Invisible Man (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: Ralph Ellison
- First Published: 1952
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: Late 1930’s and early 1940’s
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, Values, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., Self-discovery, United States or Americans, Communism or communists, Politics, Racism, South or Southerners, New York City, Social issues, Education or educators, 1940’s, Alienation, 1930’s, Emotions, College life, Amputation, amputees, or prosthetics, Riots, Truthfulness and falsehood
- Locales: Harlem, NY, South (U.S.)
Places Discussed
*Harlem. African American neighborhood of New York City’s Upper Manhattan in which much of the action takes place. The unnamed narrator lives there after the explosion of the paint factory. A surrealistic vision of the real city, the Harlem setting allows him to mix with a wide variety of people, from wealthy white women, who believe him to be a powerful, savage lover, to poor black prostitutes, who mistake him for a pimp named Rinehart. In Harlem readers see that the “invisible man” is not only invisible to whites but to fellow African Americans, as...
[The entire page is 1339 words long]
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