Invisible Man

When Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man, he definitely had to have put a lot of thought into the symbols and themes that he used in his novel. The novel is so packed with symbolism and recurring motifs that it is impossible to discover them the first time around. A major aspect of this novel was the focus on man’s inhumanity to man, particularly white man’s inhumanity to the black race. Invisible Man depicts the mechanical treatment of black men by the whites around them, particularly when Mr. Norton addresses the car that the narrator is driving as a machine, as though the vehicle drives itself. The leg shackle is also important in this novel because it is showing how the black race is still controlled by those around them. Although they are physically free, mentally they are still suffering the punishment of slavery, and Ellison wants to show the difficulty faced by the black man as he tries to overcome adversity. At the time when this novel was written, race should not have been an issue, and yet it drove so many things, from what college a person could get accepted to, to the jobs that people could hold, and the way that they had to carry themselves around others. The affects of the inequality faced, and the unused power people had to overcome it, are what Ellison seemed to want to point out with Invisible Man.
A quote from this novel that I really liked was on page 249, where the narrator says:

It was as though I were acting out a scene from some crazy movie. Or perhaps I was catching up with myself and had put into words feelings which I had hitherto suppressed. Or was it, I thought, starting up the walk, that I was no longer afraid? I stopped, looking at the buildings down the bright street slanting with sun and shade. I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid. Was that it? I felt light-headed, my ears were ringing. I went on.

After the narrator’s “rebirth” in the paint factory hospital, he comes to find that he no longer fears those around him. He can handle the pressure from authority figures, and he finds himself a changed man. It is as though he is seeing the world through a new pair of eyes, and everything is clear. I think that what I like about this quote the most is the realization that he can make a difference in the world, because every person needs to feel as though they can make a change at some time in their lives. The changes that the narrator can make are ones that will not only benefit him, but also his race as a whole if he succeeds, and it’s an amazing metamorphosis.
I had a hard time getting through this novel and as valuable it is in the literary world, it is not one of my most liked pieces of this year. It was so packed with information and symbols and allusions, and other references that it was almost too much to handle. As I read the end of the novel I came to better understand its purpose, however, the preceding pages left me feeling confused and unmoved. I have a feeling that Invisible Man is going to be one of those novels that I have to read a few years from now, at a different time in my life, to understand the true impact of it. I know that it’s good, and I honestly feel guilty for not being able to be as enthusiastic about it as some of my classmates were, because I feel like I missed out on something. Hopefully Ellison will understand that this just wasn’t the time for me to read his novel, and maybe I will appreciate more after a few more times around