Invisible Man

“Nor was I unappreciative of the hilarious inversion of what is usually a racially restricted social mobility that took me on daily journeys from a Negro neighborhood, wherein strangers questioned my moral character on nothing more substantial than our common color and my vague deviation from accepted norms, to find sanctuary in a predominantly white environment wherein that same color and vagueness of role rendered me anonymous, and hence beyond public concern.” 

Ellison’s comments about social mobility reflect the fact that New York City, like many major American cities, tended to be segregated along racial lines, and White people were granted mobility that was denied to Black people. He also notes the irony of being accepted by White patrons of his work for the same behavior that was so foreign to the inhabitants of his own neighborhood. His recognition of anonymity mirrors Invisible Man’s eventual conception of himself as someone anonymous and “invisible” to White people. 

“How could you treat a Negro as equal in war and then deny him equality in times of peace?” 

Ellison succinctly articulates the double standard facing many Black people in the post-World War II years—they were expected to make sacrifices for their country on the same level as White people (by serving in the armed forces during World War II and otherwise contributing to war efforts) while being treated as inferior in other aspects of civil life by that country. Ellison’s earlier attempt at a World War II novel dealing with race indicates that the conflict played a central role in his own and in the country’s identity, even though Invisible Man is mostly set before the war. Ellison’s bluntness here also exposes and questions the double standard.  

“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me […] When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.” 

The protagonist has come to terms with his invisibility as he introduces the reader to his state. He recognizes that the invisibility is due to the other person’s inner condition, however, not a reflection of him at all. In fact, other people’s perception of him is at times a reflection of their own self-perception—they see “themselves” in him rather than the man who is actually there.

“I remember that I am invisible and walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.” 

The “sleepwalkers” the protagonist refers to are the people who cannot “see” him. This metaphor again calls attention to the fact that his invisibility is a product of other people’s dysfunctions, not his own. He chooses not to “awaken” them to avoid the dangers that a racist society could bring and recognizes that their ignorance is preferable to hostility.

“Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me? […] Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement.” 

The ”invisibility” the protagonist experiences distances him from society and weakens his sense of responsibility to other people. Ellison here implies that the invisibility is dangerous not only to the mental health and self-conception of the protagonist, but to society as well. Without a valid (and fair) social “contract” to abide by, the protagonist—through no fault of his own—doesn’t have any motivation to behave in a socially responsible way (although his statements at the end of the book do imply that he is determined to develop some sort of ethical code for himself).  

“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.” 

This passage unites the specific journey of the protagonist toward understanding his identity with the universal process of self-definition that many adults undergo. This journey is the secondary theme of Ellison’s work, one that is intertwined with the main theme of race. The protagonist’s expectations are continually shaped by the often contradictory or harmful expectations of others, resulting in the “painful boomeranging” that he undergoes.  

“When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did.” 

This passage from the protagonist’s childhood reveals the complicated, unspoken expectations that guided Southern racial relations, whereby White people on the surface affirm “desirable” behaviors that they actually are hostile to because such behaviors would force them to critically examine and reevaluate African Americans beyond unfounded stereotypical beliefs. Black people that conformed to the surface-level beliefs would be punished, resulting in a “lose-lose” situation. The narrator attributes this to a subconscious confusion on the part of White people, but the book’s later events suggest that White people also do this consciously at times.  

“Then in my mind’s eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly into place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.” 

The language in this passage has emotional undertones that reveal the deceit and cruelty behind White “salvation” of Black people. The veil on the statue “flutters” but is hard, while the “father” is cold. The statue represents the promises of equality that followed slavery’s abolition—the “more efficient” blinding suggests that the supposedly benevolent gesture of White people offering education to Black people continued to hamper Black people from reaching full integration and equality. 

“First, it was dangerous if you felt like that about anything, because then you’d never get it or something or someone would take it away from you; then it was dangerous because nobody would understand you and they’d only laugh and think you were crazy.” 

