Ralph Ellison’S Invisible Man Tells An Important Story

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man tells an important story about identity and visibility, by following a nameless narrator who - at the time the story is told - lives in a hole in the ground to avoid society. Throughout the novel, the narrator recounts the events that made him invisible and, in doing so, leads his audience to the conclusion that his invisibility has much less to do with the narrator, and more to do with a society that devalues the black existence. Using first-person narration, Ellison personalizes the events; making it so his audience understands the events in the way that the narrator understands them. By doing this, Ellison offers a personal take on the all too familiar issue of identity that comes with being a black†¦show more content†¦At the end of the paragraph, he notes that when people approach him, they â€Å"see only [his] surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything except [him]† (Ellison). With this p aragraph, Ellison is not only offering something close to a thesis statement for the argument he will provide within the novel, but is also, very succinctly, summarizing how it feels to be a black man in a white society. Ellison is painfully aware of the racism that his society thrives upon and how, with that racism, comes this unrealistic idea that black people are somehow inferior to their white counterparts. He, and the narrator, are aware that this idea of black inferiority stems from a history of negative African American stereotypes that, coupled with the imagination of those who don’t make the effort to know him, influences those people to make up their own minds about who they think he is. The narrator starts off with this because he knows that these stereotypes are part of the packaging of the black identity, and since he is a black man he will have to go out of his way to unpack theses stereotypes. While this is the first time that the narrator illustrates his feeli ngs of invisibility, it is also the first moment where it becomes evident that, for the narrator, invisibility is not meant literally. The narrator feels invisible not because people don’t acknowledge his existence, but because theyShow MoreRelated Ralph Ellison’s Prologue to the Invisible Man Essay1119 Words   |  5 PagesRalph Ellison’s Prologue to the Invisible Man The Invisible Man is not a story of things that go bump in the night, but of those in society who people refuse to â€Å"see†. The essay was written by Ralph Ellison, an African American writer of the 20th century, whose stories tended to focus on racial issues. The main character of this story’s prologue is anonymous and unseen. He resides in a basement and lives off stolen energy in Harlem New York. 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