Preview

The Title In Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
994 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Title In Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man
The importance of a name or lack thereof has never been exposed in such a prolific manner before The Invisible Man was published. Also, the diversity of the African-American male is showcased in this piece if literature in a way that is second to none.

It was always said that The Invisible Man is an unofficial hand book for the young African American male that has high hopes and aspirations of becoming successful in life. I still remember the day when my grand-mother passes this book down to me before she left for Philadelphia. That was June 11th, 1997. It wasn’t until August of 2005 while we were moving boxes from my old house into our new one when I stumbled upon an old looking book that caught my eye. Since that day, I have read the
…show more content…
As I read further into the book, I started to understand the title more and more. The reader’s first impression of the title may be a Goose Bump story or a fiction story about ghosts and ghouls. Quite the contrary, the main character is visible as you and I but invisible at the same time. He is such a prominent figure in each and every one of his locations but camouflages himself even when he isn’t trying to. The fact that the title is The Invisible Man and the character doesn’t have a name helps each other in intriguing and entertaining the reader. It also forces the reader to read deeper and deeper into the story; I did not get bored with the book until the latter part but was quickly snapped back into a literary trance with the turn of a single page. The fact that the “Invisible Man” is as visible as me made me feel like I was in his shoes while reading the book. I actually commend Mr. Ellison for creating a timeless piece of literature with problems that are still relevant …show more content…
He is constantly battling with himself when it comes to solutions to his numerous problems. As do I, he is notoriously known for over thinking the smallest of problems. Even though, at times, that helps him out it bothers him. His complexity and honesty is what intrigues other characters of the story and attracts them to him. When I speak of honesty, I am referring to the fact that tat the main character is basically blind to the realities of race relations. That is also showcased when the main character is also known for doing the wrong things with right intentions.

With the main character being highly educated and well-spoken, he is highly insulted when Brother Jack’s (member of the Brother Hood) mistress says that he may not be “black enough” to be the organizations African-American spokesperson. At the same time, this starts to unveil hidden racism within the Brother Hood which would result in the rest of the members turning their back on the main character. All of this is happening while he is dealing with the murder of his best friend, Clifton, and the sudden riots led by his worst enemy, Ras the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Author Ralph Ellison once wrote, “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who hunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms.” Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” is an extremely profound read. Although the entire book explores how perception can be distorted by sight, I feel that chapters seven through ten explore this concept extensively. These pivotal chapters illustrate this when the narrator takes a position in a paint plant. The reader is also introduced to Optic White Paint in these chapters. In this analysis, I will explain in detail the events that occurred at the…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most importantly, Ellison accomplishes a literary master stroke. Since Invisible Man is nearly entirely composed of the protagonist's novel, said novel as an object within the story is transported from its textual dimension into the hands of the reader. In this sense, Invisible Man is the protagonist's novel and becomes a tangible historical object from his world. The way in which it differs from the other objects analyzed in this paper is that it makes no pretense of being an objective historical representation. If anything, El­lison sees the novel as a historical interpretation.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison’s seminal work, is the first person narrative of an unnamed African-American protagonist who falls victim to various forces throughout his journey. Despite the novel’s reputation as a racial work, it is also a bildungsroman in which the narrator struggles to understand the nature of his existence. The philosophical overtones of the novel gain clarity when analyzed in tandem with a relevant motif: that of empty or impractical rhetoric—from the mouths of those around him and later himself. The narrator’s recurrent interactions with such idealistic rhetoric and theory shift from blind acceptance to awareness, and eventually to revolt. His altering attitudes…

    • 4611 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ralph Ellison introduces several different characters that encounter situations that interpret the way they are shaped. The people in the novel tend to use their experiences to adjust their judgement, which also allows the readers to recognize the character’s weakness and strengths. As the reader progresses in the novel, they realize how the characters overcome difficult scenarios their psyche changes in unexpected ways. In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, women are objectified, stereotyped, and their issues were lessened.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Some argue that Invisible Life was written as an expose of African American men for African American women, so that they would know “gay” when they saw it and avoid it at all cost. In many ways, Invisible Life did grow to become a manual for African American women in understanding how men go…

    • 1838 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison uses the contrasting yet connected settings of Liberty Paints plant, the Brotherhood, and the underground sewer to communicate that becoming a self-actualizing human being, or the Emersonian “Man Thinking,” involves being proactive and contributing to society in order to break free of the stereotypes that society confines one to. However, how successful a person is in doing this is dependent upon whether he or she is part of the dominant culture (white) or subordinate (non-white) culture. Although this task may be painstaking, one must not let racism and society’s prescribed roles limit his or her individual complexity.…

