The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man is a 1952 novel of social protest written by Ralph Ellison to show how an African American felt during times of oppression.

Author Biographical Information
The author, Ralph Ellison, is an African Americal novelist. He was born Oklahoma city and was most famous for The Invisible Man. He spent several years putting together the book and when it was published he won the The U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. He was a very accomplished professor, sculptor, and musician. He died in 1994 from pancreatic cancer and his manuscripts and notes on another book was published/ found after his death that he had spent over 40 years putting together

Setting: Historical Information
The setting is mostly at a black college and New York City in the 1930’s. In this time period there was a lot of social anxiety between the racial groups. There was also a heavy black community in Harlem where the book mostly takes place. There were riots and protests trying to get social equality and groups helping better the communities. These factors play an important role in the development of the novel.

Genre
Novel of social protest-This genre deals mostly with something in society that isn’t fair or that the people don’t think is right. In this book you deal with the social segregation of blacks compared to white and the way that they protest it and make it known to others about the way they are being treated, MWDS SECTIONS THAT GO HERE: Characteristics of the genre

Plot Summary
The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, is about an African American man that has gone into hiding because of the way is overlooked. He isn’t really invisible, but because of the way society has overlooked him he feels invisible and therefore goes underground to write his life story. He starts stealing power from the Monopolated Light and Power Company and has light bulbs so he can tell his life story. He starts in about the early 30’s when he lived in the South and was young guy. He is invited to talk to local important white people, because of his great public speaking skills. He was humiliated by these men in a battle royal between other younger black guys. After they finish in the boxing ring they make the people get them to grab fake gold coins on an electrified rug. They reward him for his participation and his speech by giving him a attaché case with a scholarship to a very prestigious black college. Three years later he is given a duty to drive Mr. Norton, a white trustee at the college, around. He tells a story about his daughter and wants a drink so the writer takes him to a black bar where a fight breaks out from older veterans and a doctor treats Mr. Norton when he passes out. The college president is mad at the narrator for the incident with Mr. Norton and expels him. He gives him 7 letters of recommendation to other trustees in New York. It turns out that the letters were telling how bad of a student he was and undependable. He gets a low class job at Liberty Paints plant. Lucius Brockway is the man that makes the paint and he suspects the narrator of betrayal so they fight and neglect their duties and a tank explodes. He awakes in the hospital with some of his memory gone and the doctor uses him for electroshock therapy. He moves in with an elderly black woman in Harlem that takes care of him. He makes a speech about how wrong the eviction of a black couple was and is noticed by the Brotherhood. He is accepted at a hotel and is in charge of working in Brooklyn to promote black rights. He meets Ras the Exhorter and Tod Clifton who are prominent black figures. He makes lots of speeches and his happy till one day he is being investigated for using the Brotherhood. He gets moved to another post to advocate women’s rights. He is moved back to Harlem to find it is in shambles. His friend Tod has disappeared and members left the Brotherhood. Tod is selling dolls on the street and is shot to death by some cops after a scuffle. The narrator gives him a burial and gives an ELEGY about his friend. The Brotherhood gets mad at him and chastises him. He leaves plotting a revenge on the Brotherhood and meet Ras who orders him to be beaten. He finally get to Brother Hambro’s apartment and he tells him the Brotherhood’s true intentions. He decides to undermine the group so he sleeps with a girl that is high up in with the leaders. He gets a call to go to Harlem and finds a full scale riot and his threatened to be lynched by Ras so he flees only to run into cops. He flees them and falls into a manhole and they cover it up and mock him. He claims to have been in there since the riot and he says that he has decided that it was time to come up.

Characters
The Narrator-He is the nameless narrator of the story. He’s telling the story about his life and his struggles and his own realizations of the socitey that he lives in.

Brother Jack- He is a white leader of the Brotherhood. He claims to be compassionate to the rights but really has racist viewpoints. Blind to the real workings of the Brotherhood

Tod Clifton-He was a member of the Brotherhood but left the Brotherhood. He was later killed by cops. He helped the narrator start out in the Brotherhood.

Ras the Exhorter- In the book he is the person who opposes the Brotherhood. He is a violent opposition and likes to instegate things to support his cause.

