The narrator listens to Armstrong sing that he feels “white inside” and that “my only sin is in my skin.” By placing this song in the background of his story without ever commenting on it, Ellison provides subtle reinforcement for the novel’s central tension between white racism against blacks and the black struggle for individuality. Like in Invisible Man, the song’s lyrics emphasize the conflict between the singer or speaker’s inner feelings and the outer identity imposed on him by society. Later Armstrong transformed the piece into a direct commentary on the hardships faced by blacks in a racist white society. Fats Waller originally wrote the song for a musical comedy in which a dark-skinned black woman would sing it as a lament, ruing her lighter-skinned lover’s loss of interest in her. In the Prologue, the narrator listens to Armstrong’s “What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue.” This track relates exactly to the theme in Invisible Man, as it represents one of jazz’s earliest attempts to make an open commentary on the subject of racism. Armstrongs earlier recording of Black & Blue serves as the focal point of a great moment in Invisible Man, Ralph Ellisons novel about race (and racism) in. Armstrong, widely considered the most important soloist in the history of jazz, alone almost transformed jazz, which originally evolved as a collective, ensemble-based music, into a medium for individual expression in which a soloist stood out from a larger band. The Narrators feeling of invisibility due to his race is indicative of the narrow vision. It also makes an appropriate soundtrack for a novel about the search for such individuality. Invisible Man addresses societys lack of vision toward Black people. Jazz primarily developed among African American musicians, and depends on an individual's own style and improvisational talent that is how Armstrong's work serves to underline the black struggle for identity. ![]() Ralph Ellison employs blues and jazz, specifically that of Louis Armstrong, into the novel to highlight the narrator’s journey to define him.
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