In this passage, the Black attitude engendered by racial inequalities is one of guardedness, knowing that many efforts will be thwarted by powerful White people who seek to uphold the exclusive advantages they enjoy. Later examples in the text support the idea that White people will take things away from Black people—most notably in the eviction scene in Chapter 13. The “best-case scenario” for Black desire is one of ridicule and mockery (“they’d only laugh and think you were crazy”), another fact that underscores the deep inequalities of 20th-century America when it came to race.  

“Here within this quiet greenness I possessed the only identity I had ever known, and I was losing it. In this brief moment of passage I became aware of the connection between these lawns and buildings and my hopes and dreams. I wanted to stop the car and talk with Mr. Norton, to beg his pardon for what he had seen; to plead and show him tears, unashamed tears like those of a child before his parent; to denounce all we’d seen and heard; to assure him that far from being like any of the people we had seen, I hated them, that I believed in the principles of the Founder with all my heart and soul, and that I believed in his own goodness and kindness in extending the hand of his benevolence to helping us poor, ignorant people out of the mire and darkness. I would do his bidding and teach others to rise up as he wished them to, teach them to be thrifty, decent, upright citizens, contributing to the welfare of all, shunning all but the straight and narrow path that he and the Founder had stretched out before us. If only he were not angry with me! If only he would give me another chance!”

This passage reflects the protagonist’s earnest belief in White superiority and benevolence, indicating that he’s at the beginning of his journey toward a mature understanding of White motives. He cites a parent-child relationship that was often used to express the idea that Black people were simpler than and dependent on White people. The use of the phrase “straight and narrow” is also connotative of Jesus’s words in the Bible (see Matthew 7:14), further implying that he views the White founders of the college as almost “superhuman” authority figures deserving of respect. 

“The honored guests moved silently upon the platform, herded toward their high, carved chairs by Dr. Bledsoe with the decorum of a portly head waiter. Like some of the guests, he wore striped trousers and a swallow-tail coat with black-braided lapels topped by a rich ascot tie. It was his regular dress for such occasions, yet for all its elegance, he managed to make himself look humble. Somehow, his trousers inevitably bagged at the knees and the coat slouched in the shoulders. I watched him smiling at first one and then another of the guests, of whom all but one were white; and as I saw him placing his hand upon their arms, touching their backs, whispering to a tall, angular-faced trustee who in turn touched his arm familiarly, I felt a shudder […] I realized then that he was the only one of us whom I knew—except perhaps a barber or a nursemaid—who could touch a white man with impunity. And I remembered too that whenever white guests came upon the platform he placed his hand upon them as though exercising a powerful magic.” 

The protagonist notices that for all the surface-level elegance of Dr. Bledsoe’s dress, he still communicates servitude to the White college founders (notice the comparison to “a portly head waiter” and that Bledsoe’s “trousers […] bagged at the knees” and his coat shoulders “slouched,” all indicating servile mannerisms and body language). This servitude gives Bledsoe a kind of rapport with White people and grants him familiarity—here expressed through physical touch—with them. This unsettling mix of servitude and manipulation makes the protagonist uneasy, and it supports the book’s larger theme of problematic race relations.

“He had said it again and something fell away from me, and I seemed to be telling myself in a rush: You were trained to accept the foolishness of such old men as this, even when you thought them clowns and fools; you were trained to pretend that you respected them and acknowledged in them the same quality of authority and power in your world as the whites before whom they bowed and scraped and feared and loved and imitated, and you were even trained to accept it when, angered or spiteful, or drunk with power, they came at you with a stick or strap or cane and you made no effort to strike back, but only to escape unmarked. But this was too much…he was not grandfather or uncle or father, nor preacher or teacher.” 

