Literature Analysis #5

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

1.    The main character, who is also  the narrator, who is a young black man, tells the readers that he is consistently ignored.  Throughout the whole novel, the narrator doesn’t say his name.  In the beginning he is invited to give a speech and is rewarded with a scholarship to go to a prestigious black college.  Some years later, the narrator becomes a student at the college, and gets a job driving around the wealthy white man, Mr. Norton.  Through a series of events this leads the narrator to travel to the Harlem where he searches for work.  He looks for work with hardly any luck, but eventually he meets a man who helps him get a low paying job at a paint shop that makes “Optic White” paint.  One day the narrator and his co-worker get in an argument and while leaving the paint unattended it explodes knocking the narrator unconscious, which temporarily gives him memory loss and loss of speech.  When he leaves the hospital, he passes out on the streets.  A black woman, Mary takes him in and they have a conversation.  The narrator then holds a funeral for his friend Clifton, another member of the Brotherhood, who was shot by a police officer for selling Sambo dolls without a permit.  The Brotherhood, however, is mad that he held a funeral for Clifton, and he is furious at the Brotherhood.  The Brotherhood then goes after the narrator to beat him up so he has to disguise himself.  In his disguise however, he is mistaken for a guy named Rinehart.  After a while, the narrator gets a call to come to Harlem and when he arrives there is a full-blown riot, and he sets a building on fire. While he is running from the scene he is set out to by lynched, and he runs into the police which while he is running from the police he falls down a manhole, and the police cover the manhole and trap him underground.  At the end of the novel, the narrator tells the audience that he has been underground since that day and he thinks that it is time to get out back into the world.

2.   The theme of Invisible Man is invisibility.  Throughout the whole novel, the narrator is a black man, so people ignore him.  The main character is consistently treated like nothing; as if he is a “nobody”.

3.   Ralph Ellison’s tones are both pessimistic and optimistic.

            “I’s big and black and I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I’m still the king down here. . . . The only ones I even pretend to please are big white folk, and even those I control more than they control me. . . . That’s my life, telling white folk how to think about the things I know about. . . . It’s a nasty deal and I don’t always like it myself. . . . But I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.”

4. Literary Devices:

     Plot

    "America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's 'winner take nothing' that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."

     Diction

     "And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man."

     Characterization

     "I felt that even when they were polite they hardly saw me, that they would have begged the pardon of Jack the Bear, never glancing his way if the bear happened to be walking along minding his business. It was confusing. I did not know if it was desirable or undesirable..."

     Symbol

     “I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied” 

     Imagery

     "I looked at Ras on his horse and at their handful of guns and recognized the absurdity of the whole night and of the simple yet confoundingly complex arrangement of hope and desire, fear and hate, that had brought me here still running, and knowing now who I was and where I was and knowing too that I had no longer to run for or from the Jacks and the Emersons and the Bledsoes and Nortons, but only from their confusion, impatience, and refusal to recognize the beautiful absurdity of their American identity and mine..."