The novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is centered around the concept of personal identity, as the narrator struggles with finding who he really is throughout the book. The narrator was constantly torn between having self control or truly expressing his opinions and views with the public. He failed to listen to advice from his grandfather when he suggested to seem as if you have self control, but in reality do everything with his own goals in mind. This struggle between himself and society is present throughout the whole book. The main character struggles with how to successfully gain affluence, throughout the book he was not seen as powerful when he spoke out about his feelings or when he was holding back these feelings demonstrating full self control. Self control is not always the best way to establish power in society, a person must stay true to their opinions to be respected and affluent. People hold …show more content…
In the end of they book the narrator talks about the smell of death and relates it to the smell of spring. In this case the smell of death represents racism, and the smell of spring represents the possibility of change. The narrator says “death in the smell of spring.” This means that the narrator feel that racism and possibility of change are equally bad. He thinks this because he has faced a lot of disappointment when he thinks there is going to be change. When the narrator finally spoke out about his own opinion with the brotherhood was lying to him. This ties into the main theme because the brotherhood was not being honest about their true intentions either and it ended up hurting a large group of people. When the narrator says “don’t let me trick you” he is now referring to the fact that he has lied about how he truly feels in the past, and he knows that people lie about what they think. He is finally speaking truthfulling and not holding in his true