RALPH ELLISON AND INVISIBLE MAN
ELLISON BACKGROUND
The grandson of slaves, Ralph Ellison was born
in 1914 in Oklahoma.
 His father was a construction worker and his
mother was a domestic servant.
 At an early age Ellison developed an interest in
music, particularly jazz

BACKGROUND

He planned a career as a jazz musician and left
Oklahoma in 1933 to study music at the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. (The institute
was founded by Booker T. Washington and
served as the model for the black college
attended by the narrator in Invisible Man.)
BACKGROUND
Ellison moved to New York in 1936 and settled in
Harlem as an employee of the Federal Writer’s
Project.
 Ellison eventually left for the Merchant Marines, in
which he served during World War II.
 After the war, Ellison won a Rosenwald Fellowship,
which he used to write Invisible Man. The novel
was published in its entirety in 1952.

BACKGROUND-LAST SLIDE

Steeped in the black experience in America and
the human struggle for individuality, Invisible
Man – due to its overwhelming success – was
the only novel that Ellison published during his
lifetime.

Ellison died in 1994
INVISIBLE MAN - PROLOGUE

The Prologue introduces major themes that
define the rest of the novel.

The Metaphors of invisibility and blindness
allow for an examination of the effects of
racism on the victim and the perpetrator.
PROLOGUE

Because the narrator is black, whites refuse to
see him as an actual, three-dimensional
person.

Hence he portrays himself as invisible and
describes them as blind.
PROLOGUE

In a larger literary and philosophical context is
the influence of existentialism, a philosophy
that originated in France in the mid-twentieth
century, which sought to define the meaning of
individual existence in a seemingly
meaningless universe.
PROLOGUE

This novel proposes to undertake a similar
examination of the meaning of individual
existence, but through the lens of race
relations in postwar America.
PROLOGUE

The narrator’s central struggle involves the
conflict between how others perceive him and
how he perceives himself.

Racist attitudes cause others to view him in
terms of racial stereotypes-as a mugger,
bumpkin or savage.
PROLOGUE

The narrator desires his recognition of his
individuality rather than recognition based on
these stereotypes.

The “blindness” of others stems from an
inability to see the narrator without imposing
these alien identities on him.
PROLOGUE
The episode with the blond man and its
treatment in the newspaper serve to illustrate
the extent of the narrator’s metaphorical
slavery.
 The man’s insult dehumanizes the narrator,
who attacks the man in order to force him to
recognize the narrator’s individuality.

PROLOGUE

Invisibility is also used to his advantage as the
narrator speaks to us without a name,
shrouding himself in another form in order to
gain freedom to speak freely.
CHAPTER 1

Begins with the narrator’s grandfather
counseling the narrator’s father to undermine
the whites with “yeses and grins” and advises
his family to “agree ‘em to death and
destruction.”
 This
shows the grandfather lived a meek and quiet
life after becoming a freed slave
CHAPTER 1
 The
grandfather deems himself a traitor for his
policy of meekness in the face of the South’s
enduring racist structure.
 For
the interest of the family’s self-protection he
advises two identities:
CHAPTER 1
 1)
on the outside they should be stereotypical “good”
slaves and behave as their former masters wish
 2)
on the inside they should retain their bitterness and
hatred.

By following this model, the family can refuse
internally to accept second-class status and protect
their own self-respect.
CHAPTER 1

They are wearing masks and can manipulate
the white people with manners and can
manipulate how other perceive them and how
they perceive themselves.
CHAPTER 1

The narrator lives meekly and receives praise
from the white members of his town.
 His
speech urges humility and submission as the
key to advancement for black Americans and
proves to be such a success he is invited to present
it to the leading white officials of his town.
CHAPTER 1
 Here
the narrator shows his “blindness or mask”
because he believes that genuine obedience will
win him respect and praise.
 He is right to an extent as the white men reward
him with a briefcase and a scholarship.
 They also take advantage of his passiveness as he
is forced to join in the battle royal.
CHAPTER 1
 The
literal blindfolding of the boys is a metaphor:
 1)
the men see the boys as animals or inferior beings
 2) the boys lack the ability to see through the false
masks of goodwill that barely conceal the men’s racist
motives.
CHAPTER 1

The men force the boys to conform to the racial
stereotype of the black man as a violent,
savage, oversexed beast.

The narrator has not yet learned to see behind
the masks or veils put up by white society.
CHAPTER 1

When it comes time for the narrator to give his
speech, the white men laugh and ignore him
until he makes a slip and says the words
“social equality”.
 The
men act with some benevolence toward the
narrator when he embodies the model black citizen
CHAPTER 1
 They
show their true faces when he threatens white
supremacy.
 The
narrator’s blind obedience to a good slave role
doesn’t free him from racism and the moment he
exhibits and individual opinion, the men demand that he
assume the role of the “good slave”.
CHAPTER 1
 By
rewarding him with the briefcase and
scholarship only when he does so, the men restrict
his social advancement to their terms.
The term “badge of office” is ironic because the
only “office” the narrator has assumed is that
of the “good slave” which the men have forced
upon him