Yajing
Zhang
Professor
Broadous
PAS
114B
25
April 2012
Analysis
of The Invisible Man
Black American author Ralph Ellison became famous for his novel "The
Invisible Man". It reveals problems that the people of color have
experienced in their search for responsibility, dignity, and equality in
America (Ellison xx). It tells the story of a naive Southern black American
seeking for his proper place in society. It is a complex work where symbols are
used to explore several themes. One of which is that white Americans refuse to
see blacks as a basic part of society, which renders the latter as invisible. He
also suggests that all Americans must guard against the loss of their humanity
( Graham 3). The story begins with the self
introduction of an invisible man. As the narrator of the story, he states that
his invisibility is due not to a certain mystical cause or biochemical
disaster. He is an invisible man because people are reluctant to recognize his
presence because of his color (Ellison 5). His whole life seems to be a dream. People
around him seem to be sleepwalkers in a dream into which he never comes into
view (Ellison 13). His invisibility is both an advantage and a source of
distress. It causes him doubts his existence. The realization that his attempts
to be recognized always end in failure certainly pains him.
He secretly lives underground and finds pleasure in Louis Armstrong’s
jazz. The protagonist tells of his experiences of listening to this music after
smoking marijuana and states that its influence, like that of marijuana,
emerges from its ability to alter the sense of time of a person. He mentions
that he put an end to his addiction since he believes that it decreases his ability
to act, while Armstrong’s jazz drives him to act (Ellison 22). He hides himself
away in his invisibility together with his also invisible music, planning his
unspecified course of action (Ellison 36). The start of his tale is actually
the end. He inquires who was accountable for his near-murder of the blond man
who laid insult on him. Although he might have been lost in a dream world, the
man eventually manipulated his so-called dream (Ellison 36). Even so, if the
man summons the police, he would have to take the blame.
The metaphors of blindness and invisibility permit an investigation of
the effects of racial discrimination (Ellison 99). The white would rather not
view him as a real individual because of his color. In effect, he renders
himself invisible and considers his perpetrators as blind (Ellison 119). In the
story of the Invisible man, racial discrimination serves as a hindrance in
one’s search for his or her distinct identity in the world into which he or she
is born (Ellison 119). The Invisible Man strives to attain a concept of his own
identity. The protagonist becomes aware that his color makes his effort more
difficult especially since he is living in a racially discriminating society.
As he tries to find a definition for his identity by means of the expectations
and values forced on him, he comes to a realization that, every time, the
impose roles restricts his multifaceted being and compels him to perform an
fake role (Ellison 124).
The protagonist becomes involved in a practice wherein white is greatly
dependent on the people of color, in particular, in the process of mixing paint
tones as well as on the racial structure of the labor force (Patterson 73). Eventually, the protagonist finds
that racism causes other people to view him only in the way they want to regard
him, in which case, non-existent. His
ability to take action is curbed by the restricted visions of other people
toward him.
He is resolved that he is an invisible
man, in as far as society is full of blind people who cannot and will rather
not view his genuine character. In the same way, he is still not able to
perform in accordance to his own person and is actually still not able to act
as himself (Ellison 143). Even though in the beginning he accepts his invisibility
in an effort to escape from the restricting nature of typecasting, ultimately,
he realizes that his approach is quite passive (Ellison 143). He decides to
surface from his hibernation, to deliver his personal contributions to society
as a multifaceted being (Ellison 199). He will try to exercise his power beyond
the prescribed roles imposed by society. Through the provocative contributions
he delivers to society, he is determined to compel others to recognize the
presence of values and codes of conduct past of their discriminatory
expectations.
Throughout the course of the story, the audience can find restrictions
to the subject of ideology. The protagonist finds that the complex nature of
his inner person is curbed not just by the racial prejudice exercised by other
people toward him but also by their rather common ideologies (Salzman, Smith, and West 789). He comes to a
realization that the ideologies developed by institutions are quite basic and
one-dimensional to work when applied to something as multifaceted and complex
as individual identity (Ellison 217).
The story presents various manifestations of specific ideologies, such
as that of the ingratiating yet subtle ideology expressed by Booker T.
Washington to the more aggressive, autonomist ideology like that of Ras the
Exhorter (Ellison 231). Still, the story underlines its central theme most
forcefully when the subject of Brotherhood is discussed (Ellison 343). Amongst the Brotherhood, he learned of an
ideology which claims to rescue the people. In reality, it unfailingly curbs
and betrays one’s freedom, though (Ellison 343). The story seems to imply that
life is quite rich, very much diverse, and extremely unpredictable to be tied
up carefully in a single ideology, comparable to jazz, the kind of music he is
especially has a fondness for (Ellison 304). Life arrives at the peak of its
splendor in times of improvisation and through the element of surprise.
