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Recommended: Racism in literature

Thesis: Hans, IM, and Gatsby all strive to achieve their personal goals through assimilation; however, this quest towards assimilation results in social isolation. IM, Gatsby, and Hans all strive to attain different forms of visibility, because society is blind to them. In IM’s case, society as a whole does not see IM for what he truly is, but someone who they can use and exploit for its own purposes. At the end of the novel, IM becomes aware that the Brotherhood was using him in order to achieve their desires. IM realizes that the anonymous letter he received to slow his process was from Brother Jack, leader of his Brotherhood Chapter. The letter says “do not forget if you get too big they will cut you down. You are from the South and you know that this is a white man’s world” (Ellison 383). The letter tells IM to slow his pace because he could become too big for the Brotherhood to handle. The letter from Brother Jack persuades IM into thinking that because of his identity as a black man, he cannot succeed in the current society. The letter successfully distracts IM and puts him under the control of the Brotherhood. The brotherhood is blind to who IM really is because they only care about fulfilling their desires. They immediately try to shatter his identity thus causing him to become invisible in their eyes. Although he is invisible in society’s eyes. IM wants to overcome his invisibility because of his grandfather. IM’s grandfather had a philosophy that in order to become visible in society one must, “overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine “em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open” (Ellison 16). This system the grandfather has created is supposed to... ... middle of paper ... .... This obsession causes him to isolate himself in society leaving him with only Nick as his friend. After Nick sets up Gatsby’s funeral, he decides to wait for people to show up. Nick acknowledges that “ Nobody came” to the funeral which shows the how detached Gatsby was from society. Although Gatsby threw extravagant parties and hundreds of people appeared on an instance, no one bothered to show up at their host’s funeral. Because Gatsby is blind to Daisy, all of his actions are directed to appeasing her, which separates him from the reality of society. IM is not blind to society, society does not see him. While he tries to become visible to others through his impersonation of various identities, his wishes are not fruitful and he becomes the invisible man. Society cannot see him because he does not of the surplus amount of identities they place on him.

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