Deception In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

In Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, deception seems to be closely linked with Invisibility. The story surrounds the life of a young black man from the south who cannot yet fully grasp the concept of racism or recognize its presence. After being expelled from college, he moves to Harlem and becomes an orator for the communist organization known as the brotherhood. He is both threatened and praised in his position, constantly encountering many people and situations that force him to realize his lack of identity to those around him. The narrator has to overcome deceptions and illusions in order to reach the truth. The book is all about finding truths, yet the constant lies represent his naiveté to the way people do not see who he is

Norton, a founder of the narrator’s college, considers it his duty to enlighten blacks whom he considers to be inferior people. On the surface, Mr. Norton appears to be tolerable of black people, but in reality, he is trying to “fix” them. Although Mr. Norton puts on a show that he sees black people as equals, it becomes clears that he is racist on the inside as he takes pleasure in the failures of the black race. Mr. Norton convinces the narrator that his fate lies in his hands for his college career. They pass the dilapidated log cabin which he has never been to. He learns of a man named Trueblood, who owns the cabin, and listens to his disturbing story of when he impregnated both his wife and his daughter. Norton listens to his story “so intensely he didn’t see [the narrator]” and ends the conversation with a donation of a hundred dollars to Trueblood (Ellison 57). While there is nothing entertaining or moral about Trueblood’s story, Norton rewards Trueblood for a story he seems strangely fascinated by. Trueblood is a black man, so a story like this from him is just what Norton wants to hear in order to keep black men low in society’s rank. This proves that Mr. Norton, in reality, does not think highly of the black members of society at all. His whole tolerant, godlike platform he creates for himself is dishonest. While the narrator attends college, Norton stresses how much he values the narrator, however, this is clearly a lie seeing as later in the novel he does not

People in the world of all races, and even those who are being oppressed, are naïve when they think that after slavery and discrimination were abolished in the laws that racism went away. The mindset is still there, and although it is not blatantly obvious, it is there, as demonstrated through the naiveté of the narrator during most of the novel, before he knows his identity is