Throughout Ralph Ellison’s novel, most commonly in literature, the concept of invisibility is taken to the extreme effect of being physically transparent and unseen by anyone. In popular media, the hero is also often portrayed as being invisible, going behind the enemy's back to complete his or her mission. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, this view of invisibility is reversed; rather than being invisible and getting noticed, a man is in plain sight of everyone- however, due to a slew of stereotypes and prejudices, nobody recognizes what he accomplishes. He is invisible. He is not literally invisible, but many choose not to see him. A person who was never heard, a person whose presence was never recognized. The main character in Invisible Man, the narrator, is the Invisible Man. The Invisible Man is a black man and those who can’t see him are usually white people who hold stereotypes and prejudices against him due to the color of his skin. The Invisible man is often blind, and can’t see what is ahead. “Ellison uses various incidents to show the Invisible Man's sensibility to the conflict of black men trying to find their sense of identity and self and also the ugly reality of the racial situation in America” (Sheokand). The whites vision is also blurred because they believe they are superior to blacks, and refuse to see things as they really are. The Invisible Man says “The invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those who I come in contact” (Ellison, 3). Both the whites and black are often restrained from sight in multiple ways. Despite all of our efforts to see the world truthfully and clearly, our natures blind us to the corruption of society.
Now and always a victim,The Invisible Man starts and ends his journey in a hole. In the beginning of the novel the Invisible Man lives in a hidden hole where nobody knows he exists. He is secretly stealing light and energy from monopolated light and power. This is symbolic because why would someone that is Invisible need that much light. It makes him feel powerful, and like he has worth. “Perhaps you’ll think it strange that an invisible man should need light, desire light, love light. But maybe it is exactly because I am invisible. Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form” (Ellison, 6). Light is needed in his life to prove he is a real person and no one else can tell him differently. Its ironic that he is in a hole and hidden from the rest of the world because slowly he is gaining power and self worth without anyone even noticing.
The Invisible Man was blinded during the fight of the Battle Royal. Abruptly, he finds himself blindfolded by many white men and forced into a ring that was filled with bright lights, and smoke filled air. “But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused to darkness. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths” (Ellison, 21). The Invisible Man had no idea any of this was going to happen. He was blind to the people who were going to beat him up and there was nothing he could do about it due to the color of his skin. The whites are obviously superior in this situation. He understood that he was there to deliver a speech and was ultimately deceived. Still, he believed that he could give a great speech and wanted to make a difference in others lives and be an inspiration. During the speech he messed up and said the word social equality rather than social responsibility. The Invisible Man battled to convince his white audience he was not being smart by saying social equality (Johnson). Afterwards he says “The laughter hung smokelike in the sudden stillness” (Ellison, 31). Here the laughter lingers in the air and distorts him by making him feel unaccepted and inadequate. It helps us realize the white men and the audience don’t care about the Invisible Man or his speech they were just there for a laugh.
Soon afterwards, the Invisible Man is deceived once again and forced into a situation he has no control over. Once their blindfolds were removed after the fight, the white men summoned them to a gold covered rug and gave them an opportunity to grab all they wanted. This is perceived as an act of kindness for them, but little do they know the rug is electrified. "I lunged for a yellow coin lying on the blue design of the carpet, touching it and sending a surprised shriek to join those rising around me ”(Lee). The word surprised shows us that the invisible man is still blind to the corruption of the whites and thought they could do something commendable for once. “The invisible man’s naivete makes him ignore the truth” (Sheokand). He still wants to see the good in them and is too ignorant to see their corruption and how easily they can deceive him.
The Invisible Man also fails to see that the powerful people he trusts can also easily betray him. “The Invisible Man does not embody authentic blackness; he embodies Mr. Norton's ‘dreams’ of blackness. Described alternately as a ‘walking zombie’ and ‘automaton,’ as well as a ‘mechanical man,’ the Invisible Man becomes a puppet or doll, manipulated by those around him” (Lee). Mr. Norton and Bledsoe are too powerful and can easily hurt the Invisible Man. He trusts Mr. Norton and knows he has to care for him. “The Panicky beating of my heart seemed to blur my vision” (Ellison, 101). The Invisible man feels this after he brings Mr. Norton back to Bledsoe after his fainting spell. Bledsoe expels him from the school and the Invisible Man is once again alone. Bledsoe went against Mr. Nortons word and manipulated the Invisible Man for the little mistake he made even though he didn’t deserve it.
