Body, Gender, and Subjectivity: Performance of Blackness in Invisible Man

Body and gender is an important dimension to understand blackness. In the epic Invisible Man, the hierarchy of gender between blacks and whites is constructed by disciplining the blacks’ bodies, which enforces the difference between white and black ethnicity. Blacks’ performance of gender and identity deconstruct the myth of black essentialism. The performing gender reveals the riches of blackness and refashions the complexity of blackness. Performance, in essence, is revolt and resistance against the gender hierarchy of white patriarchy, a form of seeking for subjectivity and gender democracy