Ralph Ellison's Character Development

Character development within novels with complex plot structures proves to be a difficult task necessitating the author to add their own inner thoughts and experiences to weave a more realistic story. The historical background of a writer helps glean on information about that person’s unconscious and subconscious processes that become apparent within an author’s literature. As the author develops their thoughts throughout a novel attempting to paint a clearer picture of their purpose, their own persona becomes a part of the literature. Psychoanalytic theory attempts to further this claim by taking information from one’s childhood, inner taboo thoughts and hidden motivations, and synthesizing them for a better picture of the author’s processes

This is also the case for Ralph Ellison’s acclaimed first novel, The Invisible Man, in which he creates a bildungsroman by utilizing the unnamed narrator’s psyche to develop the invisible man’s search for his place in society, weaving a hero’s adventure from the contrasting South and North, and also discovers his own place within his real society. Ralph Ellison had a unique childhood that shaped his views of American culture and in return played a major part in establishing his love for music within the novel that his narrator shares. This, coupled with the setting being specifically within the borders of Harlem depicts the effect his childhood passion had on his characters. Ellison “began playing the trumpet at age eight and gravitated toward both music and writing,” leading to music being an interesting mode of communication for the narrator (Applebome). Music is a way of communicating one’s passion and emotions in a more connected way than merely writing the words on paper. In a way, even writing is a sort of poetic music that needs to be crafted and analytically understood. Ellison

Feminine figures are sprinkled throughout the novel but usually symbolize desire and sexual feelings, yet there seems to be one female figure that stands out from the rest. When Ellison was “a boy riding with his mother and younger brother,” (Nicholson) he realized the importance she played within his life. His childhood tendencies and leanings had been planted by his mother and therefore it would be assumed she would be included within the novel, whether consciously or not. This motherly figure becomes manifested within the character Mary who proves to provide valuable information and protects the narrator as he initially starts his life in the north. As he concludes,” other than Mary I had no friends and desired none,” (Ellison 200) the narrator understands he doesn’t need anybody else to take care of him. While most of the other female characters portray hidden desires, Mary represents the pureness that a mother figure represents. Even more interesting is the lack of discussion of his real mother and even real father as the novel progresses. This unconscious decision relays that he might never have truly understood his parents as a child, but later as he started developing his novel started to understand the importance of a maternal