The manner in which Ralph Ellison details his tale of racial inequality and individualism is told through symbolism, metaphor and repetition with acute choice of words to bolster his novel and provide astounding impact on the reader. Ellison uses strong, authoritative or emotionally provoking diction to hook the reader into the book and fully grasp the reality of the situation at hand or the thoughts welling up in the narrator’s head. A prime example comes in the frequency in which the word “antagonism” is used as the novel progresses and the narrator begins unearthing the harsh reality of his life as a black man. In the novel’s beginning, the word “antagonism” is never uttered, for the narrator has not the insight to fathom the concept of bigots lurking around him and despising him for his color, however, a change is seen when the narrator begins to have skepticism fester within him. At this point, when he no longer sees others as …show more content…
After being permanently banished from his university, the narrator can hardly sleep or think with the only thought flooding his mind being an old nursery rhyme of a robin being plucked clean of all his feathers and publicly humiliated. He puts himself in the place of the robin, a symbol of his lack of humanity as a walking laughing stock, and envisions all those around him forcing him to “hope” until death while the puppet masters of his life “keep him running” all the way to his fate (194). Despite this fear of his life playing out as a mere joke, the recurring symbol of his briefcase appears to be his pride as both a black man and an intellectual individual. Due to this strong attachment to his briefcase and the humanity it represents for him, he takes it everywhere, stores his most vital documents in it, and even risks his life to save it from a building he set on fire during a