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Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a novel which embodies the universal theme of self-discovery. ... He progresses from being a hopeful student with a bright future to being just another poor black laborer in New York City to being a fairly well-off spokesperson for a powerful political group, and ultimately to being the “invisible man” which he eventually realizes that he has always been. The deepest irony in this text is that for a significant portion of the story, the narrator is unaware of his own invisibility, in believing that others can “see” him, he is essentially invisible to himself. ... These are the days during which he is still a hopeful scholar, defining himself as a “potential Booker T. ... Norton, a powerful white man and founder of the school that he was attending. ... Norton through the old slave quarters, and at Nortons request, brought him down to converse with Jim Trueblood, a man who, in the midst of a dream, had raped and impregnated his own daughter. ... While walking the streets in a dazed and confused state, he runs into a lady named Mary who offers to let him rent a room in her house, and he took up her offer after attacking a man whom he mistook for Dr. ... Several people mistake the narrator for a man named Rinehart, who is a numbers dealer to some, a briber to others, and a preacher to still others. Yet Rineharts real identity eludes him, as well as everyone else, and the narrator finally realizes that Rineharts true identity is invisible, and that it is his invisibility that lets him be so many things at once to so many people and yet nothing at all at the same time. He is also able to see for the first time the Brotherhood has been using him, and sacrificing him for their own ends, and that to them, and everyone else, he was as invisible as Rinehart.
After finally realizing that he is invisible, and that people see nothing in him other than what they want to see, the narrator sets out to undermine the Brotherhood that has used him for so long. ... The story draws to a close with the narrator trapped in a sewer, where he finally realized that his past, imagined life would have to be abandoned, and that he would have to start anew as an invisible man.
Approximate Word count = 1854
Approximate Pages = 7.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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