Dante and Ellison

It is not uncommon for writers to draw inspiration or draw connections to other famous works. A famous Italian writer from the Middle Ages, Dante Alighieri’s most widely known publication is without doubt Inferno. In this work, Dante closely describes what he calls the nine circles of Hell. Each circle is home to perpetrators of a specific offense (such as murder, theft, etc.). Traces and allusions to Dante’s Inferno can be found throughout Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Upon arriving in New York and being consecutively rejected, the narrator finds himself working in a deep basement “three levels underground”(Ellison 207). The inclusion of the underground is already an indication of a possible allusion to death and hell. The fact that it is the third level down specifically points more precisely to Dante’s description of Hell in which the third circle is reserved for particularly gluttonous individuals. This in turn draws another connection back to the battle royal, where the narrator and other black boys fought and struggled for the sake of enriching themselves. Lucius Brockway, the man who works and almost appears to live in the basement, exhibits clear signs of gluttony. Lucius fights to keep all of the work to himself, not wanting to allow those in need of a job to work alongside him. He goes as far as to potentially kill the narrator in the explosion to retain the job for himself. Traces of the Inferno are also found in the novel’s structure. The Inferno is divided into three important parts, covering a transformation from “illusion to reality,” and finally “culminating in maximum insight.” The same basic structure is present in Invisible Man. When interviewed, Ralph Ellison explained that he had divided the novel into three, concise parts going from “purpose to passion to perception.” Like Inferno, Invisible Man results in a greater insight or perception. Both works also cover a transformation for the narrator.  The narrator’s journey in Invisible Man, can even be interpreted as one from “illusion to reality” as the narrator comes to term with his invisibility and accepts it as his “true” identity.  The Inferno, put simply, describes Hell as viewed by Dante. In Ellison’s novel, Harlem is constantly described using words that are heavily reminiscent of Hell, such as flames, melting, and “burning heat.” Using this connection Ellison may be hinting that Harlem is the narrator’s Hell through which he ventures. This would be supported by the fact that the narrator appears to meet sinners everywhere he goes. An example would be Trueblood who impregnated his own blood, or Ras who seeks to murder the narrator for supposedly betraying the black people. It is important to note that the narrator finishes where he now resides (underground) in the epilogue. This may be a connection to Limbo reserved for those who are virtuous but do not follow Christian faith. This could represent the narrator’s virtue despite not abiding by the rules that everyone else follows (society). While these are only wild speculations, it would be worth further exploring this topic in class discussions, for I find this connection particularly intriguing after visiting Dante’s home and place of worship in Italy last summer.