Invisible Man Essay

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The book Invisible Man (448 pages) by Ralph Ellison begins with the narrator telling his story with the claim that he is an “invisible man.” His invisibility, he says, is not a physical condition—he is not literally invisible—but is rather the result of the refusal of others to see him. He says that because of his invisibility, he has been hiding from the world, living underground and that he has gone underground in order to write the story of his life and invisibility.
The narrator's first real glimpse at the cruel manipulation of white people comes when he is invited to the local men's club to read a speech. He gives the speech and is rewarded with a briefcase and a scholarship to a black college, but only after he endures the humiliation of performing for the white men there. He and several black boys are forced to box each other and then scramble around a rug pulsing with electric current to grab coins while the white men laugh at their pain. Racism is the cruel manipulation that the white people portray. The narrator goes off to college and determines to model himself after Dr. Bledsoe, the college's dean and a successful black man who is well respected in his community. Unfortunately, the narrator makes a dreadful mistake when he is chauffeuring Mr. Norton, a wealthy white man who donates a great deal of money to the college. He inadvertently reveals the seedier side of the black race by allowing the man to stop and speak with Joe Trueblood, a poor, black man ostracized from the black community because he got his own daughter pregnant. After the upsetting encounter with Trueblood, the white man is feeling weak and needs a drink, so the young man takes him to the closest place he can think of, the local black bar. Then, shortly after the narrator drives Mr. Norton back to campus. Dr. Bledsoe is so furious with the narrator's indiscretion and stupidity that he expels him. Dr. Bledsoe offers him some hope, however, by offering to...