Tag Archives: Great Work

Invisibility vs. Existence? The reasons behind his invisibility

Posted on by

Ralph Ellison conveys an important message at the beginning of the prolog, from the fourth to the fifth paragraph, that the main character ‘invisible man’ does exist, but he is not visible. His invisibility is caused by people’s failures in identifying their own fallacies which made them not be able to acknowledge the invisible man’s existence.

This conclusion arrived after proving the invisible man’s existence and invisibility during a fight between him and a tall blond man. Ellison carefully hinted readers of the invisible man’s physical existence by describing his actions: “I bumped into”, “I sprang at him”, “seized”, “butted him again and again”, and “kicked him repeatedly” and so forth, which indeed caused the tall blond man “profusely bleeding”. But the invisible man all of a sudden gave upon his revenge when he already got out his knife and was almost about slit the white man’s throat. Why? The invisible man abruptly realized that the white man firmly believed that the invisible man does not at all exist, because the white man still refused to see the invisible man even he was beaten up to the point of death. When facing the threat of death, a rational man can still hold onto his belief must mean that he is deadly convinced by his belief, no matter if it is out of rationality. Just like people who devoted their lives to serve Nazi during WWII, even if the consequence of them holding onto their beliefs, later on, are proved to be catastrophic to the human race, they were unshakeable toward their convictions. There is no point in arguing with a person when he doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of the argument itself. What are you arguing about? Thereby, the invisible man developed a deep sense of shamaness and disgust—that he can change people’s mind. He even felt “amused” by his innocent fancies and the efforts of proving his visibility to people who do not recognize his existence in the first place. But the every fact proves that he does EXIST, it is not the invisible man himself, but the people who made him INVISIBLE. What a brilliant way to name the real criminals of the invisible violence.

What Did I Do To Be So Blue?

Posted on by


Ralph Ellison’s first-person narrative in monologue form reveals the pains black people were suffering in American society over half a century ago.

When I finished absorbing the last sentence of this article, there was a voice ringing in my head as though hearing a sorrow tune in the distance… “What did I do to be so black and blue…” A deep sense of compassion overwhelmed me and I quickly flipped back to the first page and restart from the very beginning.
Ellison first introduces the main character in the first-person, who laments his invisibility to the white “sleep-walkers” of society. He tells a tale about how he almost killed a “sleep-walking” man on the street after the man blindly cursed him, even after being severely beaten. The narrator uses the metaphor of invisibility stating that this maltreatment towards black people is not because they are born invisible, it’s because they are born into a society that chooses not to see them.

As Ellison portrays in his work, what triggered this almost-murder is the insults the “tall blond man” shot at the invisible man. The white man was blind to the harm he did to the invisible man and kept cursing at him, although a simple solution would have been a sincere apology. Synonymous words to “invisible” repeatedly appeared in this passage, including the blind, unseen, and formless. These words emphasized the discrimination black people were subjected to and the extreme illness of a society at that point. Through the vivid depiction of the invisible man’s thoughts after the incident, readers finally understood the significance of “blue” in his sorrowful song. “I was both disgusted and ashamed. I was like a drunken man myself…Then I was amused.” Beating someone within an inch of his life and the yet absolute refusal of the sleepwalker to apologize hit the invisible man with a stark reality: “Would he have awakened at the point of death?” He would forever remain invisible.