  But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me 	against him, but only the other kind.
		It was a close place.  I took it up, and held it in my hand.  I was a-trembling, 	because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.  I studied a 	minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
		"All right, then, I'll GO to hell"—and tore it up. 
	I believe that one of the reasons that this passage is so moving is because it is about accepting the Other, and our responsibility toward the Other. Huck really believes that he is choosing between heaven and Jim, and still chooses Jim. Even against the pressures of society, Huck realizes that he is morally responsible for ensuring Jim's “irrevocable and inalienable” rights as a human being . Interestingly, by showing Jim's Otherness, his individuality, Twain also shows us his Sameness – namely, that he is the of the same type, the same species, the same kind, as Huck, and as the reader. Ironically, we recognize us in him because Twain shows us that Jim is unique, that he is not us, and more importantly, that he is not just a black man. Again, by viewing the work through a moral philosophy we are able to see a new beauty, or at least to better understand the beauty which we saw before.
	Simply dealing with Otherness is not enough, however, to make a work great. Again, with a brief apology for the necessity of pointing out flaws in works that may be better appreciated by others, I believe that Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is not as great a work of literature as it could be because it violates Levinas's moral philosophy. Ellison focuses so much on creating a character who is the quintessential twentieth-century black American that his protagonist is robbed of his individuality, of his Otherness. In fact, Ellison goes so far in his attempt to make his character representative of his invisible race that he never even gives him a name. He is intentionally made to be interchangeable and without a real personality. This lack of a name is representative of how the Otherness of the protagonist is subjugated, over and over, to the aims of the author.
	Ellison has the protagonist go through an almost unbelievable series of events in order to bring him into situations where Ellison can get to the issues or symbolism that he wants to. For example, at one point in the story the protagonist gets a job at a paint factory, where they make white paint on the back of black labor. In case we miss the symbolism, Ellison has the protagonist remember the jingle for the company: “If you're white, you're right” . And all of this within twenty pages! Ellison, quite simply, uses his protagonist and his plot as a tool to allow him write about the topics that he wants to address, with little regard for the individuality of his characters.
