“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me.”
In the “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, we can already can see the central struggle of the novel. The narrator begins the prologue by introducing himself as invisible.”I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me,” not that it is one of his superpowers, nor is it due to accident, but because people in society ignore him because of the color of his skin. With this the narrator explains to the reader that this invisibility duos as an advantage yet a disadvantage. Yes, he doesn’t have to deal with other people’s problems and ordeals yet he aches to be seen and treated with respect his peers. The narrator write this prologue without ever saying his name. In doing so, the narrator is using his invisible as an advantage, to freely speak his mind without having to risk the consequences. His identity is even hid to the reader that he is confessing all of his feelings too.
The narrator realizes that the reason he is invisible to white people is because he is black, therefore, he describes them as blind. Stereotypes play a huge role in the setting of the novel. This is during postwar America in which whites viewed blacks in a certain light, as untrustworthy, muggers, etc. The narrator does not like how there are multiple identities given to him due to the color of his skin. Instead of his individuality, his qualities, his personality, people see him as something entirely different. This is seemingly difficult for the narrator as it doesn’t allow him to put his best foot forward in situations. This makes the narrator struggle with how others perceive him as well as how he perceives himself. This explains racism as a whole in itself, as those that are affected can relate to how stereotypes are used to describe them as a person.
Ralph Ellison lived in the era where oppression towards the colored people reached its culmination, where segregation tightened around the country at that time. This hardship that Ellison experienced become the reason he wrote the Invisible Man. The novel is Ellison’s masterpiece of his disappointment to the society that classified and treated colored minorities at the bottom of culture’s class. “Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a biochemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact.” (Ellison, 3) He Criticize how people around him, that has different skin color, look at him and his peers in different way. Ellison amplifies his effort and how painful it is to make society look at the people of colored different way and as human being, “And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it’s seldom successful.” (Ellison, 4)
Invisible Man is about the anxiety, rebellious statement towards the prejudiced and satirical expression that Ellison conveys in this novel. “I doubt if there is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine, and I do not exclude Broadway. Or the Empire State Building on a photographer’s dream night. Those two spots are among the darkest of our whole civilization – pardon me, our whole culture (in important distinction, I’ve heard) – which might sound like a hoax, or a contradiction, but that (by contradiction, I mean) is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.” (Ellison, 6) In this passage he criticized how ironically, our civilization moved back to the to the square one where the racism become issue that disrupt our society. And Ellison asserts his skepticism of the culture that instead of moving forward, it’s moving back as boomerang that can haunt us from our past.
The invisibility felt by the main character is not so much not being seen, as it is a sense of neglect. It is a combination of neglect and a purposeful avoidance. People ignore others on the street for a variety of reasons. During the time this piece was written there was a clear social hierarchy. This system kept African Americans oppressed and separated from the general progress in the United States. The building of inner city highways separated predominantly African American communities from white neighborhoods. These highways became barriers. Another form of oppression were blue discharges from the military. Blue discharges were unfavorable discharges from the military that were used to target African American and homosexual service members. Veterans with blue discharges were not eligible for the benefits of the G.I. bill. So these service members were not given the same opportunity to attend colleges on the military’s dime and be accepted for cheap mortgages like their white counterparts.
I think this historical background knowledge increases the understanding of Ellison’s piece and offers and different point of view on the word invisible.
America wanted African Americans to be invisible. It seems that America had a serious reluctance when it came to allowing African Americans to fully integrate into American society. By keeping African Americans from becoming educated and keeping them behind concrete barrier highways the African American community did become invisible, forgotten and neglected.
Invisible in this piece does not mean direct invisibility. For example if a person stands in front of another person but cannot be seen because they are invisible. Invisible in this case means that society seemed to shun the African American community. During the altercation with the blond man, the blond saw the main character. He was fully aware of him. The blond man refused of apologize out of principle or spite not because he could not see who was hitting him.
I agree with your interpretation of the invisible man as struggling to overcome the stereotyping of the color of his skin, but I would like to expand further on the advantages versus disadvantages of his invisibility. You stated, “this invisibility duos as an advantage yet a disadvantage. Yes, he doesn’t have to deal with other people’s problems and ordeals yet he aches to be seen and treated with respect his peers.” In my own interpretation, I don’t think the invisible man ever saw any advantages in his invisibility but rather lashed out because of it. By attacking the man on the street and stealing electricity from the electrical company, he is in a way spiting all those that choose not to see him. Realistically, he knows he is seen and he knows that if he were to kill a man on the street, it will do nothing to rectify the way that people see him. Yet, he comes within an inch of killing the man out of pure rage. I think the invisible man behaves in the way that he does in hopes of proving to himself that he is a visible member of society, even if others don’t see him. He may be exploiting his invisibility but not in a way that makes it an advantage to him.