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Institutional Racism In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

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Like the cold and menacing walls of prison Morgan Freeman describes in The Shawshank Redemption, the constant theme of institutional racism in Invisible Man confines those within it to defined roles and beliefs. Similar to Red, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is narrated in retrospect by the main character. Through his narration, the invisible man creates a window into the life of a bright but naïve black man desperately trying to climb the social hierarchy, only to be knocked down by exploitative superiors. However, the protagonist isn’t alone in his fight; several characters throughout the novel offer a helping hand hoping to aid the invisible man in his struggle, both black and white. These characters often serve as symbolism for societal …show more content…

This blindness is shown immediately, as Emerson’s cordial words are met with skepticism. The narrator thinks, “I remembered something my grandfather had said long ago: Don’t let no white man tell you his business, ‘cause after he tells you he’s liable to git shame he tole it to you and then he’ll hate you. Fact is, he was hating you all the time…” (Ellison 186). Rather than seeing the genuine kindness of Emerson’s concern, the narrator recalls his grandfather’s warning and concludes that Emerson must be acting out of selfish interests. In this sense, he is blind to the possibility of a white man wanting to help him, as his experience with white men has always been one of antagonism and negativity. His immediate distrust leads to later frustration from Emerson as the narrator remains determined to meet Mr. Emerson and get the job. At one point, Emerson even pleas, “‘Oh God! Don’t you see that it’s best that you do not see him?’” (Ellison 189), reflecting the desperation he feels when the invisible man continues to follow the expectations of white society. His words are ironic, as young Emerson suggests that the invisible man “not see” his father to break the cycle of conformity, when simply seeing Bledsoe’s manipulation would help him realize the futility of meeting with Mr. Emerson. The invisible man’s blindness to both the compassion of white men (young Emerson) and exploitation at the hands of black men (in this case, Bledsoe) cripple him from improving upon his condition. However, these undertones regarding blindness come to a head when the invisible man continues to blind himself to the reality of racism. He reacts to the contents of the letter thinking, “I could not believe it, tried to read it again. I could not believe it, yet I had a feeling that it all had happened before. I rubbed my

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Ellison employs the juxtaposition, and development of characters to emphasize Invisible Man’s failure to recognize aspects of society. Many of the characters in Ellison’s novel are often so tightly wrapped in their own personal bias and beliefs that they are “blind.” The narrator in his naivety, is unperceptive to the Brotherhood’s real motives, the truth about people (i.e. Dr.Bledsoe) and even to his own identity. This is best seen in the description of the Invisible Man by the veteran in the Golden Day. “... he fails to understand the simple facts of life…

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“Invisible Man” has been a piece famously used in a numerous amount of ways, with numerous interpretations that delves deep into the minds of the readers. It can be used for various examples of intertextuality. Although, on the surface of the book, its main conflicts are race and discrimination, Ralph Ellison made sure to hint to numerous books, and touch on many topics that a man in the 40’s would not dare to speak of. The author, made sure that this book was not isolated from the rest. It contained common themes and motifs that can be found in countless antiquated and coeval pieces.

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Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a riveting novel encompassing the life and hardships of an unnamed black narrator in the 1930’s. Ellison’s beautifully crafted work dives deep into the racism and hardships of 1930 and uses numerous conventions to layer depth onto his subject. Ellison attempts to inform the reader of the extreme racism that was rampant in 1930’s society. The violence displayed in the battle royale held in the narrator's home town in chapter one is a shocking opening to the rest of the novel.

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In the novel, Invisible Man, the narrator is always in pursuance of justice. His consistent search is driven by his inability to be treated as an equal in this white man’s society. As he fought for justice for the “dispossessed” the Narrator was constantly faced with injustice. Although his success seemed positive in the eyes of others, it had a negative impact on his life as a whole.

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The prologue of Invisible Man portrays the origin of his existential ideas and pain through the motif of not being seen. The motif connects with other essential motifs in the novel such as race relations and invisibility. The first sentence introduces Ellison as an “invisible man.” He explains that his invisibility extends not from some “biochemical accident" but rather because of the unwillingness of other people to notice him because of his race.

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However, Dr. Bledsoe goes ahead to further torment the narrator, as he sends him north with a gathered letter of suggestion for a job. Things being what they are, this letter is really a vindictive route for Bledsoe to attack the narrator for interrogating status as usual, as the letter informs employers to not hire the narrator no matter what. Dr. Bledsoe, in spite of being an African-American leader, misuses his power, manipulates his students, and does whatever he supposes is in his best interests. In Invisible Man, Ellison is attempting to push the concept that the African-American condition is harmed by villains like Dr. Bledsoe. Ellison implies that as a couple African-Americans picked up power, they acted in a comparative manner as white

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In Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man”, the main character, unnamed, reacts to injustice in a significant way, when he finally realizes that, even in the North, there is still discrimination among people. Throughout the novel, the main character grows and expands his knowledge of justice. In the beginning of the book, he starts out as a follower, and literally follows people in higher positions around (such as the Founder) and takes everything they say to heart. He begins to realize that the things he heard in his sheltered life may not be so great when he works in a paint factory.

