The Bridge

Roughly halfway through Beloved, we get the first one-on-one scene between Beloved and Denver. Much of Beloved's dialogue is left up to the reader's interpretation-- it strongly hints that Beloved is indeed the reincarnation of Sethe's baby.
Most memorable (or should I say, rememorable) was Beloved's mention of a bridge she hid on. Although she cryptically mentioned the bridge two chapters prior, Beloved elaborates to Denver during this scene. She describes being in a small, dark, and hot place where she was forced to lie in a fetal position-- a situation reminiscent of being in a grave. She says "A lot of people's down there. Some is dead.", after which Denver asks if she saw Baby Suggs -- reinforcing the connection to the dead. Beloved's description of it being down there, rather than up there, calls to mind the Underworld of Greek mythology. This interesting allusion to Greek mythology extends to the aforementioned bridge. I believe Beloved was talking about a bridge over the River Styx, the barrier between the underworld and realm of the living. Spirits of the deceased would cross over in order to reach the underworld. Her staying on the bridge could be a reference to the baby's ghost haunting 124, as ghost are often said to be spirits of those who refuse to completely leave the world of the living. Notice how she intially goes to the Underworld, and then later goes to the bridge-- a possible reference to the brief 'grace period' between Beloved's death and her haunting. Her seeing Sethe's earrings can also fit with my theory-- the River Styx is filled with lost hopes and dreams; the earring's could easily be a representation of Sethe's lost dream of a complete family after killing Beloved and the disappearance of Halle.
This scene, along with all of the implications, allusions, and metaphors, serves an early example of Beloved's supernatural nature, and also makes the reader wary of her in future chapters.

Gunnar's Seppuku

Gunnar's decision  to commit suicide by the end of the book is questioned by multiple people as an act of submission and weakness. They assume that Gunnar's decision to not go out in a blaze of gloryis  him accepting he won't win and giving up. However, Gunnar maintains that by killing himself, he isn't giving them the satisfaction of killing him. He quotes Mishima during an interview with a reporter-- "'Sometimes hara-kiri makes you win.' I just want to win one time".
Gunnar's character is overtly influenced by Japanese culture, first through Yoshiko, then through the literature she sends him. He rejects the Western concept of suicide as being dishonorable, instead viewing it as a final 'screw you' to the government.
Gunnar compares his suicide to seppuku, the ritual act of suicide by self-disembowelment reserved for samurai. Traditionally, it was used to preserve the dignity of the samurai rather than being disgraced by falling into the hands of their enemies. Gunnar embraces this view of suicide, rather than the western view, which views it as a sin. His decision highlights how Gunnar has experienced and has been influenced by multiple cultures-- black, white, and Japanese. His rejection of a western perspective also renforces that he goes against the grain of mainstream society and combines these different racial and cultural influences into his own unique ideology.

Great-great-great-great-great Uncle Tom

White Boy Shuffle's protagonist Gunnar Kaufman comes from a long line of ancestors who fit the 'Uncle Tom' archetype. Gunnar family not only accepts their Uncle Tom-like ways, but revel in them. Gunnar states in the first chapter that, "their resolute deeds and Uncle Tom exploits were passed down by my mother's dinner table macaroni-and-cheese oral history lessons.".

The entire first chapter is devoted to Gunnar describing his family and their so called "Uncle Tom exploits" with great detail and pride, showing that his family truly believed that by conforming to how white society wanted them to act, they were doing something noteworthy.
Instead, his family stays just outside of history, purportedly behind major historical events like the beginning of the American revolution, or the assassination of Malcolm X. However, their contributions to these events are glossed over, in favor of telling about just eager to please white people they were.

Unlike the rest of his family however, Gunnar rejects having to please white society, saying at the end of the first chapter, "the fruit never falls far from the tree, but I've tried to roll down the hill at least.".

We can tell from his call for mass suicide as "the ultimate sit-in" and his self-description as a "Negro Demagogue that Gunnar has achieved his goal of not becoming the Uncle Tom stereotype he so feared.

Given this knowledge about future Gunnar, as well as the all white environment we see him in for the first few chapters, we can surmise that some event must occur to make Gunnar break away from the path he was starting down, and begin to question his ancestors. 

