, not destruction. It was exhausting, fot no matter what the scheme I conceived, there was one constant flaw-- myself. There was no getting around it. I could no more escape than I could think of my identity. Perhaps, I thought the two things are involved with eachother. When I discover who I am, I'll be free."

-Ellison, 243

In Invisible Man...

"I was both disgusted and ashamed... I began to laugh at this crazy discovery"

-Ellison, 5

Narrator: ambition >> expectations & acceptance pity, self assurance >> identity, pride >> complacency >> self-awareness & sense of reality

Dr. Bledsoe: determination(with an underlying malevolence) & greed >> desire to keep his power

Ras: black nationalism >> his sense of self righteousness & morality >> betrayal

Laughter

sons are laughing at the death of their father, who was slave owner of their mother-pg 11

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action."

-Hamlet 3.1.93-98

"...an act hath three branches-- to act, to do, to perform."

-Gravedigger in Hamlet 5.1.11-12

The Cycle

In Invisible Man...

"...a bear retires to his hole for the winter and lives until spring, then he comes strolling out like the Easter chick breaking from its shell"

-Ellison , 6

"The hibernation is over. I must shake off the old skin and come up for breath."

-Ellison, 580

"...I believe in nothing if not action...A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action."

-Ellison , 13

In Hamlet...

"A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en him at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service-- two dishes but to one table. That's the end... A man may fish with a worm that hath eat of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm... a king may go through the process of a beggar."-Hamlet to Claudius 4.3.22-35

st

Thought

Action

reinforced by structure and events

Actions

Laughter

Killing Polonius

Writing a book

Ignoring his grandfather's last words

Killing Claudius

Taking Mr. Norton down Trueblood's road

Telling his mother to refrain

Making a speech at the evition

Jumping into Ophelia's grave

Passing on his story to Horatio

Taking up a job with the Brotherhood

Social Equality>Social Responsibility

Organizing the play

>>Reflection

Lively

In Hamlet...

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action."

-Hamlet 3.1.93-98

in

Invisible Man

and

Hamlet

Hamlet: grief >> madness >> revenge

Laertes: grief >> revenge

King Claudius: greed & desire >> guilt >> fear

"And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act"

-Polonius 1.3.64-66

Thought without action is useless.

Presentation by Florence de Asis

Downward movement

Motif