Invisible Man

In what ways do individuals derive strength from struggle, or alternatively, allow struggle to overcome them?

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man explores the importance and search for identity in one of America's most heated political climates. A black man in a time of racial inequality, the invisible man faces empirical struggles on a day to day basis solely based on his ethnicity. However, by the novel's end, he rises above the obstacles he is faced with, ultimately using the racism that was once brandished against him as a defense.

Throughout the novel, the nameless man encounters numerous situations and individuals that test his strength. After being publicly humiliated when awarded a briefcase full of fake cold coins, the invisible man makes the decision to carry the briefcase with him as he searches for a sense of identity in his travels North. He eventually comes upon a bank depicting an offensively disproportionate and ill-portrayed black man, a symbol for racism's prevalence in this time period. He places this bank in his briefcase to carry it along as he searches for a greater sense of self. When later confronted by the violent nationalist Ras the Exhorter, the invisible man finds strength stored away within his briefcase. Due to their opposing viewpoints in the way of achieving equality with the white population, Ras targets the man. To defeat him, the invisible man beats him with his briefcase containing the bank, using the racism that once harmed him as a means of protection. In choosing to keep the bank, the invisible man made the decision to properly acknowledge a history of racism that has hurt him in the past. By coming to terms with this painful history, he attains enough strength to defeat even the notoriously deadly Ras and to a greater extent, the sense of identity he has been searching for.

King Lear

In what ways do individuals derive strength from struggle, or alternatively, allow struggle to overcome them?

In the prodigious Shakespeare's King Lear, a tale of the playwright's signature betrayal and tragedy, the titular character demonstrates, unlike Oedipus and Heathcliffe, evident growth, albeit small, by the play's end. Lear's first appearance reveals the decaying man's vain and altogether shallow nature, as exemplified by his pathetic request for adoration from his daughters. It is here that we see the first signs of struggle. To plead for verbal affections only shows how insecure Lear is and to his great misfortune, its permeance is only increased by an onset of dementia.

In many a turn of events, Lear eventually outcasts his favorite daughter, Cordelia, for her lack of adoration. As his two remaining daughters begin abusing the power they are given, Lear is forced to realize what little power he possesses is quickly waning and decides to evade the struggle he faces by leaving his daughters to wander a heath. In many cases, evasion of undesirable circumstances ends in a character's demise. Normally this would be true for Lear as well, though in realizing not only the wickedness of his daughters Regan and Goneril but more importantly, his insignificance, he saves himself from an entirely terrible end. 

By the time he is captured as a prisoner of war with his dear Cordelia, Lear overcomes his previous disdain for her inability to proclaim her love for him. His experiences with his other conniving daughters allowed him to realize that love is far more than a matter of words and his fight with dementia and general mental decay proved to him that he is not the powerful king he once thought he was. Rather, he is a vulnerable and elderly man who, now that he has experience the unfavorable actions of Regan and Goneril, gave up the person he loved most in a false sense of authority and imperviousness to nature. While Lear does end up passing away in grieving over the death of his favorite daughter, he does so a changed man.

Wuthering Heights

In what ways do individuals derive strength from struggle, or alternatively, allow struggle to overcome them?

From the beginning of his miserable, disgusting existence, Heathcliffe of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is depicted as an unfavorable mess of a man. Starting out as a homeless orphan is, of course, not an ideal situation. However, it is from his very beginnings as a scapegoated child in ominous England that he is shaped into yet another individual that succumbs to the struggle they face.

It is at the mere age of six that Heathcliff is brought from the streets to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, father of Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw. It is here where struggle begins to permeate the boy’s life further in the form of torment at the hands of Hindley. Heathcliff is raised in this environment with fewer opportunities than his adopted brother, yet he finds solace in Catherine’s friendship. It is this friendship that spawns his unhealthy love for her. Extenuating circumstances take place over the following decade, leaving Catherine dead of brain fever, only after marrying and giving birth to young Catherine with Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange, and Heathcliff with a child by the name of Linton. He soon inherits the estate upon Hindley’s death.

