Invisible
Man
By Ralph Ellison
Image Credit: Encyclopedia
Britannica
1. Bibliography
Ellison, R. (1952). Invisible Man. New
York: Vintage International. ISBN 0808554123
2. Plot Summary
“The narrator of Invisible Man is a nameless young black man who
moves in the 20th-century United States where reality is surreal and who can survive only through
pretense. Because the people he encounters "see only my surroundings,
themselves, or figments of their imagination," he is effectively
invisible. He leaves the racist South for New York City, but his encounters continue to disgust
him. Ultimately, he retreats to a hole in the ground, which he furnishes and
makes his home. There, brilliantly illuminated by stolen electricity, he can seek
his identity.”
An unnamed black narrator
strives to understand both himself and what it means to be black in America. In
the prologue, we are introduced to the narrator who lives rent-free in an
abandoned basement of a New York City apartment. It is the present and the following chapters
are told retrospectively about how he became “invisible”. He tells how he grew
up in a Southern town where blacks cater to whites. He tells about his grandfather, a slave, who
said on this deathbed to “overcome with yeses”. He is invited to speak at a
hotel and is awarded a scholarship to a black college. At the college, he is
given the responsibility to drive one of the trustees but things go horribly
wrong and he is kicked out of college.
The college president gives him letters of introduction to trustees in
New York City. He is turned away from
these men and ends up working at a paint factory. An explosion at the factory
puts him out on the street where he is taken in by a kind lady in Harlem. Coming across an eviction in process, he
comes to the aid of the evicted couple giving a speech the stirs the crowd into
action. This speech is overheard by “The
Brotherhood” who asks him to work for them using a scientific method to bring
about action in the community. The narrator and The Brotherhood clash in
ideology. Things go wrong culminating in
a riot that brings our protagonist to find his hidden home and discover his
invisibility.
3. Critical Analysis
Invisible Man is Ralph Ellison’s first novel. It is a story of self-discovery and is widely
recognized as one of the great novels examining the African-American
experience. The invisibility of
Ellison’s title character is about the invisibility of identity (above all,
what it means to be a black man) and its various pretenses, confronting both
personal experience and the power of collective misconceptions. The novel’s special quality is its
skillful combination of inquiry into identity and what it means to be
socially or racially invisible. It is a metaphor for the history of the
African-American experience in America. The first-person narrator remains
nameless, looking back at his moves through the dreamlike reality of
surroundings and people from the racist South to the no less unwelcoming world
of New York City.
Key characters include the
Invisible Man who acts as the narrator.
He is a young naïve black man and everything is seen through his
eyes. Dr. Bledsoe, the college
president, pretends to be humble and subservient to whites, yet is intent on
having power. Mr. Norton, a college
trustee, and northern white businessman is obsessed with love for his daughter
and brags about his generous monetary gifts to blacks. Lucius Brockway, an old
black man who works in the basement of the paint factory. Mary Rambo, a kind
black lady who dedicates herself to others.
Brother Jack a white leader of the Brotherhood. Outwardly calm and nonracist but in reality,
he uses people and betrays them. Tod
Clifton, and intelligent, sensitive, handsome and idealistic black youth. He is a man of action, popular in the
Brotherhood but he cannot tolerate the reality that he is no more than a puppet
to the organization. Brother Tarp, and older black man and fatherly toward the
narrator. Ras the Exhorter, a black
militant who believes in the total separation of the races.
The themes of the novel
include invisibility. The narrator
discovers that people neither see nor understand him. No one sees the individual underneath all his
labels and he does not see his full potential.
Quest for identity is explored.
As a young man, the narrator tries to be what he thinks others want him
to be. He discovers, after much struggle, that freedom lies in finding out who
he really is as a human being and as a black man. Another theme is the
stereotyping of African-Americans. The protagonist responds to whites’
prejudices by using lots of deodorants, always being punctual, and eating
traditional American food. The novel also explores the rejection of
Marxism. The primary character rejects
the Brotherhood’s Marxist view of history as a rational, scientific process
moving in a straight line toward the ultimate goal of a classless society. And, most certainly, the novel explores black
pride. The narrator knows that his position of “invisibility” is absurd. He is human but is seen as less than human.
Ellison claims that blacks have sometimes responded to whites’ racism by
showing a passive, yet constant hatred (like the narrator’s grandfather), by
adopting amoral behavior (like Rinehart), or by deceiving and using whites
(Bledsoe). Ellison’s alternative is to assert black cultural pride.
The main symbols used in the
story include the blindfold which represents those barriers that prevent people
from seeing themselves and others.
Another symbol is the battle royal which symbolizes the struggle of
blacks in a society controlled by whites.
The sambo dolls represent those blacks who are easily manipulated by
whites. The possessions of the evicted
couple represent the black American past and animals stand for primitive human
instincts that lie beneath the civilized surface. The briefcase stands for the
narrator’s past life. It contains papers
from his past and he has to destroy it to illuminate his present and move into
the future. The author uses rich, powerful, superbly controlled language. A
first-person narrator gives an overall impression of events rather than a
detailed, analytical view. A tone of
detachment keeps the narrative from sounding bitter.
While Invisible Man bears comparison with other
existential novels, it also maps out the story of one man’s identity against
the struggles of shared self-definition. The novel takes
the central character through the limited possibilities offered to African-Americans, from enslaved grandparents through
southern education, through to all the Harlem politics. Ellison’s precision in
the way he shows his narrator-protagonist working through these possibilities
is skillfully worked into a novel about particular people, events, and
situations, from the terrifying world of the mockingly named Liberty Paints to
the socialist scheming
of the Brotherhood. In the process, Ellison offers sensitive but harsh critiques of the resources of the black culture, such as religion and music.
4. Expert Reviews
- - National Book Award for Fiction
- - Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Special
Achievement
- - Nominated as one of
America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
- - Kirkus Review: “An extremely powerful
story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three
years of college to his life in Harlem. This is Ellison's first novel, but he
has complete control of his story and his style.”
- - New York Times: "Invisible
Man" is tough, brutal and sensational. It is uneven in quality. But it
blazes with authentic talent. No one interested in books by or about American
Negroes should miss it.”
- - Newyorker: “This complicated kind of progress seemed to me to
accurately reflect how, for the marginalized in America, choices have never
been clear or easy.”
5. Connections
Other books by Ralph Ellison:
-
(1986). Going to the Territory. Random
House. ISBN 0679760016
-
(1996). Flying Home. Random House.
ISBN 0679457046
-
(2000). Trading Twelves. Modern
Library. ISBN 0375503676
-
(2010). Three Days Before the Shooting.
Modern Library. ISBN 9780375759536
