"I am an invisible man....When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me." (p1)

This is the second time I’ve read this book, and I’m still not sure why I enjoy it so much. But I can guess at at least one of the reasons. All great literature, at least as much as I’ve seen, analyzes the idea of relativity, individual paradigms, and fluid reality, in one way or another. Grendel , one of my other favorite books, does so by letting us peek through Grendel’s eyes as he in turn tries to peek through ours, humanity’s, giving us an indirect view of ourselves. Invisible Man does something very similar. When.... how ironic. As I was trying to remember the main character’s name and thinking it’s pretty bad when you can’t recall the name of the central figure in a book, I realized he is never even given a name. That in itself reflects part of the book’s mission. As I was saying, when the main character reflects on his own invisibility, he confronts us with the limitations of our own worldviews. When he says he is invisible, he obviously doesn’t mean that those around him can’t see him physically. Nor does he quite say that they are incapable of recognizing his personality. It’s more that they are so blinded by their own preconcieved notions that they don’t see a person, they see a walking, talking thing, a black thing, a thing so beyond their perception that to even think of it as an individual is beyond them. This isn’t just true of his oppressors, it applies to us, albeit in different ways. Like it or not, part of human nature, in fact one of the things that allows us to think as we do, is the categorization of our world into tidy groups. This may help us see patterns and analogies, but it prevents us sometimes from seeing reality in its raw, untidy form.

My hole is warm and full of light. Yes, full of light. I doubt if there is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine.... Perhaps you’ll think it strange that an invisible man should need light, desire light, love light.... I myself, after existing some twenty years, did not become alive until I discovered my invisibility." (p6)

One of the recurring themes in this book is vision, visibility vs invisibility, dark vs light, seeing vs blindness. Our culture already loads these concepts with meaning. “Illumination,” for example, can mean to make clear to the mind. One who is “bright” is intellegent. Meanwhile darkness is associated with ignorance, blindness with fear and lack of capability. When Ellison speaks of “illuminating the blackness of my invisibility, and vice versa,” he has multiple meanings; he intends to make clear the isolation of his condition; he intends to fill the blackness of his life with light, to give himself the needed form which other humans do not; he makes obvious racial connections to invisibility, implying he is invisible because he is black. One of the neat things about the prologue is that it encapsulates the entire book concisely and nicely, provided you can fathom its metaphorical layers. It can almost stand on its own as an essay. The rest of the book is a kind of drawn-out illustration of the points Ellison makes here, to convince those who doubt or don’t completely understand his meaning (and I’m certainly included in that group). One thing that it took me a while to figure out was how being invisible can be an advantage. I think it’s in the safety granted by unpredictability. If others see him as a mere thing, a stereotype, they cannot believe in his individuality, even when it’s demonstrated for them. An analogy would be your computer acting strange. You’d never think that it’s malfunctioning on purpose, you just turn it off and on a few times and hope it works. The main character (henceforth refered to as “Tim”), therefore, can act as an individual but still count on automatic and predictable responses from others.

"’To whom it may concern,’ I intoned. ‘Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.’" (p33)

I wanted to quote the entire chapter, but obviously that’s impossible, so I settled for what I thought was one of the more interesting lines. I think the whole scene with the battle royal is intended to portray some initial common stereotypes. There is the educated but prejudiced white leader, the superintendent, reveling in sinful pleasures. There are the common joes filling in the spaces between the big guys, neither caring what happens to Tim nor going out of their way to hurt him. There are fellow blacks, almost as alien to him as the whites he tries to emulate. We are shown the objectification of blacks, their treatment as playthings. It’s interesting how Tim sees very little in common between himself and the other fighters: they are all uneducated, many have different backgrounds and interests. Yet to the white men in the audience, they are all the same. Blackness is the only necessary quality to assure conformity within their stereotype. This is also the first scene in a very distinct character progression on Tim’s part. In this initial stage, he is simultaneously naive and uneducated. He believes that “white is right,” and stands by that even while events around him go against it. He doesn’t have any of the limited perspective he will later gain from college, not even a sense of self-preservation. His humility speech sums it up perfectly. He believes wholeheartedly that it is his role to be submissive, that poor treatment is expected and natural. He even pauses, ludicrously, to consider whether winning the fight will contradict his speech. Incredible! As if the spectators even care, as if such a consideration is important . The significance of this particular quote is that it foreshadows future events. Indeed, it almost serves as a characterization of the initial, blind, naive, “visibility”-deluded period of Tim’s growth. He is like a pawn, being flung around and manipulated, and it is only when he realizes this ultimately that he is able to truly experience freedom.

