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Writer on the left: Class and race in Ellison's early fiction

College Literature, Fall 2002 by Mazurek, Raymond A

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The order in which Callahan has placed the stories implies the gradual development of Ellison's style and the way the stories prefigure Invisible Man. The volume opens with "A Party Down at the Square" and closes with the previously published "King of the Bingo Game,""In a Strange Country," and "Flying Home"-two of which ("Bingo Game" and "Flying Home") are well-known stories which suggest the outrageousness and symbolic complexity of Invisible Man. The theme of development is further emphasized by the emphasis on childhood and youth in the early stories. "A Party Down at the Square," a white boy's initiation into racist violence, is followed by the previously unpublished "Boy on a Train," a short autobiographical story in which a young boy encounters racism when traveling with his little brother and his recently widowed mother. These are followed by four previously published stories about the young black boys Buster and Riley, two of which ("Mr. Toussaint" and "Afternoon") contain political celebrations of black culture and indictments of racism. Themes of childhood and young adolescence in a racist society, and the independence and toughness through which black youth survive, are thus woven through the first half of Flying Home. These are followed by four previously unpublished stories of young African-American adults in the 1930s: "Hymie's Bull,""I Did Not Learn Their Names," "A Hard Time Keeping Up," and "The Black Ball."Along with "A Party Down at the Square" and the relatively unknown "In A Strange Country," these stories might be counted among the best proletarian fiction of their era. All of them sound a more radical political note than is usually associated with Ellison. Two of them, "Hymie's Bull" and "I Did Not Learn Their Names," present the violence, racism, and moments of interracial bonding found among the destitute black and white hobos riding the rails. "A Hard Time Keeping Up," a story in which humor interrupts the threat of violence, recounts the everyday racism encountered by railroad porters in Chicago. Finally, "The Black Ball," one of the most complex of the early stories, presents union solidarity as a viable hope despite the distrust brought on by years of racism.

More Articles of Interest: Flying Home and Other Stories. - Review - book reviews; The critical response to Ralph Ellison. - book review; Flying Home and Other Stories. - book reviews; John F. Callahan, ed. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: A Casebook; Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II

In his publication of some of Ellison's letters as well as in the publication of Ellison's stories, Callahan has provided some of the evidence of the young writer's political sentiments. Ellison wrote, in a letter to his mother on August 30, 1937:

I am very disgusted with things as they are and the whole system in which we live. This system which offers a poor person practically nothing but work for a low wage from birth to death; and thousands of us are hungry half our lives. I find myself wishing that the whole thing would explode so the world would start again from scratch .... The people in Spain are fighting right now because of just this kind of thing, the people of Russia got tired of seeing the rich have everything and the poor nothing and now they are building a new system. I wish we could live there. And these rich bastards here are trying to take the WPA. away from us. They would deny a poor man the right to live in this country for which we have fought and died. (Ellison 1999a, 36)

Writer on the left: Class and race in Ellison's early fiction

College Literature, Fall 2002 by Mazurek, Raymond A

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