Literary Themes: Invisibility and Keeping the Dead Living

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, in "Hamlet", Shakespeare uses literal invisibility only once; however, there are several instances in which he uses a motif of figurative invisibility, when characters are present but unseen. The author points out that Gwendolyn Brooks' brief poem 'We Real Cool' reflects a modern understanding of invisibility as people about whom no one cares rather than in the classic motif of a character whom some can see while others cannot. The paper relates that, in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess" and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" the living characters try to deal with the dead. The author points out that Prince Hamlet is driven by the ghost of his father, Browning's Duke Alphonso has reduced his late wife to a curtained off, collectible art object and Faulkner's Miss Emily has clung for thirty years to the hidden body of the lover she felt she could not keep were he alive.

Table of Contents:
The Theme of Invisibility
Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
Gwendolyn Brooks' Poem 'We Real Cool'
Ralph Ellison' "Invisible Man"
The Theme of Keeping the Dead Living
Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"
William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

From the Paper:

"The "Invisible Man" is a black youth in the segregated deep South. His invisibility stems from the fact that the whites around him are determined to maintain a racial caste. To do this, they have made those who were slaves "invisible." When the ten youths are summoned to the hotel ballroom and shoved blindfolded into the boxing ring, the white crowd does not see then as human beings. They are the countless racial slurs that are yelled out at them. They are the animalistic violence that drives the crowd to a frenzy."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Brooks, Gwendolyn. "We Real Cool."
• Browning, Robert. "My Last Duchess." in English Poetry 3, in Harvard Classics, vol 3. Charles W. Eliot, ed (New York, New York: P. F. Collier & Sons, 1910).
• Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man (New Yok, New York: Modern Library, 1994).
• Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner. (New York, New York: Modern Library 1993).
• Shakespeare, William. Hamlet (New haven Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1917)

More papers on Literary Themes: Invisibility and Keeping the Dead Living:

• Comparison Essay # 36049 : " "The Dead"
• Analytical Essay # 33738 : "Initiation and Epiphany in James Joyce's "The Dead"
• Book Review # 108001 : "Gender Relations in James Joyce's "The Dead"

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