This passage immediately precedes the protagonist’s brawl with Brockway and presents the attitude taken by older Black men that the protagonist has known, men who he looked up to as authority figures (uncles, grandfather, father, etc.). These men accepted and even encouraged their own disempowerment at the hands of White men, and at times would try to regain a sense of control by physically beating younger Black men, such as the protagonist. By fighting Brockway, the protagonist is not only fighting one man but against the unjust circumstances that made the men he knew in the past despair. 

“Who was I, how had I come to be? Certainly I couldn’t help being different from when I left the campus; but now a new, painful, contradictory voice had grown up within me, and between its demands for revengeful action and Mary’s silent pressure I throbbed with guilt and puzzlement. I wanted peace and quiet, tranquillity [sic], but was too much aboil inside. Somewhere beneath the load of the emotion-freezing ice which my life had conditioned my brain to produce, a spot of black anger glowed and threw off a hot red light of such intensity that had Lord Kelvin known of its existence, he would have had to revise his measurements. A remote explosion had occurred somewhere, perhaps back at Emerson’s or that night in Bledsoe’s office, and it had caused the ice cap to melt and shift the slightest bit. But that bit, that fraction, was irrevocable.” 

This passage reflects the protagonist‘s growing realization of and anger toward racial injustice, as well as the self-searching that many young adults undergo as they enter adult life. The protagonist recognizes that his old trust in White-formulated power systems has begun to permanently erode, although he will try to replace it with loyalty to the equally problematic Brotherhood. The interior “explosion” the protagonist refers to mirrors the literal explosion in the paint room of the factory. 

“But to hell with this Booker T. Washington business. I would do the work but I would be no one except myself—whoever I was. I would pattern my life on that of the Founder. They might think I was acting like Booker T. Washington; let them. But what I thought of myself I would keep to myself.”

The protagonist subverts the expectations of his new associates by deciding to craft his new identity according to his own ideas, while hoping to fool Brother Jack and the organization into thinking that he’s actually following their wishes. This motive marks a growing complexity in his vision of White people, similar to his recognition of their inconsistency early in his adult life. Also note that the protagonist recognizes that he’s still in the process of discovering who he is (“whoever I was”).

“The new suit imparted a newness to me. It was the clothes and the new name and the circumstances. It was a newness too subtle to put into thought, but there it was. I was becoming someone else.”

The protagonist’s journey toward self-knowledge continues. These reflections are brought on when he buys new clothes for his position with the Brotherhood, reflecting both an external and an internal change. His sense of identity becomes shaped by his role within the Brotherhood despite his earlier vow to subvert the leaders’ expectations. 

“It’s very strange, I thought, but things are so unreal for them normally that they believe that to call a thing by name is to make it so.” 

The idea that labeling something makes it true contrasts with the rhetoric of the post-Reconstruction South, in which the races were supposed to be separate but “equal” while Black people continued to experience unjust poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunities. For example, the rhetoric of the protagonist’s college’s founders kept Black people separate and inferior while giving them opportunity on the surface. The fact that the protagonist calls this “strange” indicates that he understands the vast disparities between rhetoric and reality.

“On the way to work one late spring morning I counted fifty greetings from people I didn’t know, becoming aware that there were two of me: the old self that slept a few hours a night and dreamed sometimes of my grandfather and Bledsoe and Brockway and Mary, the self that flew without wings and plunged from great heights; and the new public self that spoke for the Brotherhood and was becoming so much more important than the other that I seemed to run a foot race against myself.” 

The protagonist begins to conceive of himself as two different beings, further complicating his sense of identity. The foot race image implies competition and being divided. The protagonist identifies the “Brotherhood self” as being more important than the other, but this identity will eventually crumble along with his trust in the Brotherhood. 

“But I would never be the same. Never. After tonight I wouldn’t ever look the same, or feel the same. Just what I’d be, I didn’t know; I couldn’t go back to what I was—which wasn’t much—but I’d lost too much to be what I was. Some of me, too, had died with Tod Clifton.” 

