Essay On The Narrator In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

The unnamed narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is caught in an internal war fought between who culture expects him to be, summarized by his grandfather’s words, “overcome ‘em with yeses”, and his own budding, liberal beliefs. The tensions built up by the struggle raise the central questions of this bildungsroman: Who is the narrator? Why is he invisible? The tumultuous internal battle the narrator faces to find himself persists beyond geographic, racial, and gender boundaries.
Initially in the South, the narrator is humiliated and treated like a zoo animal on display in the boxing ring where he makes one of his first speeches. Despite the unfathomable cruelty, the narrator mentally coerces himself to grasp for bills and gold coins, while his moral agency questions the ethicalness. Due to mounting frustration during his speech, the narrator lets his feeble idea of “social equality” escape, but as soon as the white men in power take notice, the narrator quickly corrects his outburst. This shows that the narrator has budding opinions on racial discrimination, but he is still too unsure of himself to outwardly stray from conformity. Traditionally, black people were mandated to follow the commands of the whites, so when Mr. Norton asks
The narrator could infer that this means that black people are instrumental to the success of white people, and the nation as a whole. Still, the narrator takes unjust abuse from Kimbro, the union, and Brockway. Not until Brockway explodes on the narrator for colluding with the union does the narrator snap. His violent outbursts, mirrored by the boilers, shows that the narrator had internal pressures mounting throughout the day at Liberty Paints, and when pushed too far, he needed to burst. The readers can begin to see that the narrator is breaking out of the mold society cast for him that is slowly growing too