The story of the Invisible Man also presents the risk of struggling
stereotype with stereotype. The protagonist is not the sole African American
who has suffered the restrictions of racially prejudiced stereotyping. At the
same time as he attempts to break free from the grip of discrimination on a
personal level, he comes across other people of color who tries to lay down a
defense tactic for their fellow African Americans. Each suggests a theory of
the said correct way to be a person of color in a racially discriminating
American society and attempts to give an idea as to how the people of color
should behave according to their prescribed theories. The supporters of such
theories deem a violation of their prescriptions as an equivalent to the
betrayal of their race. In the end, though, the protagonist realizes that the
prescriptions simply defy stereotype with stereotype and substitute one
restricting role with the other (Ellison 473).
In the early part of the story, the grandfather of the protagonist
justifies to his grandson his belief that to be able to defy and mock racial
discrimination, people of color must stress their servility to the white
counterparts. Dr. Bledsoe speaks for the college where the protagonist went to
(Ellison 56). Dr. Bledsoe believes that people of color can most effectively
attain success by working efficiently and employing the behavior and language
of their white counterparts (Ellison 59). Ras the Exhorter believes that the
people of color must stand up and assume their freedom through the destruction
of their white counterparts. Even though all of their concepts surfaces from
within their own community, the story suggests that they finally prove to be as
dangerous as their white counterpart’s racial typecasting.
In their search for the definition of their identity inside a race in a
very narrow way, the people representing their race like Ras and Bledsoe try to
empower themselves (Ellison 231) .
However, in the end, they damage their own persons. Rather than
discovering their individual identities, just like what the protagonist strives
to do throughout the course of the story, Ras and Bledsoe deliver themselves
together with their people to be subjected to prescribed roles (Ellison 201). They
both regard as disloyal anyone who tries to behave contrary to their prescribed
formulae. Nevertheless, as a people of color who try to curb and direct the
conduct of their fellow African Americans, it is the people like Ras and
Bledsoe who most severely deceive the people they claim to represent.
Perhaps, the most significant motif in the Invisible Man is the concept
of blindness, which reappears throughout the course of the story and by and
large signifies how people deliberately escape from seeing and dealing with
reality. The protagonist constantly remarks that the inability of other people
to acknowledge what they see has compelled him to live the life of an invisible
man.
Several figures also reject to accept the
truths of their own persons or that of the community where they belong, and
such refusal appears time and again in the metaphor of blindness (Ellison 352).
The protagonist also encounters moments of blindness, in particular, the time
when he speaks to the community of the people of color under colossal, blinding
lights. In every incident presented in
the story, the failure of sight is equivalent to the lack of insight.
Since the protagonist has resolved that society is filled with people
who are unable to see. The world is full
of sleepwalkers who do not and will rather not regard him as a person of worth
just like them. The metaphor of blindness imparted in the story of the
Invisible Man, usually told hand in hand with the metaphor of invisibility
(Ellison 223). An individual appear to be invisible since the other person is
blind.
Although the story almost constantly negatively depicts the idea of
blindness, it regards the idea of invisibility quite vaguely. Invisibility may
cause disempowerment at the same time as it gives mobility and liberty (Ellison
304). Certainly, it is the freedom the protagonist obtains from his
invisibility which allows him to narrate his tale.
As the story nears its conclusion, the protagonist is then resolved that
even though invisibility can result in safety, measures done in secrecy will
not produce a significant impact to the world though. One may destabilize his
opponents from a position of invisibility. However, he or she cannot cause
considerable changes to society (Ellison 296). As what the protagonist in the
story of the Invisible Man imparts, what matters most is to rise up and deal
with reality to cause a noticeable difference to society into which they are
born. He knows not if his choice to live underground has subjected him in
either at the avant-garde or at the rear of social activism. He resolves to
leave that issue to people like Jack as he tries to examine the lessons he
learns from the very life he is living.
As the story comes to a close, his life story comes full circle. Yet
again, the story of him living underground unfolds, just as how the story
begun. The recurring nature of his life together with his assertion that his
hibernation is overdone, means that he stands on the brink of a new beginning.
While he was hibernating, he examines his life lessons and tries to give
meaning to his plight to be able to realize his own identity without the
intervention of other people. He denies the concept that a single philosophy
can represent a whole way of life; an ideal world formed in accordance to a
single ideology would automatically restrict the complexity of every person,
for every person represents one a strand in a multitude, and a society of
individuals must necessarily mirror such diversity. At the end of the story, he
remains puzzled concerning his own identity (Ellison 132). Nonetheless, he is
resolved to honor his unique complexity as well as his responsibilities to the
society where he belongs.
The Invisible Man serves an eye opener to the injustices that happen in
the world today. It speaks to the
audience who can relate with the protagonist or identify with the perpetrators
and realize the difference. It helps the audience realize that they are living
in a diverse world where the reality of co-existence must be respected. Beyond
the color of the skin, each and every person deserves to be respected and
valued as a person of worth.
Works
Cited
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage
International, 1995. Print.
Graham, Maryemma. Cambridge Companion to the African American
Novel. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ., 2004. Print.
Patterson, Lindsay. An Introduction to Black Literature in
America: From 1746 to the Present. Cornwells Heights, PA: Publishers Agency,
1978. Print.
Salzman, Jack, David L. Smith, and Cornel West. Encyclopedia of
African-American Culture and History. New York: Macmillan Library Reference,
1996. Print
