Faced with another betrayal, the Invisible Man muses, "Here I thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men." In time, he realizes that he is once again filling a stereotype, once again the object of manipulation by those he trusted. "Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of an education are you getting around here?" He is sent northward to New York City for a job by the headmaster, where he discovers a terrible betrayal which shakes his being.Īs the narrator's odyssey progresses, he becomes a black spokesman for seemingly sympathetic communists. The Invisible Man is first sent on his downward spiral when he inadvertantly shows an idealistic, liberal, white trustee the true nature of much black life in the South, in the form of a whorehouse and an incestuous sharecropper.Īs the trustee's world is rocked by partial confirmation of the racist stereotypes of others, the black headmaster of the college decides to expel the narrator. However, he is perpetually haunted by the last words of his grandfather, and a feeling that he is merely conforming to a " whitewashed" stereotype of intelligent blacks. The tale begins at a southern college for Negroes, where the protagonist seems to be semi-content. The narrator is an intelligent, young, nameless African-American who seeks acceptance from all corners, but finds only manipulation. It's a haunting portrait of the invisible man inside all of us. The story is about invisibility, a term which can only be fully grasped by reading the book. Certainly Invisible Man is a landmark in black fiction, but the main thrust of the story is search for identity, not just for the black man, but for all humanity. Viewing this novel as simply a story about racism, as many unfortunately do (a result of having been forced to read it in school, perhaps), is far too limiting. Ralph Ellison's 1952 masterpiece is often lauded by critics as one of the greatest American novels of the twenthieth century.
"Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" - Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
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