Bledsoe’s plan is to trick the Invisible Man into believing one thing when he really means another. The letters Bledsoe sends him with are very deceiving. The Invisible Man brings them to Mr. Emerson who eventually reveals the truth to him. The narrator was blinded by the thought of excelling in life and getting a great job. He was so focused on it he didn’t realize the letters were malicious and made the Invisible Man seem atrocious. “I rubbed my eyes, and they felt sandy as though all the fluids had suddenly dried” (Ellison, 191). Even after finding out, his vision is distorted and he is confused why he would do this to him. After this he still thought people wouldn’t betray him and they could be trusted. He doesn’t realize trust needs to be earned, and he can’t see what is really in front of him. Mr Emerson’s son says “There is no point in blinding yourself to the truth. Don’t blind yourself…” (Ellison, 192). Even though he is a powerful white man, he even sees the Invisible Man is blinding himself to the corruption of people and society.
Soon after the Invisible Man is fooled once again in his new job at Liberty Paints which seems to mean freedom, but that is not the case for the Invisible Man. He is assigned to create pure white paint with Mr. Kimbro whose company slogan is “If you're white, you’re right,” (Ellison, 218). This was said about the paint, the narrator not even thinking it could mean white people, and it could be used as racist. To create this paint he needs to put ten drops of black paint into the white paint. This symbolizes that the whites override the blacks because the black paint just dissolves into the white. Kimbro and the other white workers are blind and don’t realize this. “Invisible Man can be seen as an attempt to synthesize two ‘realities’: a white, which represses guilt by denying the existence of the black as human; the black, which insisting upon its separateness, cultivates it” (Brennan). This is the case of Liberty Paints, everything there is white and they don’t want to accept black. If they do its just a few drops in a big bucket of white. “The ‘vice’ of vision resides in the eyes of the whites, who suffer not from a physiological disturbance but from defect of their inner vision” (Glicksberg, 49). The white faculty at Liberty Paints had bad inner vision because they only look for the good which to them isn’t black. Kimbro is also blind to see that the Invisible Man is a good worker and made an honest mistake. He abruptly sends him to go work in the basement boiler room with Mr. Brockway. The Invisible Man thought this was going to be a great, easy job but once again he was deceived. He was sent to the boiler room with a man who eventually tried to kill him. While arguing, the gauges blew, and there was a huge explosion where in Invisible Man was knocked unconscious. In this case, both Liberty Paints and the Invisible Man are blind to see that blacks are not being accepted.
The Invisible Man wakes up in a hospital after the explosion and his memory is distorted and he is distorted like a new born. He wakes up and his eyesight and hearing is hazy. He says “I opened my eyes to a blinding flash” (Ellison, 230). This is the first incident where his vision is blurred and he can’t see the corruption of the doctors. He wakes up and all he can see is white, and he feels extremely alone. “He cries, ‘Where did my body end and the crystal and white world begin?’ and observes, ‘I seemed to exist in some other dimension, utterly alone’” (Lee). In this instance, the Invisible man is figuratively and physically distorted. He regains consciousness, and his disorientation helps the doctors control him. He is like a puppet to them and is electrocuted again and again. The Invisible Man feels very lost and doesn’t realize the doctors don’t really want to help him. He felt disconnected and deprived of feeling. “But still their meanings were lost in the vast whiteness in which I myself was lost” (Lee). He was drowning in white, and felt helpless against the corrupt doctors using him for their own good.
The Invisible Man uses vision and distortion during his speeches to show the corruption of our society. He sees a helpless couple being evicted from their house without a choice. The policemen and the white men have no mercy and would even result to hurting those who interfere with the eviction. This is corrupt and unjust because the people are just trying to help. The Invisible Man decided to give a speech to the growing crowd about how we should be law-abiding citizens.
“Yes, these old folks had a dream book, but the pages went blank and it failed to give them the number. It was called the Seeing Eye, The Great Constitutional Dream Book, The Secrets of Africa, The Wisdom of Egypt— but the eye was blind, it lost its luster. It’s all cataracted like a cross-eyes carpenter and it doesnt saw straight. All we have is the bible and this Law here rules that out. So where do we go? (Ellison, 280)
The Invisible Man says this in his speech to the crowd not knowing it would cause chaos. He said the dream book lost its luster, so he means all the people with dreams are being crushed by the government and trusties because they are not fair. The crowd loved his speech and without thinking they decide to help clean up the street and cause a riot.
The other speech the Invisible Man gives makes him blind in two different ways. Right before his speech for the rally for the brotherhood “He notices a faded picture on the wall depicting a former champion boxer who was blinded during a fight. the boxer’s inability to perceive the dishonest arrangement of the fight led to his own physical blinding” (Thomas). The Invisible Man is just like this boxer not knowing what he is getting himself into and not understanding that the arrangements the brotherhood is making for him are deceitful. During his speech, he physically can not see because a spotlight blinds him. “The light was so strong that I could no longer see the audience, the bowl of human faces” (Ellison, 341). Ellison puts this in here to prove that he didn’t see what was coming. After the speech the Invisible Man decides to join the brotherhood, thinking it was a good opportunity. “He never once considers that he too could possibly be blinded by the actions of those around him” (Thomas). He will eventually be blinded by the brotherhood for their own good, and will lead the Invisible Man to his eventual downfall, just like the picture of the boxer.