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, Ellison writes about a young African-American man trying to find his identity and becomes the victim of history, circumstance, and malice. Ellison was born on March 1, 1914, in Oklahoma City to Lewis Alfred and Ida Millsap Ellison. His father was a construction worker who died from a work-related accident when Ralph was three years old. His mother raised him and his younger brother Herbert on her own, working different jobs to make ends meet. In reading “Invisible Man,” the unknown narrator endures many challenges in his life that compared to the same challenges that Ellison faced his life. I believe Ellison was writing about himself in the novel “The Invisible…

    • 256 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Theme: One of the themes I find present in Invisible Man, is stereotypes, and how they are a constant battle for a lot of people. In today’s society people are created from stereotypes; girls have to be feminine, wear makeup, and always look their best; where as men can slack off, and do whatever they want. It is also outside the social norm that women be successful, or bring in money to support a family. But stereotypes are not only based off gender, they are based off of race. In this book, the narrator has a lot of trouble being successful due to his race, and the limitations society sets for him. An example is when the narrator is invited to give a speech in the beginning of the book. When he arrived to the event, there was no speaking to happen, instead they put all the African American people into a ring, and let them fight each…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, is filled with symbols and representations of the history of African-Americans. One of the most important and prevalent of these symbols is Ellison's representation of Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute. Throughout the book Ellison provides his personal views and experiences with these subjects through the college that TIM attends, the college Founder, and Dr. Bledsoe, the president of the college. Ellison uses these characters and other images and scenes related to Washington to show his disagreement with his backward ideals and to convey his theory that, "In order to deal with this problem [of emancipated blacks] the North"¦built Booker T. Washington into a national spokesman of Negroes with Tuskegee Institute as his seat of power"¦" (O'Meally 23).…

    • 1705 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The identity of people is the mental representation of themselves. The formation of this mental image is formed throughout an individual's life from birth to adulthood. Personal and social identity can be developed through participation in different activities, membership in various groups, or having a special talent. However, for black males and females in the 1920s, their identity have not been fully developed because they grew up in a white dominated society where blacks are negatively stereotyped and controlled in the general population. Planting an individual's social status since birth and having an individual's freedom suppressed hinders the development of their own personality and identity. The narrator in Invisible Man by Ralph…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The invisible man really had three levels of “invisibility”(Ellison 3): Completely invisible, semi-visible, and visible. Some prime examples of when the narrator was semi-visible take place when the letter for Mr. Emerson is received and then the invisible man is told to work at Liberty Paints, almost as though moving around as if he were a game piece, thrown around recklessly on a gameboard. When he gave speeches for the Brotherhood, did they really listen to what he had to say, or did they pay attention just because of his ethnic background? He says in the prologue “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me”(Ellison). This invisibility is what led to the writing of this book, and how Ellison defined his…

    • 1509 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her his novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison uses alliteration to emphasize the conflict that the narrator faces. In this passage the narrator comes home to Mary only to find that they both are having cabbage for dinner again. The narrator has come to realize that Mary making cabbage for several nights must mean that she is running low on money. Emphasis on the letters “s” and “m” highlight the main point of the passage; that Mary and the narrator are running out of money. Furthermore, the reader understands the pain that the narrator feels when Ellison drags out the phrase “I suffered silently whenever she served it.” The repetition of the letter “s” provides a stark emphasis on how the narrator felt when Mary served cabbage to him. Consequently,…

    • 160 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's portrayal of a nameless narrator leaves the readers with an unforgettable impression of one's struggles with both external force- an oppressed society with unspoken "rules" and internal conflict- perception and identity. Throughout the novel, the narrator encounters various experiences that would change his perception, thus revealing the truth of his society and his self- realization of "invisibility".…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ralph Ellison's novel, The Invisible Man, depicts an epic of racial change and bitter race relations in America; yet, it was not meant to describe the struggle of black, white, or yellow people, but to illustrate how a man's experiences through human error shape his being and his reality. The narrator in this story, who remains unnamed, builds up to a conclusive invisibility through the knowledge that many different people he meets along his journey pass down to him. His character in the end and the reality in which he lives in had all built up with the help of the little invisible characters mentioned in the story. As the story moves along, the narrator encounters Emerson, a man mentioned as…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    2. Major themes in Invisible Man include the fact that African Americans need to and do tell lies to the white man in order to please him. This is practiced by every African American who knows what’s good for himself. Dr. Bledsoe affirms this on page 139 when talking to the protagonist about his misdemeanor. The protagonist does this throughout the entire story. When he talks to Mr. Norton, to rich, white folks in New York, and to the committee members. Another major theme is that the protagonist is an invisible man. He lives in a society that is racist and blind. And every single African American is an invisible man, for no matter how far a black man gets in life or how much he succeeds, he will always “boomerang” back to his original starting point. The protagonist states this everywhere in the book, and admits and acknowledges this on page 573, and knows that this will always be an aspect of American society.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays