Power Structure

Throughout this story, one of the main themes is power. There are many questions involving power in this novel: who has the power? how does one achieve power? who thinks they have power?. Last class we discussed how Dr. Bledsoe thinks that he has all of the power within the college. It may be true that he has power within the college, but outside of the college he has no power. Dr. Bledsoe is actually working against himself. By putting down all of the black students, and teacher them to be obedient and having classes focused on agriculture, Dr. Bledsoe is just strengthening the power of the white men. At the beginning of Chapter 2, Ellison describes the "white Home Economics practice cottage," and the "black powerhouse." He sets the two up in comparison, making the white cottage the more noticeable than the black powerhouse. The way in which Ellison sets this up makes it seem as it the white cottage is nothing without the powerhouse doing all of the droning work. This is a symbolic reference to the power structure of the time. All of the power of the white people is dependent on have obedient African Americans who are willing to do the dirty work, know their place in society, and are too afraid to challenge the structure. This college is run by the white trustees to do exactly that. It teaches the blacks to accept their role in society, and not aspire to achieve more. This is similar to the idea of slavery. All of the power of the white land owner and his wealth is directly proportional to how many obedient slaves he has. If he has enough slaves to work all of his land, and he does not have to worry about them rebelling, then he will be able to gain more power. By Dr. Bledsoe running the college the way he does and teaching these young blacks to conform to society, he is not gaining any power for himself, but rather only boosting that of the whites that have tricked him into doing his own job obediently, and to their standards.