"’Union!’ I heard his white cup shatter against the flor as he uncrossed his legs, rising. ‘I knowed you belonged to that bunch of troublemaking foreigners! I knowed it! Git out!’" (p224)

One of the ways Ellison makes his commentary on various aspects of society is by introducing Tim to stereotypes of those aspects. For example, he packages seperatist anarchism in Ras, assimilationist Communism in The Brotherhood, and in this particular scene Tim enters the world of the proletariat, with unions, bosses, capitalists, etc. Brockway himself appears at the surface to be full of contradiction. He is a part of the working class, yet detests unions seemingly more than his employers. He is uneducated, yet has the position of a trained engineer. He is black, yet commands the respect of the president of the company. He seems to be simultaneously a victim of the system, trapped in a lower-working-class job, being paid no doubt poorly, outside of the protection of unions, and subject to the pro-white brainwashing of the time, and at the same time takes advantage of it. Simply by sticking where he was, he has risen to some amount of esteem and independence. His kingdom may be small, but he is master of it. Most of all I think Brockway embodies traditionalism, the modern black grandfather. He got where he was by staying in the same place, by respecting time-honored intuition instead of new-fangled science. He rejects unions precisely because they ride his sense of tradition, which doesn’t always serve him. From his point of view, the boss is the boss, and you don’t try to go against the boss no matter what. To do so is the greatest of crimes, regardless of whether it’s to your own advantage. I think that Ellison introduces Lucius to illustrate that even such traditionalist blacks can find their place in the industrial world, and also that brainwashing takes hold on a cultural level so deep that it surfaces in unusual ways. Lucius scares and angers Tim because he can see some of himself in him. If Tim was not so intellegent, had not been a little exceptional from a young age, he could easily have ended up in a similar position, rooting for the very communist forces that take advantage of him.

"You must see this slave, this black Aristotle, moving slowly, with sweet patience, with a patience not of mere man, but of God-inspired faith -- see him moving slowly as he surmounts each and every opposition. Rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar’s, yes; but steadfastly seeking for you that bright horizon which you now enjoy." (p120)

This whole speech is full of literary techniques and statements packed with hidden inuendo and meaning. And the Founder himself is a mysterious presence. He is reminiscent of a “Great White Father” in his drive to aid the blacks through bringing them “up” to the level of whites; betterment without integration. Earlier upon seeing the statue of the Founder, Tim wonders whether he is raising the veil of the slave or lowering it more securely. What superficially appears to be raising the status of blacks may in reality be a temporary band-aid that, when it falls off, will allow the wound to open even further. The school is simply a convenient way for brainwashing young blacks into a white-dominated world, while still giving them the illusion of a raised status or education. But it’s still only a mild form of discrimination. After all, whites are brainwashed at least as much in their education, although it’s easier to learn to put someone down than to allow yourself to be put down. Anyways, the Founder in this passage is described in many roles: Aristotle, slave, even Brutus. This indicates to the reader that he is a great thinker, humble, cautious, faithful, religious, and patient in a way that can only be divinely inspired. The reference to Caesar is especially interesting because it indicates that he was a revolutionary of some kind, like Brutus, willing to do what was necessary to upset the power structure despite person qualms. Later in the passage he is even compared to Moses, saying “LET MY PEOPLE GO! when it was necessary.” The Founder is even talked about as if he IS the school, the school lived through his experiences as much as he did.

"The broad man regarded him stubbornly. ‘Why don’t you let him say whether he can sing or not...? Come on, Brother, git hot! Go Down, Moses ,’ he bellowed in a ragged bariton, putting down his cigar and snapping his fingers. ‘Way down in Egypt’s land. Tell dat ole Pharaoh to let ma colored folks sing! I’m for the rights of the colored brother to sing!’ he shouted belligerently." (p312)

This is interesting because it illustrates the careful line one must walk to stay between discrimination/prejudice and simple recognition of differences. For example, to say that Tim was black wouldn’t be incorrect or prejudiced at all. I might be considered rude to think that fact was important enough to call attention to, but it’s still true. In this case, it was rude of the broad man to ask Tim to sing, making the assumption that because of stereotypes, he should be good at it. As he thought later, though, it’s strange that there is no way to politely ask him to sing. After all, it wouldn’t have been nearly so rude for him. One problem with the Brotherhood is that it isn’t truly desegregated/integrated. There are invisible boundaries created by the surrounding culture, stereotypes, classfications, etc, that are too ingrained to avoid. This includes a subconcious identification of blacks as “people who can sing.” So even though the brother wants to treat Tim as an equal, he still has trouble seeing him as something other than a black, i.e. as an individual. One of the running themes throughout the book is Tim’s innability to integrate himself into societies, to fit in. Even in the Brotherhood, where everyone is supposedly equal, he isn’t able to fit into everyone’s idea of how he should be. I personally think this is because he thinks too much. Instead of getting angry at the brother for calling him out, or simply complying with his request, he has to do the individual thing and think it out for himself. It is this tendency to excercise conciousness and free will, contrary to his invisibleness, that is constantly getting him into trouble in the visible world; just as he says, it’s like bumping into things to prove you’re real.

