The Invisible man by Ralph Ellison portrays a man who feels as if he is “invisible” to society although he is clearly physically visible. In the beginning of his story, not including the preface, the Invisible Man feels as if society is there to help him; that it would be good to him. He graduated his class as valedictorian and he gave such a grand speech where he received praise from everyone, blacks and whites. However, after a long journey through life, he realizes that society is not necessarily good, it may seem good but it is inherently evil towards a select few groups, blacks especially. The novel goes through his life journey filled with disappointment and shows that he has come up with the conclusion that society is evil.
If the Invisible man were a real person today, one might tell him to keep on trying to strive no matter how much society puts him down, but his views are completely justified due to the experiences that he had gone through. For example, in the beginning of the novel the Invisible man was invited to give a speech in front of some of the most respected white people of the community. However that was not the entirety of the situation. Those who invited him also forced him to enter a “battle royal” along with a group of other black boys to fight for money in which the narrator got beat up. Then, the narrator had to give his speech to a group of people who did not pay much attention, instead they sat there laughing and drinking. He was then given scholarship money to an all black college which made him believe that everyone was trying to help him succeed. However, it was not soon after that he was expelled and given several letters of “recommendations” so he could obtain a job to make the money to return to college. Even this was false hope in society because those seven letters did not boost him image but rather marred his image as a prospective employee. Later in his life, he had joined the Brotherhood, a group of people who were supposedly trying to better the image of the black person. During his time in the Brotherhood, he met a person Ras who told the Invisible man that the Brotherhood was not what he thought it was. At first he did not believe it but after a couple of years he finally recognizes that it was in fact a lie.
Throughout his life, he was let down by society. Society had filled him with false hope and faith. How could anyone find good in society when all society did was let you down? That was how the Invisible man felt although he didn’t feel that way right away. As aforementioned he thought society was there to help him because as a boy he was praised and the white people would smile at him. In the end, though, he was just a transparent image; people had just looked right through him because of his race. He understands that he, being a black man, will never be seen on the same level as a white man, he will always be inferior and disregarded, thus becoming “invisible.”
I agree with this essay, and I particularly like the involvement of the narrator’s past. Your explanation of the narrator’s graduation speech made sense when thinking about how he acted in the beginning of the novel. The narrator once seemed full of life; if someone tried to prevent him from making a speech, he ignored them. This directly leads to the parallel of the narrator at the end of the novel, who now does not care about what anyone thinks or says. It is interesting how you give examples from the past because the reader can clearly see the difference of the character brought on by time. The wording of the essay not only makes me agree with your facts, but it brings up questions that I do wonder the answers to. However, as said in your closing, I do not believe that it is because he is black that he is invisible. He is falsely led by Dr. Bledsoe, another African American, and the Brotherhood. Most of the characters in the novel are African Americans, so to say he was invisible because of his ethnicity is a general statement. All together, I agree with your essay and the wording of it makes perfect sense of your connection.
ReplyDelete-Anthony Scalia