Evolution Throughout Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man

Evolution Throughout The Invisible Man Throughout everyone’s lives, they encounter experiences that cause them to change, evolve and grow as humans. Not only do people evolve physically as they age, but they also evolve mentally and ideologically throughout their life. It’s possible that they became more wise, or maybe they shake off trendy doctrines that have possibly tried to mold their personality and who they were as a person a long time ago. Ralph Ellison is able to perfectly recreate the struggle of change throughout his novel The Invisible Man. There is a strong noticeable shift from pro communism ideals to anti communism ideals throughout the novel. From the surface, it appears to be only as a diatribe going against racism, however,

Ralph Ellison begins The Invisible Man by introducing the readers to a young, naïve black man who has been trapped under the blanket of racism in the south. As the novel progresses on, we are introduced to Mr. Norton. Mr. Norton is a rich white man who is also an important trustee to the African American college that the narrator is attending. During the time that Mr. Norton is being chauffeured around the college by the narrator, Mr. Norton asks the narrator to stop by the old slave-quarter areas around the college. It is in these areas that the reader learns the story of Jim Trueblood. It is during this section of the novel that we learn Trueblood committed the horrible crime of incest by impregnating his daughter. After Trueblood has concluded in the telling of his story, Mr. Norton, who almost seems grateful for having heard it, hands Trueblood a hundred dollar bill. “Trueblood's mouth fell agape, his eyes widened and filled with moisture as he took the bill between trembling fingers. It was a hundred-dollar bill” (Ellison 69). The sole act of Mr. Norton giving Trueblood this hundred dollar bill perfectly symbolizes Mr. Norton

The Narrator is a complete puppet for the Brotherhood as they force their communist ideologies on him and have him do all the dirty work so the leaders can keep their hands clean. Most of the extent of the narrators work is delivering powerful speeches and creating mass frenzies and hysteria among crowds of people. Tensions in Harlem start to boil over after Tod Clifton, a former member of The Brotherhood, is gunned down by police and the narrator is called upon to speak at the funeral. Afterwards, marches and protests are held in memory of Clifton’s death. “In a side street children with warped tricycles were parading along the walk carrying one of the signs, BROTHER TOD CLIFTON, OUR HOPE SHOT DOWN” (Ellison 461). Another member/leader of The Brotherhood, Brother Jack, chastises the narrator for delivering such an inflammatory speech and this is when the narrator truly realizes The Brotherhood is using him and not letting him express his own opinions by stating “That's right, I was hired. Things have been so brotherly I had forgotten my place. But what if I wish to express an idea?" (Ellison 470). This is a big turning point for the narrator as he realises everyone has used him for something and many of the ideologies that he had were ones that were forced upon him by someone else. Here is when the veil is fully lifted for the narrator and he is