Invisible Man Essay: The Phases of Invisibility

Many people wonder what it would be like if they were to be invisible; stealthily walking around, eavesdropping on conversations, and living as if nothing is of their concern. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, is centred on an unnamed fictional character who believes himself to be, indeed, invisible to the rest of the world. He is not invisible in the physical sense, but socially and intellectually. As the book develops, readers are able to experience an authentic recollection of what life is as a black man living in a white man’s world. This man wants to achieve so much, but is severely limited by the colour of his skin. This novel, which has become a classic, addresses the themes of blindness in fighting stereotypes and predestined

The narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the victim of his own naiveté. Throughout the novel he trusts that various people and groups are helping him when in reality they are using him for their own benefit. They give him the illusion that he is useful and important, all the while running him in circles. Ellison uses much symbolism in his book, some blatant and some hard to perceive, but nothing embodies the oppression and deception of the white hierarchy surrounding him better than his treasured briefcase, one of the most important symbols in the book.

Once attending college, the man is betrayed by his professor, Dr. Bledsoe. “‘Tell anyone you like,’ he said. ‘I don’t care. I wouldn’t raise my little finger to stop you because I do not owe anyone a thing, son’”(Ellison 153). In the same way, Dr. Bledsoe creates betrayal because the narrator looks up to him and the professor wants nothing to do with the narrator. Moreover, he a gets in predicament at well known bar called Golden days, which lead Dr. Bledsoe to ask the man to leave the college. Evermore, Dr. Bledsoe grants the narrator the opportunity to attend school by handing the man seven letters of employment recommendations to Harlem. Besides, this act of kindness from Bledsoe is just to appease the narrator from returning to the college. Additionally, Dr. Bledsoe presents, “A former student of ours (I say former because he shall never, under any circumstances, be enrolled as a student here again) who has been expelled for a most serious defection from our strictest rules of deportment” (Ellison 168). Ironically, the principal Mr. Norton promises not to dislodge the man from the school, but this was just so the narrator would return to the school to prove that nobody would speak up on his behalf. Essentially, Dr. Bledsoe gives the narrator the impression that he has a future at Harlom and the all-black college, but to no prevail because of the betrayal of Bledsoe.

Bledsoe as the “coal-black daddy of whom we [are] afraid” (Ellison 116). Because a father’s role is to lead by example and teach core values Invisible man accepts Bledsoe’s ideology and beliefs with little hesitation; even when Dr. Bledsoe orders for him to leave the college, an order that would inevitably hurt his future, Invisible Man convinces himself that he has violated the code and deserves Bledsoe’s punishment (Ellison 147). This early interaction with Bledsoe furthers the neglect and embarrassment of his culture and heritage. Bledsoe’s utter disdain for his fellow black man leaves the narrator with a sense of shame of his southern black roots as he heads to New York and later discovers the brotherhood and Brother Jack. Gerald Lyn Early describes Brother Jack as, “the latest father figure” (96) as if Invisible Man treats his mentors like ever-changing trends, abandoning one and immediately latching on to another. Down on his luck the narrator easily accepts Brother Jack into his life. Brother Jack quickly opens his arms to the narrator and gives him a house, a great salary, and he even starts to shape and mentor the narrator in his image. This leads to a need and desire for confirmation of his worth by Brother Jack about his speeches and work in the community. Brother Jack becomes, as the narrator puts it, the “great white father” (Ellison 473).  But the narrator’s faultless image surrounding Brother Jack

Ellison uses many examples of metaphors in his novel to convey invisibility, especially with references to music, imagery, and the use of a nameless character. With literature that challenged the accepted ideals surrounding that time period, Ellison expresses his thoughts by comparing an invisible man to various relatable subjects in life. When the narrator firsts starts on his journey and gets constantly bumped, he states that “You constantly wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds” (4). It draws a connection between the unknown emotions of an invisible man and the empty, invisible image of a phantom. Ellison employs a common idea to convey to the readers of the African American

The narrator in Invisible Man has the opportunity to take on numerous roles in this novel due to his invisibility. The narrator comes in contact with 3 main characters that greatly shape his life and make him the invisible man that he is. The white men from the ballroom, Dr. Herbert Bledsoe from the college, and the narrator’s grandfather all have a huge impact on the narrator’s life. In his novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison uses the main characters to affect the narrator’s invisibility.

