Invisible Man was written by Ralph Ellison who was an American novelist, literary critic, and scholar who wrote in the genres of African American literature, social commentary, and bildungsroman. Invisible Man is a story about an unnamed young black man from the south who gains the opportunity to go study at a college where he feels as though he can find his identity and a successful future. Soon after, he is expelled from the college and must move to Harlem for showing one of the college’s benefactor the less than pristine sides of the college. In Harlem, the narrator becomes an orator for an organization called The Brotherhood but soon after the narrator is caught up in the tensions that are rising in Harlem due to his speeches. Eventually, he is driven into a manhole during the riots in Harlem and he begins to understand his identity, choosing to write about his story before he comes back to join society. The plot of Invisible Man is important to the understanding of the story and its statements about society and people. Focusing on the plot of Invisible Man also will allow for the actions in the book to be most prominent as each section of the book relates back to another in some way. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison shows that the past should not be forgotten, but by trying to forget and escape the past one can overlook that the past is also important to shaping the future resulting in progress being unable to be made. The past should not be forgotten even if it looms