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Influence Of Individual Identity In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

1294 Words6 Pages

Analytical Essay Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a summary of a man’s rationalizations. Ellison reflects on individual identity by emphasizing how external beings influence a man’s inner thoughts, making him believe he is something else than he truly is, accentuated through the racial profile presented throughout the novel and the invisibility which the narrator feels. He accomplishes this through the way characters act towards the narrator, the narrator’s attitude towards the characters, and through his own thought. The unnamed narrator of the novel, begins in the prologue stating, “I am an invisible man (pg. 3)”. He means the term not literally, but figuratively reflecting on his identity. The narrator goes on to describe how he feels others ‘don’t see him’ or ‘acknowledge’ him when he walks down the street. He is widely ignored by those around him, allowing him to get away with all kinds of delinquency which ranges from stealing power from an electric company to beating a man in the dark of night. Echoing this crime, he gives an explanation for his actions, “It allows me to feel my vital aliveness (pg. 6)”. However, ‘feeling his vital aliveness’ is not truly why he feels that he’s invisible. …show more content…

The narrator acknowledges the great extent to which he’s been influence by quoting, “It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self- contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer…That I am nobody but myself. (pgs. 12-13)” He had fallen victim to the identity given to him by others, rather than forming his own

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