In fits of desperation over the fact that he never won Catherine’s love, Heathcliff begins to torment the children of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Struggling to vicariously live out what could have been, Heathcliff forces a marriage between his son and Catherine’s daughter, going so far as to imprison her.

Unlike Oedipus, Heathcliff’s failure to overcome his struggles primarily affect those around him rather than himself as an individual. While the blinded Oedipus shows no aggression towards those around him, for his doom was largely his fault, Heathcliff becomes warped by his loss of Catherine, causing him to act abusively and ambivalently towards the only people connecting him to her. The unfathomable pain he experiences in drawn-out mourning acts not as encouragement for the fact that he needs to change his frame of mind but rather as a reason he feels justifies his cruelty.

Oedipus the King

In what ways do individuals derive strength from struggle, or alternatively, allow struggle to overcome them?

From the start of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, it is apparent that the play's titular character has not been dealt with a great hand of cards. Not only is the man forced to look on as his city decays thanks to an onset of plague, he cannot even oblige their desperate requests for aid. In a cruel twist of fate, his situation worsens upon the realization that he has both murdered his father, Laius, and is currently wed to his mother, Jocasta. With this burdensome knowledge, in addition to the withering state of his city, Oedipus finds himself too tormented to do anything but succumb to struggle. 

Oedipus is initially known for his feet, a physical feature so prominent that he was named for their wounds. However, by the play's end, Sophocles has ensured that his starring character will not be remembered for his feet alone. It is in a fit of disbelief and guilt that Oedipus finds his wife and mother has taken her life, further provoking the residual instability he feels after realizing his actions. Overwhelmed by remorse, the king takes his mother's brooches, stabbing his eyes until they are mutilated to the point of blindness.

By no means do I expect Oedipus to have done otherwise upon discovering that his life has been filled with falsities. Quite the opposite, I feel he is justified in allowing his struggle to overtake him. Rather than acting out towards his people, Oedipus acts against himself, a relatively noble decision when one considers the fact that he stabbed his eyeballs into Jell-O with his dead wife/mother's fine jewelry. While he is indeed overcome by his struggle, Oedipus is at peace with the fact, willing to banish himself from his city as punishment for his actions, despite the ignorance surrounding them. As a product of his struggle,Oedipus will live out his days in solitude, giving him a chance to wallow in guilt and sorrow for his fateful actions, forever blinded to the strength that, had he acted towards the prophecy differently, could have very well saved him.

Big Question

In what ways do individuals derive strength from struggle, or alternatively, allow struggle to overcome them?

To struggle is to take part in the human experience and it is used widely used in literature to portray either positive character development or highlight human failure. While struggles themselves are invariably different from person to person, they are an omnipresent aspect of life regardless of gender, origin, etc. 

Having struggled with combinations of depression and anxieties for a prevalent portion of my life, I've found myself not only overcoming them but succumbing to them what seems to be every other year. My tumultuous adventures with the friend that is mental illness may fuel incredibly personal and meaningful art or even a strong basis for forming essay questions, though it has also acted as a catalyst for severed friendships, prolonged isolation, and a number of surprisingly extensive (not altogether desirable) variations in lifestyle. So rather than focusing on my own stupidity this year, I'll be searching for it in the characters I read, hopefully finding a handful I can look to when feeling particularly chemically imbalanced. 

Anyone that knows me also knows that I will reference One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at any possible time, whatever the context. The character Randle Patrick McMurphy is a prime example of deriving strength from struggle, using a prison sentence to transfer himself to a mental hospital, therein upturning the authority and society of the 1960's Oregon State Hospital. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the timid Billy Bibbit, a boy who, despite attempts to better his life, ultimately fails and reverts to a state of crippling dependence, anxiety, and suicidal idealization. 

So in an act of strength from the struggles I face creating this prompt, I take this question upon myself and look forward to gaining insight on struggle in literature, society, and hopefully myself.