Invisible Man Thematic Essay

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Invisible Man Thematic Essay A person’s life is a struggle between conforming to what others want and what a person wants for themselves. Sometimes, a person might want to improve something in society. To do this, one would have to gain command and a good esteem in their community, but at the same time, another would want power just for the sake of power. These people generally use others to gain what they want. There is a fine line between losing whom you are to increase power and gaining power to improve something in society - becoming powerful through your own gains. Therefore it’s a challenge to stay true yourself when reaching for power for whatever reason. Ralph Ellison illustrates this topic well in Invisible Man. Individuality is hard to achieve when a person wants power to improve society. Blindness is a constant obstacle when trying to attain personal individualism. Throughout Ellison’s book, Invisible Man, people and symbols all point towards someone’s blindness. The Founder’s Statue at the narrator’s college is said to have “empty eyes [which] look upon [the] world” (36). This statue is supposed to be the great person who started the collage, someone to look up to. But he is blind and doesn’t see the world. His “empty eyes” are figuratively looking away from the racism that controls everything occurring at the college. The narrator also experiences many different instances of peoples’ blindness. For example, the Brotherhood is blind to individuality. This is represented by Brother Jack’s glass eye. He can’t see the whole picture; the only thing he can focus on is what’s right in front of him, which is his power and the ability to control people to reach his own goals. Brother Jack doesn’t care about the blacks and their needs. In the end, this is his weakness. The main character has his own downfall as well. His ignorance

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