	The author's willingness to subordinate both plot and protagonist is made evident a few chapters later. The protagonist has undergone the electroshock therapy, which is supposed to “produce the result of a preforontal lobotomy without the negative effects of the knife . . . the result is as complete a change of personality as you'll find . . . He'll experience no major conflict of motives, and what is even better, society will suffer no traumata on his account” .
	It is certainly possible that part of the reason that Invisible Man was so powerful in effecting political and cultural change is because of Ellison's focus on message rather than on his protagonist. However, this also reduces the power of the novel as great literature. By viewing the work through the lens of Levinas we are able to see that one reason that Ellison's focus on message is detrimental to the literariness of the novel is because it does not respect the Otherness of his characters. 
	The third philosophy that I want to view literature through is Heidegger's concept of language and truth. He claims that truth is that which uncovers, that which connects us to more of the world. He says that everything has an infinite relation with everything else, and that it is the pathways between things that give meaning . In other words, language helps to create the way that we view the world, and the way that things connect to one another for us.
	I believe that all good literature is good, at least in part, because it uncovers a part of ourself, or humanity, or a way of thinking, that we had been previously unable to see. It makes new connections between things. In this case, I think that looking first at an example that fails will increase the contrast between the good and bad, and will show more distinctly how the principle applies to literature.
	Although there are an unfortunate number of texts that would fit the bill for a failure in this category, I have chosen to focus on the particularly painful Mutant Message Down Under, by Marlo Morgan. Morgan takes the interesting subject of her time with an aborigine tribe in Western Australia, and turns it into a long fable instead of a work of art. She has fascinating and meaningful experiences with these people, but insists on telling the reader the connections that should be made. For example, when she first meets the tribe she thinks that she is going for some sort of awards ceremony, but instead they make her take off all of her clothes, jewelry, etc., and they throw it all into a fire. Instead of allowing the reader to judge for himself the importance and meaning of this experience, Morgan ends the chapter by saying:
		Only in retrospect would I understand the symbolism being played out as I 	removed my valuable and what I considered very necessary jewelry. 