“I AM AN invisible man.” A story of obstacles of durable struggle, but hope, and everlasting search for voice in a narrow-minded society; The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison depicts the dehumanization and feeling of being ostracized in society, of one man. Imagine a time when everyone you encounter have a racial thought or credibility toward your own races, never considering the fact that who you are as a person does not matter worth a dime. You are better determines on shade of your skin which hide
identity and purpose in life, but it is up to each individual to find ways to overcome these obstacles, and the absurdity of life in general. Throughout The Stranger, Invisible Man, and Harrison Bergeron, existentialism is a common theme, and it plays a big role in certain characters finding their identity and their purpose in life. Existentialism is centered around the ideology that one’s purpose in life is found through an individual making their own choices and taking responsibility for their actions
narrator (p. 7). The narrator’s own self-loathing characterized by self-alienation is so obvious, that he is often referred to by critics as the Underground Man (Frank 1961, p. 1). Yet this Underground Man is the central character of Dostoyevsky’s novel and represents a subversion of the typical courageous hero. In this regard, the Underground man is an anti-hero, since as a protagonist he not only challenges the typical literary version of a hero, but also challenges conventional thinking (Brombert