Ralph Ellison Invisible Man

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Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is based around a main character whose identity is never revealed throughout the entire novel. Blindness and invisibility are ongoing motifs in the novel and Ellison cleverly displays how the motifs are related. Ellison might be trying to say that when one becomes blind they are invisible to the truth of their own actions or of society’s actions, or that when becoming blind, African Americans are subjected to the white man’s rule. Blindness forces an invisible identity. The motifs in Invisible Man are similar to those in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn does not know his identity and is viewed by society invisible. The narrator in Invisible Man realizes he does not know what his…show more content…
He also claims that being invisible is both advantageous and a great annoyance (Ellison 3). People fail to see the narrator for who he is and he states, “When they approach me, they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination-indeed, everything and anything except me” (3). The invisible man also states “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (3). The narrator is not seen for the person he is but instead for what others believe him to be which makes them blind. He also claims that he is invisible because he is black displaying society’s racial prejudice against blacks. The narrator’s identity lies in being invisible which he finally realizes after many years. The invisible man also realizes that for him to hold some sort of shape he needs light since truth is light. He has lived in darkness for many years before realizing his identity as an invisible man and now lights up his home for he now knows who he is. Although invisibility may be an annoyance for the narrator, it is also a form of freedom and a sense of control over others. He tries to have the upper hand on those in society but soon realizes that although he might be able to weaken his enemy, he ultimately cannot fix the problems of society. When the invisible man comes to grasps with this, he comes…show more content…
The guys fighting in “battle royal” were blindfolded resulting in their powerlessness against the white men forcing them to fight. “Battle Royal” subjected the men to fight each other under the white men’s orders. The narrator wanted to be able to see during the fight because of the sense of life or death during the situation. Ellison writes, “Everyone fought hysterically. It was complete anarchy. Everybody fought everybody else. No group fought together for long. Two, three, four, fought one, then turned to fight each other, were themselves attacked” (23). He thought, “I wanted to see, to see more desperately than ever before” (22). The invisible man did not know what was going on while being blindfolded; the situation was a blurred mess but soon after the fight was determined to be between the narrator and Tatlock, the blindfolds were removed and the chaos was resolved. The darkness seemed to cloud the narrator’s sense of being. The narrator now knew what was going on since he could now see his surroundings. Being blindfolded led to great confusion of not knowing what was going on during the fight and in a larger sense with what was going on in the society. This ability of not being able to see during the fight demonstrates the ongoing struggle in the novel of trying to remove the blindfold and see the world and regain the ability of sight and knowing

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