Everybody Talks

Gossip plays an important part in human relationships. It reaffirms social ties and helps to define social boundaries, something that would help early humans form social groups to survive. That practice continues today, though it has a negative connotation, as by the very nature of gossip, someone has to be excluded.
 In Their Eyes Were Watching God, gossip is used to better give the world of the book more character, or as a way to describe in the words of the characters of the book. Gossip is used from the very beginning of the book to describe Janie's appearance, as well as inform the reader of how the townspeople view her,
"What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls? Can't she find no dress to put on?--Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her? Wat dat fourty year old woman doin wid her hair swingin lak some young gal?[...]"
We learn from just this snippet of gossip that Janie is coming back to town, she's lost money since she's not wearing overalls, and her age is forty.
Gossip also helps the book seem more vibrant, as with the case of Matt Bonner's mule. Matt Bonner's underfed mule is initially a one-off joke made by Sam Watson to get a rise out of him. The joke begins to take on a life of its own, as tall tales about the mule are made up and spread around the town. These tales get bigger and bigger once Jody buys the mule and sets it free, resulting in the town recounting the mule's high-jinx as if it were an actual person. The whole story of the mule helps to make the town feel interconnected , bonded by the meme of the mule. It also appears that memes like the mule aren't rare, as Janie says that "people sat around on the porch passing pictures of their thoughts around for the others to look at and see, [...]The fact that the thought pictures were crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to."
The way that the characters react to the mule also helps to better show their personalities. For example, Jody laughs at the mule stories, but won't permit Janie to indulge in it. This is one of the many times we get to see Jody as selfish and hypocritical, something that eventually will come to a head later in the book.

Sambo Doll

After the Narrator returns to Harlem from downtown, he runs into Tod Clifton selling paper sambo dolls on the street. The Narrator is stricken with rage, and feels betrayed by Clifton, a once active and vocal member of the Brotherhood, now selling racist caricatures on the street. 

The Sambo dolls share a name with the titular character of Little Black Sambo, created by Helen Bannerman, although not intended by Bannerman to be racist- the crude and stereotypical illustrations of Sambo and other black characters in the original print; the name Sambo, which was used at the time as a racist epithet to depict "the lazy, grinning, docile, childlike, good-for-little servant", according to Ferris State University's Jim Crow museum; and the more explicitly racist knockoff versions distributed around the country- would end up making Little Black Sambo one of the most infamous iterations of the 'pickaninny' archetype. 

As the story takes place in the 1930s and was published in 1947, Ellison knew that his audience would be familiar with the character of Sambo, and all of the extra baggage that comes with the use of the name. Ellison uses the name Sambo to trigger an emotional response in the reader, to get them to feel the rage and disgust that the narrator felt seeing a once proud ally reduced to selling the opposite of what he was preaching a few weeks earlier. 

The dolls were described as having a kind of 'energy' when Clifton was performing with them, appearing almost alive, especially after the Narrator spits on the doll Clifton was performing with.   Once Clifton and the crowd leave however, the Narrator examines the doll, and "half expecting it to move" he instead finds it just a "still frill of paper". I think this is a way of Ellison showing just how real the effect of negative stereotypes had on the black community.

Finally, the mention of the dolls two faces, which the Narrator describes as "like a mask", calls to mind the lesson that he was told from the beginning of the book- act like a yes man, while undermining them with those yeses- "agreeing them to death and destruction".

Hotel Chthonian

In chapter 14 of Invisible Man, the narrator is introduced to the Brotherhood at a hotel called the Chthonian. According to Webster's Dictionary, Chthonian is defined as- 

"Designating, or pertaining to, gods or spirits of the underworld; esp., relating to the underworld gods of the Greeks, whose worship is widely considered as more primitive in form than that of the Olympian gods. The characteristics of chthonian worship are propitiatory and magical rites and generalized or euphemistic names of the deities, which are supposed to have been primarily ghosts."

Ellison is not an author who would just give a name to a location without it having special significance, he keeps the name of college out of the story to make it ambiguous, but made sure to name the paint factory to make that setting a metaphor for the visibility of blacks in America. 

The fact that the group is at that moment striving for anonymity (as seen when they discuss Bigger being more useful with the police not knowing his true identity), and the fact that their meeting place is so closely related to the underworld is no coincidence. The Brotherhood is attempting to form an underground organization, and by installing the Narrator and other people in the Brotherhood as representatives and leaders of their community, they are effectively establishing a world just below the visible one, much like the underworld. 

Of course, the underworld has natural negative connotations, possibly indicating that the Brotherhood may not be as virtuous as the Narrator takes them to be.  

I'm going to examine a kind of small detail in the first chapter of Invisible Man- the symbolism of the American Flag on the stripper.
          I think the tattoo, and by extension, the stripper represents America and its ideals of liberty and freedom, and how they are being abused by the men in the room. We see her being manhandled by the white men in the room, much like they abuse the rights of the narrator and other black boys. When she finally makes it out of the room so do the ideals of equality and liberty, and the fighting and abuse of the boys begins.

I think Ellison is trying to use the imagery of the American flag; a symbol which to us means freedom, liberty, and justice; to just punctuate just how messed up the events of the first chapter are. It also seems like her exit from the room is also a metaphor for the narrator's eventual evolution into the 'Invisible Man'- the events immediately following her departure up to the most current chapter we've read so far show the hints of his eventual transformation from an idealistic valedictorian wishing to present his speech, to the invisible man we see in the prologue.