Invisible Man

Invisible Man, written by Ralph Ellison, and published in 1942 , is a novel that portrays American society in the eyes of an African American in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This novel is primarily set in the American South at a time when the white people of that region were bitterly opposed to equality for black Americans. The narrator begins the book by explaining that he is an invisible man. He explains that he is invisible because of the people of the South who live in a segregated world refuse to see him as anything other than black. Invisibility is one of the underlying themes of the novel where society is completely blind to racial inequality. Blindness represents how society is unwilling to see and confront the truth and the fact that there is indeed racial inequality. Another major theme in this novel is racism and racial identity. As the narrator meets different people and is surrounded by different types of people, he begins to get an idea of how Africans Americans should act in society and compares himself to those expectations—expectations whites and Africans Americans have about themselves in trying to live in a segregated world.
The Invisible Man’s relationship to the normal tradition of African-American Literature is similar in a sense that this book portrays how the white community was seen in the eyes of an African American, and also by the rest of society in the early part of the twentieth century. The Invisible Man was influenced by existentialists of the time who argued that people must focus on the individual as the only means of making sense of and becoming successful in a world that was too difficult and too harsh for them to understand. This novel rejected Booker T. Washington’s philosophy accepting one’s place in the world and making the most of it, and instead emphasized that if African Americans worked towards economic success they would eventually reach racial equality. This novel also questions black identity, and what that is.
Invisible Man is a single project book, and written in the first person. Ellison uses a narrator to tell the story. Ellison’s use of diction is very particular in a sense that he is very short and to the point. Many of his sentences are quick, but strong, which give the sentences a feeling of attitude. Ellison also is very descriptive in his use of diction. Instead of using one or two words to describe an event or something, he uses three to four descriptions to get his point across. Ellison’s vocabulary is very modern, and simplistic, which makes the novel very easy to read because it feels as though the narrator is just talking with the reader. The narrator’s tone is very up front, honest, and genuine. Again I felt like I was conversing with the narrator one on one.
I do wish that this book had been on the syllabus because it was a really easy read, and depicts a time period that we have not really covered that much in class. I really enjoyed reading this book because I found it interesting how different, but also how similar some of the slave narratives, and other works of literature written by slaves are compared to Invisible Man. The actual literature and style are much different however, but the themes are very similar.