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What does identity, agency, and internalized oppression mean for the Invisible Man? How does it feel to live through the veil of double consciousness while being physically trapped by the limitations of the Jim Crow South? Why does the narrator sacrifice his authenticity and deny his own truth for the sake of others? In this poignant novel, the Invisible Man (1952) explores a gripping coming of age tale centered on the themes of manhood, authoritative power, and self-pride. Ralph Ellison recounts the story of a young, ambitious African-American man who bore the dreams of his impoverished community (Ellison 32).

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Ellison shows the reader through his unique characters and structure that we deny ourselves happiness, tranquility, and our own being by the ridicule of other people, and that we must meet our own needs by validating ourselves from within instead of our value being a composite of the society that ridicules our being. Ellison's own struggle and connection to mental intemperance is the one of his great differences in the world to us and to see someone else's struggle puts our own life in context. In Invisible Man a single takeaway of many is that society turns us invisible, a part of its overall machine, but we have to learn not to look through ourselves in times of invisibility and not confuse our own blindness for invisibility as one may lead to the

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Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man addresses double consciousness by directly referring to this concept, as well as W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of the veil placed over African Americans. Throughout the novel, the Invisible Man believes that his whole existence solely depends on recognition and approval of white people, which stems from him being taught to view whites as superior. The Invisible Man strives to correspond to the immediate expectations of the dominate race, but he is unable to merge his internal concept of identity with his socially imposed role as a black man. The novel is full of trickster figures, signifying, and the Invisible Man trying to find his own identity in a reality of whiteness. Specifically, Ellison’s employment of trickster

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He constantly addresses class within Invisible Man, by portraying the story of a black man, considered the lowest class, and describes how he sees the futility and unfairness of this caste system. As a southern black man, he truly is the lowest of the low in the eyes of the class system itself, born in the racist south, seen as a “chitterling eater” (204 Ellison), a racist term for southern blacks and deeply a derogatory one at that. The narrator is treated as lower than all the rest for his financial setbacks, perceived or otherwise. This view of a classist society with need for change is deeply socialistic in its nature. Ellison sees the world as a rigid pyramid, with rich whites atop, and he wishes for this pyramid to crumble more than anything, leaving an indistinguishable mass of all different people.

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This relates to the wider image of invisibility and the motif of blindness and sight. Invisibility as well as blindness is evident in both these episodes. At the beginning of the narrator’s speech episode the reader is introduced to the first notion. The narrator is given the opportunity to deliver his speech and yet “There was still laughter as [he] faced them” (Ellison [1952]2001:29). This contributes to Ellison’s idea of invisibility that white people do not see black people as individual human beings and therefore the assumption can be made that black people can be seen as invisible to white people.

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Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a modern slave narrative. Through this book, the author and narrator challenge derogatory stereotypes of the white slave owner and the fearless slave showing how intelligent African Americans actually find themselves in the American Landscape (Mahoney 27). When reading the novel Invisible Man, it seems as if there are two novels within one book. There is the surface novel: the novel where the reader is exposed to the psychology of the characters, the emotions, and mood, relationship, and identity. Though this quality is never really found, it merely surfaces as the narrator loses one in exchange for another.

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The protagonist in several works of literature is generally plagued by conflicting influences, adding to the overall meaning of the literary work. The Invisible Man’s narrator is the same. As the narrator struggles in pursuit of understanding his invisibility, he finds himself vacillating between influences of Dr. Bledsoe, Brother Jack, and his grandfather. Dr. Bledsoe’s beliefs and actions toward the narrator mark him as invisible, adding to narrator’s inability to advance in life. Dr. Bledsoe explains to the narrator that black people are only able to succeed when they play the white man’s game.

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The idea of invisibility is popularly viewed through fiction as examples as a supernatural power, floating cloaks, and magic potions. However, invisibility can have a real impact on people’s mentality, such as on the unnamed narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. The narrator is the “invisible man” of the title and a black man who is living in 1930s America filled with troubling race relations. He feels as the factor of invisibility because of other people’s prejudices and perceptions, which leads to his realization of finding his true identity. Yet, he is unable to overcome his blindness on himself, he falls into the path of other characters’ identities and beliefs on solutions to society’s issues.

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