This is an early look at the invisibility the narrator describes throughout the book. Unknowingly, he attributes these negative traits to the invisibility he will later claim as his own. Along with Mr. Norton, the Invisible Man later idolizes the white leaders of the cult-like Brotherhood. When he identifies with these eminent white figures, he perceives himself to be counted, a part of history.

Equality between individuals is a primary step to prosperity under a democracy. However, does this moral continue to apply among differences and distinct characters of the total population? In the novel, Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, the protagonists suffers from the lack of acknowledgement guaranteed to African Americans in both the North and South regions of North America during the early 1900s. The Narrator expresses the poignant problems that blacks face as he travels to the North. An anti-hero is created on his voyage of being expelled from college, earning a job at Liberty Paints, and joining the organization group called Brotherhood. The Narrator begins to follow the definition others characters give to him while fighting for the

The book’s main focus is on the gradual disillusionment of the narrator and his personal battles. In particular, the book develops the battle the narrator faces when he discovers the truth about the Brotherhood organization. He eventually realizes that they are using him for their own purposes and encouraged him to incite the blacks to a riotous level so they will kill one another. The narrator develops feelings of hopelessness when it becomes apparent that he is being betrayed by both white and black cultures. His overwhelming feeling of emptiness comes to a climax when he falls into a manhole during a riot. While hibernating in the underground black community, the narrator struggles to find meaning in his invisibility and to come up with his true identity. The seclusion allows the reader to realize the disillusionment of the narrator. Ellison does an incredible job of getting inside the narrator’s character and describing his emotional battle. At times it feels as if the text is purely his thoughts transcribed directly onto the page. The narrator traces back his history

Ralph Ellison is one of the few figures in American literature that has the ability to properly place the struggles of his characters fluidly on paper. His dedication to properly depict the true plight of African Americans in this exclusionary society gave birth to one of the greatest novels in American history. Invisible Man is a novel which tells the story of an African American man, and his journey through a society which continuously refused to see him for who he truly was. In the novel Ellison gives us a main character without a name, this at first may shock any average reader but once one falls into the enchantments of the novel,

    In the novel, Invisible Man, the main character carries around a briefcase throughout the entire story. All of the possessions that he carries in that briefcase are mementos from learning experiences. Throughout the novel, the Invisible Man is searching for his identity and later discovers that his identity is in those items.

The idea of double consciousness, termed by W.E.B. Du Bois, for African Americans deals with the notion that one’s self has duality in being black and American. It is the attempt to reconcile two cultures that make up the identity of black men and women. One can only see through the eyes of another. A veil exists in this idea, where one has limits in how he or she can see or be seen. This individual is invisible to the onlookers of the veil, and those onlookers may be invisible to the individual. This then alters how one can truly interpret their conscious. This concept is one that has been explored in various themes of literature,

One is his wife and the other his daughter.  Mr. Norton quickly finds out that Trueblood is the father of both.  Immediately Mr. Norton wants to speak with this man and to get to the truth of the situation.  In the process he becomes ill and is in need of attention.  Ellison's character takes him to the nearest place, a black whorehouse, where WWII black veterans confront him.  Upset, Mr. Norton wants to return to the campus immediately.  In Mr. Norton's world the campus is the only reality that fits in with his idea of black America.  When Dr. Bledsoe finds out what happened he becomes very angry with the boy and decides to send him away.  In Bledsoe's mind the boy is guilty of gross stupidity.  He made the mistake of showing the truth to Mr. Norton.  In doing that he has seemingly weaken everything Dr. Beldsoe has and says to him:

      Furthermore, the narrator is blind to the point where he still does not recognize Dr. Bledsoe's true intentions when he is expelled from the college and sent to New York.  The narrator actually believed that Dr. Bledsoe was sending him to New York so he would be able to pay for his next year's tuition.   The narrator truly believed that Dr. Bledsoe's letters were actually letters of recommendations.  Naïve in his

The two authors, the author of Push and the author of Invisible Man, both use the metaphor of invisibility to describe their main characters, but do so in different ways. In Push,