Invisible Man Essay

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Recommended: Introduction of the invisible man

Melody Raynaud
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Plot
The narrator is a young, African American man from the South with great public speaking skills. He is chosen to read a speech for the important white town leaders. The leaders first force him to participate in a humiliating “battle royale” against other African American boys. After, the narrator reads his speech and is rewarded with a briefcase and a scholarship to college. At college, he is chosen is drive around Mr Norton, one of the old, wealthy, white trustees of the school. Mr. Norton falls ill after visiting Jim Trueblood, a poor African American man who impregnated his own daughter. They visit a bar to get Mr. Norton a drink, but then a fight breaks out. As a result of the whole fiasco with Mr. Norton, Dr. Bledsoe, the head of the school, kicks the narrator out and sends him to New York City with recommendation letters to help him find a job. In New York, it is revealed that the recommendation letters …show more content…

Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the narrator floats through the novel going with what everyone tells him to do. He struggles to find his own identity, and eventually comes to reject society and live underground as an “invisible” man, not conforming to societal expectations. The narrator’s story raises questions of the pros and cons of conformity. Ellison does not explain definitively what the best choice is regarding conformity, but through the narrator’s experience with the deceptive Brotherhood organization, one can infer that is is better to be a unique individual and not merely a mindless tool in the

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