Invisible Man

The novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a classic American literature novel. The story sheds light onto an arbitrary character who seeks to find his African American identity in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. Ralph Ellison provides the readers with an insightful account consisting of great literary elements with his choice of theme, perspectives, and exigency; furthermore, Invisible Man consists of various literary elements to make it a profound novel. Significantly, a major literary method use used is the adamant Southern gothic nature underlined in the novel. Invisible Man portrays a Southern-bred, black adolescent seeking his identity. The narrator cannot adapt into the figure yearned for him from the various authority figures

The man is a symbol for the oppressors in the narrator’s life and the establishment relates to the organizations who perpetrate caste systems. For example, fighting the man is grasped with the narrator’s disenchant with the college’s wealthy white donors. The white beneficiaries of the college caused the narrator to note, “For their most innocent words were acts of violence to which we were hypersensitive though we endured them not” (Ellison 112). The narrator is aware of the threat and actions the antagonists create for him and his community. The typical abuse of power from the white authority marginalizes the black community. Likewise, this theme of fighting the establishment is, also, shown in the resistance against policemen. The police are showcased as a strong authority figure that instigates a power imbalance. For instance, a cop kills the narrator’s friend for selling dolls without consequence. Ralph Ellison claims “. . . the cop would be Clifton’s historian, his judge, his witness and his executioner” (Ellison 439). The narrator and his fellow allies must fight the establishment because of their continuation of oppression. The police officers are a prevalent theme regarding the institutional racism in the novel. The reference to police abuse is still prevailing in society today as shown by the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement today and the novel both establish a need to campaign against violence and systemic racism toward black people. The attacks by the police tie into a corresponding theme of black pride and power. Resisting the establishment is one of the fundament ideals amidst the black power movement. Black power is an ideology aimed at achieving equality and freedom for African Americas. Invisible Man is set in the Jim Crow Era, which was a system of racial and social control. The theme of black pride contradicts the oppressive dogma of Jim Crow laws by