Invisible Man
is chiefly a novel about defining one’s identity as an individual and as part of a larger group. Throughout the novel, the nameless protagonist struggles to understand his place in a world of ever shifting modes of power, and regional place, which both disrupt his sense of self. The work is structured as a series of cyclical episodes in which the narrator arrives at a new identity, usually one that is placed upon him by others or necessitated by the conditions in which he finds himself. Race, regional origin, and class position serve as barriers to knowing the self. Ultimately, Ellison seems to suggest that to know oneself is a source of power that frees the individual from the alienating forces of oppression.
Invisible Man
is written with a frame story. The novel opens with the nameless protagonist hiding out in a Harlem basement apartment as he sets down to retrospectively narrate the experiences that lead to this moment. The apartment is brightly lit by hundreds of light bulbs, fed by the electricity the Invisible Man steals from Monopolated Light & Power. This opening scene introduces readers to some of the major motifs of the novel. The light bulbs foreshadow the invisible man’s struggle to be seen. He desires recognition of his self-identity over social identity. “Before that I lived in the darkness into which I was chased, but now I see. I’ve illuminated the blackness of my invisibility.”
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The frame structure introduces the concept of voice, oration and story-telling as a means of defining oneself. The protagonist uses story-telling to wrest his identity from the hands of others.
As the novel continues it shifts back in time and the Invisible Man is faced with a series of others who seek to define him. Perhaps the most striking example is the scene of the “battle royal”. During this selection the Invisible Man has been invited to share his graduation speech with a group of important White officials from his hometown. However, once he arrives at the event he is forced to fight a group of other young black men while blindfolded. The fight, arranged for the entertainment of the white officials, is followed by the narrator’s efforts to deliver his speech after his mouth has been bloodied. The Invisible Man’s difficulty speaking and his error in saying “social equality” in the place of “social responsibility” illustrate the limitations a White, wealthy power-structure place on the Black individual. Following the speech, the Superintendent emerges to award the Invisible Man a scholarship to a
negro college,
“He makes a good speech and some day he’ll lead his people down the proper paths…This is a good, smart boy so to encourage him in the right direction.”
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In this instance, the town’s White elite define the “proper path” and “right direction” towards identity. Here Ellison demonstrates the limitations placed on Black identity as a result of racism, but he is also invoking important and varying traditions in Black political thought which also give shape to the narrator’s identity.
The use of the terms “social responsibility” and “social equality” invoke the ideas of Booker T. Washington, who believed that Black Americans could achieve progress by working within the channels already afforded to them and proving acceptability to White society through diligence and hard work, versus those of W.E.B. Du Bois, who asserted the opposite—that in order to defeat racism, Black Americans needed to seek their own political power. These two competing notions pull at the narrator throughout the first half of the novel. The White elites of the novel favor the ideology of Washington over Du Bois, thus holding up their ideal of the identity the Invisible Man should aspire to.
As the novel continues, the Invisible Man is recurrently confronted with questions of self-identity. After being expelled from college for embarrassing the school leaders in front of a wealthy white donor, the Invisible Man struggles to understand his place in the world. He had come to envision his potential through the university, but soon learns the dean, Dr. Bledsoe, is more concerned with maintaining his own image and power than looking out for the interests of the students. “For three years I had thought of myself as a man and here with a few words he’d [Bledsoe] made me feel as helpless as an infant.”
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In this instance the Invisible Man reflects on his time at the college. During his time at the college the Invisible Man believes that the only acceptable method of achievement for a Black man is through the formal channels of academia; thus, evoking the ideas of Booker T. Washington. His expulsion denies him the ability to identify as a Black scholar, which creates a crisis between his social and self-identities. The Invisible Man leaves the college disillusioned, betrayed, and searching for new meaning.
Once the Invisible Man arrives in Harlem, signaling a shift in the novel’s tone and pace, he meets a group of activists known as the Brotherhood, who are organizing against evictions, and working people’s exploitation, and who are champions of the Black struggle. The Brotherhood is a loose representation of the American Communist Party. Although the degree to which Ellison was involved with the Communist Party USA has been contested, researcher and literary critic, Barbara Foley, asserts he collaborated with the party throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s:
It has become critical commonplace that in his unsympathetic portrayal of the Brotherhood in
Invisible Man
, Ralph Ellison, ‘
got it right’
about the left, as it were. While Ellison spent some time on the fringes of the Communist Party (CP), the story goes, he was always wary of its motives and, as a Black man, skeptical of its class based politics. . . . However, during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s—the period presumably covered in the Harlem portion of the novel—Ellison, in fact, vigorously endorsed and supported the program and outlook of the U.S. Communist left.
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In the novel, once the Invisible Man joins forces with the Brotherhood, he embraces his new party identity and begins using the power of voice to agitate and motivate Harlem Blacks to join the Brotherhood in struggle. He is given a new party name and identity and for a time seems to have found an alternative path to self-acceptance and success, but this does not last and Ellison asks the reader to consider what the protagonist has given up in order to be brought into the fold of the Party. Ultimately, when the police kill brother Clifton, one of the few other Black members, after he (Clifton) has abandoned his role in the Party, the Invisible Man becomes disillusioned by the Brotherhood’s tepid response and refusal to organize a political response to the slaying. In this space, he begins to question who he is once more.
Remarkably, Brother Clifton is killed while running from the police for illegally selling “Sambo” dolls on the street. The Sambo doll is a racist caricature of a Black man, designed with exaggerated African American features. When the Invisible Man first sees Brother Clifton selling the dolls, he becomes infuriated and believes Clifton’s reactionary behavior paints him as a race and class traitor; however, after reflecting on the invisible string that allows Clifton to manipulate the puppet, he comes to identify himself with the doll. This moment initiates another major identity crisis in the novel. The Invisible Man discovers that his understanding of himself as a Black leader and a party member are undermined by the treatment he receives by the White party members.
In the final scenes of the novel, identity is revisited again. Harlem erupts into violence after the Brotherhood fails to provide direction to the outpouring of anger and resentment generated by Brother Clifton’s death. Amidst the chaos, the Invisible Man stumbles around Harlem wearing a disguise. Mistaken for a figure named Rinehart, the Invisible Man learns that identities are fluid and complex. He can masquerade as a preacher, a gambler, a lover, etc. “Still, could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? What is real anyway?…His world was possibility and he knew it.”
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In this last act, the Invisible Man consciously puts on the identity of another without it interfering with his understanding of self. The novel ends after the Invisible Man is chased into a manhole and must burn the papers in his briefcase, each of which connects to one of his past identities (his diploma, his scholarship letter, his new Brotherhood Name, etc.), in order to light his way. This culminating symbolism suggests that the narrator must shed his past selves, which were constructed under the influence of others, in order to truly be free.