An Analysis Of The Narrator In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

An Analysis of the Narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Invisible Man, written by Ralph Ellison and released in 1952, largely serves as a commentary on the social standing and personal identity of African American people in the time in which the book was published. It follows an unnamed narrator (who, from this point on, will be called the Narrator) who tells his story on how he came to the realization of his personal identity- or rather, the lack thereof. Through a series of different events and encounters throughout the story, the Narrator shows how he is socially “invisible”, unseen by white people for who he is, and is only treated by how others believe him to be or, in many cases, how they believe they can make use of him. Upon further

This reward, according to Callahan, completely undoes any potential good that the Battle Royal could do in changing the Narrator’s worldview, as it “eclipse[s] all the earlier unpleasantness. They [the briefcase and scholarship] confirm his assumption that if he does what the world expects of him, he will be rewarded with respect and acceptance.” (Callahan 194). While this event did have the possibility of shaking up the Narrator’s worldview, the reward ruins any chance at that. Since he was rewarded for his flawed worldview, he goes on to college continuing to believe that things are as he sees, despite the evidence that was thrown directly in his face during the Battle Royal. In the Battle Royal, the Narrator’s naive worldview is given direct competition by white leaders who treat him in horrendous ways that should, under most circumstances, change how he sees the world. However, since he is rewarded for his naivety, this major flaw is not mended yet, and is instead allowed to fester itself and become more problematic later on in the

The Narrator fails in this molding process by committing too hard into it; in joining the Brotherhood, he believes that he has changed his identity for the better, but in actuality has only put on another mask. His failure to identify this distinction between mask and identity creates problems when he later meets with Sybil, who reveals how flaky his actual identity is.The Narrator only realizes the true meanings of the riddle when he has realized, at the very end of the book, that his previous masks and worldviews mean nothing in the face of his discovered invisibility. His misinterpretation of his only form of advice- his grandfather’s riddle- creates his interpretation of the world but just so happens to also reveal the stark flaws that can be found in