How Did Ralph Ellison Affect The Invisible Man

Ralph Waldo Ellison, most remembered for his novel the Invisible Man, shed light on the problem of racism. Ralph Ellison suffered through quite a few inexorable events during his lifetime. Ellison grew up wanting to be a musician; however, during his college years, he started leaning more towards writing. The novel, Invisible Man, affected people differently. Some people believed the book sounded amazing, but others believed his insipid novel needed improving. Even though Ellison went through his father’s death, and a career change, and writer’s block, and racism, he still managed to write a best-selling novel. Ralph Ellison was born on March 1, 1914, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. At the age of three Ellison’s father, Lewis Alfred, who

When he reached his college years, however, he decided to work on becoming a writer. One year his dreams to become a writer started to come true, “In 1936, Ellison went to New York over the summer with the intent of earning enough money to pay for his college expenses, but ended up relocating” (“Ralph” internet). Ellison met and befriended a few writing colleagues during his career. Langston Hughes served as the best man in Ellison’s wedding (Rhynes 92). Ellison gained the privilege of attending an executive committee meeting of the League of American Writers. During this meeting, they discussed ways to publicize worldwide poverty. At the meeting, white committee members claimed his ideas seemed too superficial. Ellison wanted to prove them wrong. Their claim infuriated Ellison. In his review “Stormy Weather,” “his impatience with communists, apathetic academics, intellectuals, and Harlem Renaissance anachronisms” he expressed his feelings

This simple sentence seems to be the basic meaning of the entire novel. The protagonist of the novel, “an African American civil rights worked from the South who, upon his move to New York, becomes increasingly alienated due to the racism he encounters” believes that he looks invisible due to his skin color. Ellison began writing his novel, Invisible Man, while at a friend’s farm in Vermont. Caring only about writing his novel, Ellison focused on the key components in his novel. Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, showed to be extremely successful upon its release, “Invisible Man, became a runaway hit, remaining on bestsellers lists for weeks and winning the National Book award the following year,” (“Ralph” internet). The novel can be described as a groundbreaking meditation, bestseller, influential novel on race. Loving the novel Invisible Man, David Denby sounded pleased in his review of the novel, “one of the greatest of all American books Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man,” (Denby internet). Believing that Ellison “burned out” as a writer led Brent Staples to write a bad review about Ralph Ellison. Complaining about having a writer’s block “as big as the Ritz” made Staples believe that Ellison’s Invisible Man came across as a “source of pain” Staples believes that Ellison ruined his entire career by empty promises to everyone that he would publish another book. Ellison