Dr. Bledsoe-He is the evil self ambitious president he cares more about furthering himself then anyone else

Mr. Norton- He is the trustee who the narrator gets to drive around. He passes out and get treated by the veteran.

Veteran- He was the veteran at the bar who treated Mr. Norton. He talks about there blindness from the true factors of society and how they are seen.

Mary-She is the lady that takes care of people that is down on there luck.

Author's Style
The author uses the style of first person-Well the entire book is told in the first person view of the mysterious narrator who tells about his life. You are able to tell only his thoughts and memories and it isn’t told in anyone else’s point of view. You get a closer look into the true feelings of the narrator and you are able to tell what is going on inside of his head.

Setting
The setting of the story mostly takes place in 1930’s New York City. The setting also took place at the college that the narrator attended. They then proceed to Harlem where the Brotherhood was predominate. The story ends in the sewers underneath New York City.

Themes
Racism covering up Individualism- In the book the narrator had to deal with a society that covers up and overlooks him. This is because of his race and the white people make them feel weak and powerless and in this way it limits the growing room of the individual. He lived his whole life listening to others but in the end he overcomes this.

Lies and deceit- in the book there is a lot of lying and deceitfulness because of the racism. The narrator finds how the Brotherhood is really working and how they don’t care about the black right more then they care about the advance placement of themselves.

Fire vs. Fire- in the book there is so much racism and there are instances when the white and black fights each other. Some people in the communities decide that they need to fight to be heard. They start riots and decide to kill to overcome the oppression but it ends up destroying their cause.

Symbols
The Sambo dolls- these dolls were being sold by Tod Clifton. They are dolls that show a Sambo which is a lazy and stupid. These were being sold by a black rights movement and this shows how the racism was predominate in the society.

The Bank- The narrator finds the bank that he has throughout the book. It depicts a black man eating the coins. It stupid and demining and although he smashed it he cant get rid of it.

The Liberty Paint Plant- this is a plant that the narrator briefly works at. This shows how American society works in a metaphor. The predominant color is Optic White it covers up stains and blemishes. Like how white people cover up blacks and other ethnicities.

Significance of the Opening/Closing Scenes
opening scene-In the prologue of the book the narrator is talking about how he has become invisible in the society where he had been oppressed. He shows examples of him being invisible. He talks about the predicament that he had been put into and then proceeds into telling the story of his life.

Closing scene-The ending scene offers a hope for the narrator. He is ending his story about his life and the enlightenment of his own self. He is talking about how he wants to go out into the world and become noticed. He doesn’t want to be invisible and be oppressed by the society anymore. He decides not to live under the rules anymore and decides to come out of hiding.

Memorable Quotes
“ our white is so white you can paint a chunka coal and you’d have to crack it open with a sledge hammer to prove it wasn’t white clear through” In this quote Lucius is boasting about how great the paint is at the company. The company is most famous for this color, but this quote also is a kind of metaphor for the way African American culture had been covered up and how the white people in America was ruling and covering up African culture

“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 other I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.” In this passage it becomes apparent to the narrator that he has been oppressed by the predjuice and everything around him that he hasn’t been able to live his own life. He comes to realize that people have tried to tell him who to be but now his individuality is the key to liberty.

"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. . . . And I knew that it was better to live out one’s own absurdity than to die for that of others, whether for Ras’s or Jack’s." In this passage he sees Ras dressed in the full African tribe outfit and realizes how absurd the whole system is and how he came to the realization of the social constraints that he had on himself.

"the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro . . . stared up at me from the floor, his face an enormous grin, his single large black hand held palm up before his chest. It was a bank, a piece of early Americana, the kind of bank which, if a coin is placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth." He finds this really racial coin bank when he is at Mary’s right before leaving to join the Brotherhood is shows a deeper meaning by the way its an object just like the white people saw the blacks. Also the way he cant get rid of it like its haunting him and he stays with him.

“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.” In this passage Bledsoe the president at the college is talking to the narrator and berating him for taking Mr. Nortons to the bad part of town. This quote shows how Bledsoe is almost racist against his own people as his thirst for power is more important and if pretends and tell everything that whites want to hear he can stay in power and not have to worry with everything. He also says that every black person should be lynched if he has his power he’s ok with that.