Analysis Of The Invisible Man

A glance at the title, Invisible man, stimulates a question of “Who is this Invisible Man?” but more importantly, “Why is he invisible?” The narrator begins by assuring the reader that he is a real person but is invisible because people refuse to see him for who he really is. The novel portrays the action of both blacks and whites during his search to find his identity. The narrator starts to realize his invisibility at the end of his high school career, as an intelligent student in an unidentified southern U.S. state in the early part of the 20th century. At the meeting, where the narrator was told to give a speech in, the community forced the narrator and other black boys to participate in a “battle royal,” in which they fought each other

The Brotherhood has made the narrator into the person they want him to be. The narrator explains, “They [the people with which he works] believe that to call a thing by name is to make it so” (Ellison 379). For that reason, the narrator never mentions his name to the reader. Doing so would cause the reader to judge the narrator based on his name and any events or beliefs associated with that name, thus restraining the reader from looking at him for who he actually is. The narrator’s popularity led to a magazine interview about his work. Brother Wrestrum accused the narrator of planning the interview for himself. The leaders of the Brotherhood assigned the narrator to a different area to investigate the interview. Brother Jack ignores and refuses to hear any explanation from the narrator, again making it clear that he doesn’t care about the individuality and his ideas. The narrator responds to the situation, explaining to the reader, “Though still inwardly affirming that belief [in the potential of the Brotherhood], I felt a blighting hurt which prevented me from trying further to defend myself” (Ellison 406). Through this statement, the narrator foreshadows him slipping away from the