![]() This is true for the narrator both at the unnamed black university and at Liberty Paints. Just as poisonous for the narrator are other generalized ways of thinking about identity-ideas that envision him as a cog in a machine instead of a unique individual. However, invisibility doesn’t come from racism alone. Ultimately, the narrator is forced to retreat to his hole, siphoning off the light from the white-owned power company, itself a symbol of an underground resistance that may go unacknowledged for a long time. The narrator recognizes his invisibility slowly-in moments like the hospital machine, when he realizes he is being asked to respond to the question of who he is in terms of his blackness. Ellison implies that if racists really saw their victims, they would not act the way they do. ![]() ![]() For others in the novel, it is simply convenient to define the narrator through his blackness.Įllison’s narrator explains that the outcome of this is a phenomenon he calls “invisibility”-the idea that he is simply “not seen” by his oppressors. As the narrator states at the novel’s beginning, “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned somebody tried to tell me what it was.” It is undoubtedly clear that the narrator’s blackness comprises a large part of his identity, although this isn’t something he has necessarily chosen. Invisible Man is the story of a young man searching for his identity, unsure about where to turn to define himself. ![]()
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