FREE ESSAY ON A REVIEW OF RALPH ELISON'S INVISIBLE MAN

A REVIEW OF RALPH ELISON'S INVISIBLE MAN

Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma. From 1933 to 1936 he was educated as a musician at
Tuskegee Institute. During that time he traveled to New York and visited Richard Wright,
which led him to the first attempts to write fiction. Since that time he became a
well-known critic; his articles, reviews and short stories have been published in many
national magazines. He won the National Book Award and the Russwurn Award for the
Invisible Man. He has taught in many universities such as Bard College (1961), University
of Chicago, Rutgers University (1962-1964), and New York University (1970-1980.) He
lectured at Library of Congress and University of California. Also he is an author of the
Shadow and Act.
Reading through the book one can realize that the title of the Ralph Ellison's Invisible
Man refers to the personality and insignificance of the main character. It is a
realization of what Invisible Man had been all along during his life. He had been nobody.
He was only useful to the people around him to the extent that he was able to do what he
was ordered. The Brotherhood didn't care for him as an individual, he was only noticed
when he was needed. The Invisible Man mistakenly led himself to believe that it is
possible to find meaning in his life by believing in Brotherhood's ideology. The Hero's
invisibility is not the matter of being seen, but a refusal to run the risk of his own
humanity, which involves guilt. He must assert and achieve his own humanity.
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe.... I
am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. In the opening scene of
The Invisible Man tells the reader about his physical state, which directly refers to his
personality and psychological state as well. He explains to the reader his character, his
skepticism toward the world that surrounds him. As a narrator of the book he sets the
stage for the following chapters, which describe his life. And so it is with me. Without
light I am not only invisible, but formless as well; and to be unaware of one's form is
to live a death. I myself, after existing some twenty years, did not become alive until I
discovered I my invisibility. An unfullfilled dream of importance and finding meaning of
life can leave a person with a sense of being invisible. If everyone around doubts the
existence, how can an individual himself not conform to the society and lose any self
value or respect. To cope with the 'reality' the Invisible Man has to find a new
perspective on life; one that would let him see himself as a person, despite everybody
else's ignorance of his existence. The theory of Invisibility is convenient for that
purpose.
Few of the primary conflicts of the novel are about a Black man who goes through life
with a dream of becoming somebody important, somebody that would matter to others. No
matter how cruel are the lessons of life, he is still blinded by his naive character. He
does not realize that he is nobody. His first experience is the Battle Royal. He thinks
that his talents and abilities would somehow separate him from the others, when in
reality he just gets the same treatment as others. He doesn't recognize the difference
between what he had expected and what he got. The reward justifies everything that has
been done. 
One of the most shocking and unforgetful moments in the book is the Battle Royal. The
cruelness of what had been done to these people, merely for the entertainment of the few
important white men, can be appaulingfor the reader. It's hard if not impossible to
understand the morality of earning a living by torturing others. But what is more obscure
is the reaction of the Invisible Man to the surrounding situation. Clearly at the time he
has a misunderstanding of life and misinterpretation of events taround him. During the
fight he was not thinking about how to get out alive before it was too late, but he
thinks about his speech and whether people would judge truly his ability. Just like
invisibility is the authors excuse for insignificance, forgetting the Battle Royal is a
way to cope with a traumatic experience. He prefers simply to forget what happened to
him. 
Ralph Emerson's book describes one's man search for his identity. An unsuccessful search,
in view of the conclusion that he comes to. Everyone has an identity; failure to find one
or illusion of invisibility is just a matter of perception.