Invisible Man

General information about "Invisible Man"

* Written by Ralph Ellison
* Main character: narrator
* Places: university in the South, New York, and Harlem
* Time: 1930s
* Theme: Racism as an obstacle to individual identity; 
* Plot: Story begins with narrator who tells the readers that he is invisible. Don’t think that this is science fiction book, because narrator is not physically invisible, but              he is invisible in the society. Other people refuse to see him and to give him rights, such as equality or freedom of speech.  

In the novel he is retelling us his story and his experiences. He was born and raised in South, he got a scholarship to attend one of the best universities for the black people. At the junior year in the university he was expelled because he showed the white man, Mr. Norton, the truth. He was expelled by Bledsoe, who sent him to the North with a false hope that Invisible Man would get a job, earn some money, and come back to university. Invisible Man came to North, to New York precisely, but he found Bledsoe’s fraud. Thanks to good man, Emerson’s son, Invisible Man gets a job in Optical White Factory. Although he worked with paint, later he was “promoted”. He got the promotion as an assistant to crazy man named Lucius Brockway who feared that Invisible Man came to steal his job, these two men fight, forgetting about the paint-making, and one of the unattended tanks explodes and narrator was knocked unconscious. He was in factory’s clinic, he got the surgery, and the doctor used him to try new therapy with electroshocks. Narrator lost his memory and ability to speak. In the book this was a moment when he was reborn. He forgot all his previous beliefs and all that he learned by Bledsoe and Mr. Norton. He started to live his own life, but shortly after Brother Jack invited him to join Brotherhood, believing that he could in that way help black people, but invisible man was not free in the Brotherhood, they taught him what to say, what to think, and they used him just as a tool to send their messages, and that was it. He realized that he was used when a member of the Brotherhood and his friend, Tod Clifton, was killed. He realized that after all his grandfather was right (grandfather is a character that narrator talks about in the beginning, and through the novel) that he should be black “inside”, but white “outside”. He tried to pretend that he is still on the side of the Brotherhood and on the other hand he tried to act with himself, doing his own actions, but he couldn’t do anything.

At the end he realized that it was better to live his own life, not someone else’s. He found the love, hope, and his own beliefs at the end of the novel.


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Quote from the book Invisible Man

THESIS :  Invisible Man's beliefs

 * Considering IM's experience at the university and inside the Brotherhood in New York, IM spends most of the novel representing the beliefs of those in authority over him. However, after Tod Clifton's death, IM constructs a uniquely personal belief that centers around himself and the African-American community. *