Masquerade, magic, and carnival in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man - Critical Essay

In voodoo practices in Haiti, following its origins back to the Dahomean religion of vodou in West Africa, for example, the loas (deities, or orixas in Brazilian candomble) possess humans, who are imagined to be horses and speak through them (see Mulira; Pinn; Bourguignon). The actors enter into trances, frequently utter foreign tongues (glossolalia) and speak on behalf of the loas--one of which might be, say, Legba in Haiti, Exu-Elegbera in Brazil, or Papa Legba in New Orleans. In so doing, these participants perform the parts or roles assigned to them as the possessed. Indeed, in the Brazilian carnival in Bahia, spirit-possession and theatrical performance are inseparably linked in the fantasia of carnival. In this regard Burton writes,

The continuity between possession cult and carnival and the ludic, theatrical, and agonic character of both is demonstrated in that, at carnival in Bahia (not discussed by Turner, whose focus is Rio), many gremios or carnival societies are in effect extensions of local candomble nago terreiros, with many masqueraders dressing in the traditional costumes of the orixas, so much so that Bahians speak of carnival as Candomble de brincadeira (Candomble for fun), prompting Michelle Smith Okari to write that "Carnival is a candomble without trance or possession by the Orixa" and Sheila Walker to describe it quite simply as "candomble in the streets." (222)

Burton's analysis of possession cult and carnival demonstrates that the two ritual practices share masquerade as a common feature or, more generally, the "ludic, theatrical, or agonic character of both." One is reminded here of Marcel Camus's award-winning film Black Orpheus (1958), based upon Vinicius de Moraea's play Orfeu da Conceicao, which also connects spirit-possession and carnival among the descendants of African slaves in modem-day Rio de Janeiro. During carnival season, Orpheus and Eurydice fall in love only to discover that Death itself relentlessly pursues and eventually captures Eurydice. After she dies, Orpheus descends to the underworld to bring Eurydice back from the dead by searching for and attending an Afro-Brazilian Macumba ceremony. Camus thus mixes Greek mythology and New World African religions, Brazilian carnival and spirit-possession, the descent to Hades and a celebration of modem-day life in Rio de Janeiro. Carnival and spirit-possession come together to reflect the complex mutualit y of European, African, and, indeed, Amerindian cultures under the legacy of colonialism and the shared experience of death.

Ellison's work traces the Invisible Man's descent to the underground, bringing together classical mythology, hoodoo practices, the history of Western civilization, and African American culture. He makes several allusions to Dante's Inferno, Virgil's Aeneid, Homer's Odyssey, the Bible, and other sources which allude to the journey to the underworld. The varieties of carnival in the novel thus intersect with references to the dead, hell, departed souls, invisibility, ghosts, and cult practices. In 1939, while collecting foildore for the Federal Writers' Project in Harlem, Ellison came across a story that would eventually play into his novel's trope of invisibility (Levine 405-06). The story describes a black man in Florence, South Carolina, who called himself Sweet-the-monkey. According to the tale, as told by Leo Gurley, "Sweet could make hisself invisible. You don't believe it? Well here's how he done it. Sweet-the-monkey cut open a black cat and took out his heart. Climbed up a tree backwards and cursed God. After that he could do anything" (405-06). Sweet's powers of invisibility imply initiation into hoodoo and a pact with the devil. The reference to monkey also suggests not only a relativizing of the word used against him, but the Signifying Monkey, the celebrated trickster of African American folklore. The word sweet offers a measure of gloating and boast to boot.