656
SELMA FRAIBERG
of the Negro, the black sin which is cast out in dread and loathing
and rediscovered in a black brother with dread and loathing. The
sin is, of course, incest, and the impossible meeting is the con.
frontation of the white man with his sinful motive. The meeting
is envisioned by Ellison with superb wit.
Mr. Norton, the white philanthropist, appears
in
the early
part of the novel as the distinguished visitor to the campus of a
southern Negro college. The narrator, then a student, is appointed
chauffeur to Mr. Norton during his visit and unwittingly steers
him
to the fateful meeting with the farmer, Trueblood. Mr. Norton
has dedicated his life to the improvement of the Negro. His work
is a monument to his dead daughter, and he speaks lyrically of
her beauty, her purity and her goodness. His love for his daughter
and his good works for the Negro are the two sustaining forces
of his life. We do not understand yet how they are connected.
Mr. Norton has an extraordinary introduction to Mr. True·
blood, the Negro sharecropper of local fame, who has impregnated
both his daughter and his wife. In fascinated horror Mr. Norton
confronts the sharecropper.
"Is it true .. . I mean did you"?
"Suh?" Trueblood asked ...
. . . "You have survived," he blurted. "But is it true .. .
?"
USuh?"
the farmer said, his brow wrinkling with bewilder·
ment....
. . . "You did and you are unharmed!" he shouted,
his
blue
eyes blazing into the black face with something like envy and
indignation. . . .
"You have looked upon chaos and are not destroyed!"
"No suh! I feels all right."
"You do? You feel no inner turmoil, no need to cast out the
offending eye?"
US-uh?"
"Answer me!"
"I'm all right, suh," Trueblood said uneasily. "My eyes
is
all right too. And when I feels po'ly
in
my gut I takes a little
soda and it goes away."
Trueblood is urged to tell his tale.
One night in the crowded family bed of the sharecropper's
cabin Trueblood lay next to his grown daughter and· found
him·