The Invisible Man is not the only one who is blind, Brother Jack from the brotherhood also is blind from his corruption, and well as physically. Jack doesn’t seem to see the narrators real potential. Jack wants to pound in the Invisible Man's head that sacrifice is essential even if you have to lose a body part like an eye (Ellison, 475). The Invisible Man doesn’t have a choice but to obey if he wants to stay in the brotherhood, and Brother Jack uses that to his advantage. “The negro, in a society dominated by white values, cannot afford to be honest, to speak out freely” (Glicksberg, 54). Invisible Man, now in the brotherhood, can’t be himself. He can’t share his ideas and real potential with Brother Jack because he beholds a stereotype which makes him not really see the Invisible Man.. Also brother Jack can’t see that he is following with the corruption of society because in his world it is normal. Physically Brother Jack can’t see his corruption because he is blind in one eye. This part in the novel is when the Invisible Man recognizes the difference between Brother Jack’s vision and his own. “I looked at his eye. So he knows how I feel. Which eye is really the blind one?” (Ellison, 478). The narrator says this because he knows Jack is blind, but his corruption is very good at covering it up. His whole self is amaurotic and that causes him to deceive the Invisible Man and use him without even noticing it.
Jack doesn’t really respect or care about the Invisible Man or the city of Harlem. Brother Jack claims to want equality, but when the Brotherhood shifts its motives, he unquestionably sacrifices the Harlem community in a second. The Invisible Man says
“Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn’t see either color or men… They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked for me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used.” (Ellison, 508)
He know is finally realizing how blind all the people who betrayed him were. He was just being used the whole time, and the Invisible Man himself was blind to it until now because he wanted to see the good in people. He recognizes that his hopeless and blind acceptance in the agreements of the brotherhood has consumed him and forced him away from the his own needs (Sheokand). Jack has caused him to lose his identity and his self worth. He now knows that his imperceptive acceptance of Jack's ideology can cause him to only be a victim.
The Invisible Man is also hidden from corruption in a dark hole at the end of the novel. This is the end, because he moves away from the racism and stereotypes of society and into the self-journey. “He is now not only in figurative darkness but is also surrounded by the physical black space. When he lights the paper of his social identities, symbolically he divests himself of all the assumed identities and roles” (Sheokand). He knows he will never escape the corruption but maybe now he will see it coming because he rid of all his identities and has the light of the paper. “He is in a hole, but he is able to explore, to understand, to see the hole he is in, the trap in which he is caught” (Glicksberg, 54). The trap is all of the people who deceived him and the blackness of the hole symbolizes how he didn’t see the trap but now he does. The surroundings of the hole hides him from the stereotypes and racism up there in the real world. His journey really starts when he falls into the hole because he can realize his real self without all the distractions.
He can finally think in peace and not be distorted by all the worthless people in society that could ruin him. “The basic problem is that nobody knows who he is and where he is headed and the world witnesses a ‘spectacle of whites’ busy escaping blackness and becoming blacker every day, and the blacks striving towards whiteness and becoming quite dull and grey” (Sheokand). The whites contrast the Invisible Man because he is content with the darkness of the hole while the whites are trying to escape the darkness. While all of this is happening, the blacks are striving to be powerful like the whites. But in reality they are blind to how corrupt they are and just become dull and grey. The narrator now accepts all of the chaos of his life as reality and as stepping stones on his journey to the self (Krasteva).The Invisible Man now realizes this in his hole, and doesn’t want to be dull anymore like many of the people he has met.
Often our vision is distorted, and we fail to see the major corruption of our society because our human nature causes us to want to see the good in people. "The black is not free, but no one is 'free';" (Brennan). Everyone in life has to face challenges and there is stereotypes against every person in society. Whether it be your skin, religion, house, or money it doesn’t matter because no one is free from the stereotypes. We all want to see the good in everyone and not focus on the bad, but often it is hard. We should try to eliminate our stereotypes to make the world a better place. “Ellison’s narrator demonstrates that even if one believes himself capable of filling the world up with their vision, of dissolving ‘mean egotism’ and becoming transparent, one is more likely limited by people’s prejudices regarding race, gender, and social class” (Johnson). If we believe we are invisible and cannot be hurt by these prejudices and stereotypes then we will succeed in life and not be grounded by them. Don’t be so blinded by the good in people to miss the corruption our society has and the power people have to deceive us.