This passage describes another moment of self-understanding for the protagonist. He realizes that Tod Clifton’s death has done away with his belief that White people will genuinely strive to help Black people. The brutal shooting and the Brotherhood’s response to the elaborate funeral the protagonist organizes begin the process of finally distancing himself from White “philanthropic” efforts. 

“I leaned against a stone wall along the park, thinking of Jack and Hambro and of the day’s events and shook with rage. It was all a swindle, an obscene swindle! They had set themselves up to describe the world. What did they know of us, except that we numbered so many, worked on certain jobs, offered so many votes, and provided so many marchers for some protest parade of theirs? I leaned there, aching to humiliate them, to refute them. And now all past humiliations became precious parts of my experience, and for the first time, leaning against that stone wall in the sweltering night, I began to accept my past and, as I accepted it, I felt memories welling up within me. It was as though I’d learned suddenly to look around corners; images of past humiliations flickered through my head and I saw that they were more than separate experiences. They were me; they defined me. I was my experiences and my experiences were me, and no blind men, no matter how powerful they became, even if they conquered the world, could take that, or change one single itch, taunt, laugh, cry, scar, ache, rage, or pain of it. They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their own voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves and I’d help them. I laughed. Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn’t see either color or men…For all they were concerned, we were so many names scribbled on false ballots, to be used at their convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a joke, an absurd joke. And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one single white figure. They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used. I had switched from the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same—except now I recognized my invisibility.” 

The passage describes a watershed moment for the protagonist. His old beliefs about White people (especially men), their concept of him, and his value to them are finally swept away as he realizes that they view the Black community as a nameless, faceless mass rather than individuals. This realization profoundly shifts his conception of race relations and leads to the events later in the book, in which he finally renounces connection with White people.

“I […] recognized the absurdity of the whole night and of the simple yet confoundingly complex arrangement of hope and desire, fear and hate, that had brought me here still running, and knowing now who I was and where I was and knowing too that I had no longer to run for or from the Jacks and the Emersons and the Bledsoes and Nortons, but only from their confusion, impatience, and refusal to recognize the beautiful absurdity of their American identity and mine.” 

The protagonist finally finds a measure of freedom by realizing that he need not seek the loyalty of any White men. He also recognizes the short-sightedness that leads White men to disregard Black citizenship and rights in America, when Black people are just as loyal to and valuable to their country as White people. 

“And I knew that it was better to live out one’s own absurdity than to die for that of others, whether for Ras’s or Jack’s.” 

As part of his burgeoning sense of identity, the protagonist comes to understand that even if he makes mistakes because of his own ideas about who he is, it is better than following someone else as he has for so long. Because the protagonist began the novel with a profound faith in other people and their vision of what he should be, this marks a transition for him. It also gives him the clarity to see the Brotherhood’s true motivations during the riots at the end of the book.

“And now I realized that I couldn’t return to Mary’s, or to any part of my old life. I could approach it only from the outside, and I had been as invisible to Mary as I had been to the Brotherhood. No, I couldn’t return to Mary’s, or to the campus, or to the Brotherhood, or home. I could only move ahead or stay here, underground. So I would stay here until I was chased out. Here, at least, I could try to think things out in peace, or, if not in peace, in quiet. I would take up residence underground. The end was in the beginning.” 

Having never had the opportunity to reflect without input from other people, the protagonist decides to remain in his isolated, “invisible” state. He realizes that the events in the novel have so profoundly changed him and his ideas about the world that he cannot return to where he was before. He realizes that in a fundamental way, the old ways of life he knew before are inadequate, and he must find something new.

“And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.” 

The emphasis on the word “invisible” here implies that the word has become part of the narrator’s nascent concept of himself. The invisibility is the result of other people’s conceptions of him, but he came to the realization of it independently, making it a source of power as he learns to navigate the world. Invisibility also implies a certain amount of freedom as other people cannot see or be upset by what he does—which means the only requirement for his decisions are what he feels compelled to do.