Invisible Man

When Mrs. Hall pops her head round Griffin's door, she gets the fright of her life. In the strange guest's room there are blankets, pillows, and items of furniture frantically swirling around in...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man explores many critical themes, including the role of racism in the South in the 1920's and 1930's, the nature of folklore and the importance of remembering history,...

In literature of this caliber, the interpretation of key elements is generally and purposefully multidimensional. The idea that Booker T. Washington served as inspiraton for The Founder, is...

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Dr. Bledsoe expels the unnamed narrator because he has shown a white supporter of the college a negative aspect of the town. Indeed, the narrator drives Mr. Norton...

The Southern college that the narrator attends is modeled on Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which was founded by Booker T. Washington. This detail is important because, like Washington, Bledsoe...

A blindfold, in isolation, is imbued with many different symbolic connotations, but in the context of the "battle royal" in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the blindfold takes on even more...

“Son, after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my...

The narrator of Invisible Man himself perfectly exemplifies "outward conformity and inward questioning." The narrator starts his transformation and journey in America's heartland. In his youth, he...

Mr. Emerson claims that he is on the narrator's side, and he shows him Dr. Bledsoe's letters. He doesn't want the narrator to be fooled into thinking Dr. Bledsoe is his friend. In fact, Dr. Bledsoe...

The narrator describes "the sleeping ones" thoroughly in the Prologue. His "invisibility" occurs due to "a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact." However, it is not...

The number can be significant in a few ways: first, it contains the first 3 multiples of 3: 3, 6, and 9. Three is a significant number in Invisible Man: the narrator is the third generation since...

The narrator finds the scene with the blond man in "The Prologue" of Invisible Man ironic because the man has been "mugged" by someone who is "invisible." In "The Prologue," Ellison's narrator...

The importance of this question is related to an incredibly significant motif in this story, which is that of blindness. The narrator again and again comments on the way in which so many characters...

He says that he's invisible because people refuse to see him and that it's due to the construction of their "inner eyes" rather than their physical eyes. The type of invisibility the Narrator has...

The jazz music that the anonymous narrator spends all of his time listening to is deliberately included because it is another way that the author shows the protagonist is struggling to identify who...

There are a number of different ways of looking at the final sentence. In keeping with the title, the unnamed narrator is invisible throughout to those who patronize, insult, and oppress him. Like...

The Battle Royal section of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man does in fact serve as a rite of passage and an initiation into an unequal American society for the young, unnamed protagonist. The Battle...

H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man is a story about a scientist who learns how to make himself invisible. While this sounds like a very interesting idea, it causes a lot of unexpected problems for the...

The opening chapter of Invisible Man (also known as "Battle Royale") presents an episode that is painful and brutal and that directly confronts ideas of exploitation (by whites) and complicity (by...

"Tod" means "death" in German. It is a symbolically appropriate name for Tod Clifton because, after serving as a member of the Brotherhood, Tod has suddenly disappeared. Brother Jack says, "He has...

Invisible Man is a story about a young, black, educated, southern man who arrives in New York City and begins to see reality and his place in it differently. He struggles to make his idealism real,...

The Invisible Man decides to live underground because he feels betrayed by the Brotherhood and does not think he will be safe anywhere above ground. Chapter 25 finds The Invisible Man in a...

The narrator needs light because he lives a subterranean existence in a basement, but he certainly doesn't need the huge amount of lightbulbs that line every available inch of his cramped dwelling....

There is absolutely symbolism in this, and in fact the title of this excellent work is linked to the way that the narrator remains anonymous throughout the entire text. One of the key themes of the...

As a Southern black man in New York, the narrator is aware of the stereotypes that impact others' perceptions of him. He knows that the assumptions these people may make about him are based on his...

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the author explores stereotypes and prejudices in America from the early to mid-twentieth century. This novel of self-discovery presents an unnamed black man...

The unnamed narrator, the "Invisible Man" of the story has been invited to give his high school graduation address to the local townsfolk. Unfortunately, it turns out instead that he is simply a...

Strange as it may seem given the nature of subsequent events, Mrs. Hall is initially quite happy to see Griffin arrive at the Coach and Horses inn. It is early February in the very depth of a cold,...

The students and professors at the black college dislike Trueblood because he is a threat to them. Since its founding, the college has supposedly been an opportunity for black people to break out...

The Stranger—a.k.a Griffin or The Invisible Man—presents a suitably odd figure when he arrives at the inn. The regular patrons of the Coach and Horses have never seen anyone or anything quite like...

This remark made by the institutionalized veteran who was formerly a doctor comes after the narrator has driven Mr. Norton too far into the community of the African-American sharecroppers and they...

Ralph Ellison’s classic tale of self-discovery explores and distinguishes stereotypes and prejudices in the North and the South over a fifteen-year period from the mid-1930s. The author portrays...

The message in the narrator's hibernation is that like a sleeping bear, one day the black man will awaken. When he does, he will be a force to be reckoned with. Sleep can only last for so long....

Trueblood's horrific story of impregnating his daughter confirms Mr. Norton's and other white people's assumptions about black men. Singing spirituals and working his small piece of land has kept...

In Chapter 13, after having gone out in the bitter cold and enjoyed yams as he had when a child, the narrator walks with his head down and eyes closed in order to avoid the gray smoke--a figurative...

It is not a coincidence that Ralph Ellison makes Mary, the most sympathetic woman in the novel, an older black woman. She is also one of few people in the novel with whom the narrator does not have...

After slavery was made illegal, generations of African Americans had to make decisions about how to respond to continued inequalities. Even though slavery was officially abolished with the...

The figure of Rinehart appears in Invisible Man as both cipher and symbol. While he never actually appears in the novel in person, he becomes an important point of consideration and comparison for...

You're right. There IS more than that. However, the secret to Tod Clifton's character runs deeper than the reason for his death. Tod Clifton is the martyr of The Invisible Man, a semi-Christ...

One of the things H. G. Wells accomplishes through the narrator's speeches and the irony in them is to reveal information about characters and situations without directly stating it. This is a very...

Than yam vendor knows the Inivisible Man is from the South, as the yam is a symbol of Southern soul food. The narrator is in New York (Harlem, cold and bitter. After he bites into the ham, he has...

The narrator finds a Gideon Bible in his room at the Men's House in Harlem. The Gideons are a religious group famous the world over for leaving Bibles in hotel rooms. The discovery of the Bible in...

Invisible Man is a novel by Ralph Ellison. The unnamed protagonist is an African American male who experiences a variety of setbacks in life. Similar to the author, the protagonist of Invisible Man...

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the story of a man wrestling with his identity as an African American man living in a highly prejudiced society. When he is accepted to an all-black college, his...

The first lines of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man are very comparable to the first lines of Dostoevksy's novella Notes from Underground. In Dostoevsky's novel, they go like this: I am a sick...

Invisible Man is a novel by African-American author Ralph Ellison, first published by Random House in 1952. It responds to Ellison's own disillusionment with the communist party. In the late 1930s...

Clues: The man awakes from the electroshock therapy the same way a baby is born: Does not know where he is, does not recall nor know his name, hears the sounds of a moaning woman in pain echoing in...

The narrator's perception of himself before his descent underground was that of a studious, dutiful son—someone who behaved according to others' expectations: All my life I had been looking for...

Fortunately, there are many examples from which you can choose in Ralph Ellison's massive novel. Here, I'll only provide you with a couple to give you a sense of how to think about how these themes...

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man explores the subject of prejudices and stereotypes as they existed in the United States beginning in the 1930s and continuing for more than a decade thereafter. The...