"’And you, mahn,’ the Exhorter said, ‘A reg’lar little black devil! A godahm sly mongoose! Where you think you from, going with the white folks? I know, godahn; don’t I know it! You from down South! You from Trinidad! You from Barbados! Jamaica, South Africa, and the white mahn’s foot in your ass all the way to the hip. What you trying to deny by betraying the black people? Why you fight against us? You young fellows. You young black men with plenty education; I been hearing your rabble rousing. Why you go over to the enslaver? What kind of education is that? What kind of black mahn is that who betray his own mama?’" (p371)

Ras is indeed an interesting character. He represents another of the many stereotypes present in the novel. In this case, he is the Farrakan-esque anti-white activist. He seems to believe that it would be better to simply shut out whites, enclose black culture in a compact protective shell, isolated, even to the extent of fighting to keep whites out of it. In some ways his ideas are reminiscent of pro-slavery whites, in the sense that he is against any kind of integration or cooperation between people of different colors. This particular passage makes use of lots of literary techniques. The first, most recognizable, is diction. Ras is immediately identified with his dialect, setting him apart from people like Tim, Jack, and Clifton, who speak relatively normal American english. His incorrect sentence structure and accent serve to simultaneously make him seem less educated, stupid even, and enhance the earnesty of his message. To those on the street, he probably sounds like “one of them,” a man who’s not afraid of his heritage and the way he talks. Another of Ras’s techniques is to speak to Clifton as if he represented all blacks. He’s obviously not from a bunch of places simultaneously; Ras is simply connecting Clifton with his black heritage, which stems from many locations. It’s also interesting that Ras sees anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with him as an enemy. The Brotherhood’s message is hardly pro-slavery, but because it doesn’t suit Ras’s black-only view, it is still flat-out WRONG.

"I slid hurriedly from the bed, keeping my eye on that part of the darkness from where the light had come as I tried to find my clothes. I blundered around, finding a chair, an empty chair. Where were my clothes? What a fool! Why had I gotten myself into such a situation? . . . Between us and everything we wanted to change in the world they placed a woman: socially, politically, economically." (p418)

I think this particular incident marks the beginning of Tim’s confusion. After this he is rapidly transferred back to Harlem, Clifton dissappears, in short, everything goes to pot. The reason is that he suddenly recognizes that the issues he deals with are not all cut-and-dried, black and white, easily recognized. The ideology does not exist for its own sake, as he had previously believed, but as a connection to real-life concerns. The woman seducing him is a reminder of his own humanity, how undesireable human emotions get mixed up into the clear world of the Brotherhood. The fact that the man who walks by is a Brother is also significant. We never do find out why he didn’t make any note of Tim’s presence. Was it because of his invisibility? Was it because, perhaps more ominously, the woman had been part of a planned plot to trap Tim in a sticky situation? If so, why is he never called on the carpet, why is it never used against him? One can interperet the situation metaphorically any number of ways. The woman is Tim’s humanity, the man is logic. The woman is driven by emotion, (physically or intellectually derived), and when the man walks in, he acts noncholant, failing to recognize the product of her emotional actions, or at least failing to note it. Therefore Tim’s humanity is driven by emotion, and the logical part of him fails to see this, moving forward blindly as if nothing had happened. Or perhaps the woman represents distraction, disorder, anything which pulls away from the direction of the movement, and the man is the Brotherhood, plowing steadfastly onwards nonetheless. Maybe Ellison hints at why the Brotherhood fails; it cannot see anything out of the ordinary, outside of it’s plan, and therefore cannot do anything against it.

"He had his eye in place now and he was smiling. ‘How’s that?’ he asked me . . . . ‘Maybe you’ll recommend me to your oculist,’ I said, ‘then I may not-see myself as others see-me-not.’" (p477)

When I read this, it was so off-the-wall that I knew there had to be some important symbology relating to the glass eye. First of all, why would it disturb Tim so much to see Jack eyeless? It’s ugly, certainly, inconguent and unexpected, yes, but not repulsive to the extent that Tim seemed to feel it. One obvious thing this scene demonstrates is Jack’s ability to act, to play on Tim, to make him act how he wants him to. Jack knew that squirting out his eye would disconcert Tim, would throw him off balance. He even talks as if he’s “just finished a part in a play,” carefully calculating every remark for the desired result. Except it’s not. Tim, while perhaps not seeing through Jack’s comments, certainly doesn’t respond to them as expected. As for the eye, what can it represent? Blindness, to the truth, to individuals? If Jack lost it in the line of duty, that would imply that losing touch with the truth is a natural result of fighting for the Brotherhood. And what did Tim’s remark about “not-seeing myself” mean? It can be taken two ways. First, he could mean simply that if he stayed with the Brotherhood, he would learn to not-see, that is, see things without really seeing them (as everyone sees him). Or if you take the “myself” to be the object, it might mean that he would lose touch of even his own individuality. Either way, he equates the glass eye with blindness to the truth. It’s interesting that Jack notes that someday society may provide him with a replacement eye, but Tim still is made to wonder what kind of society would make Jack see him. The metaphor of sight, blindness and seeing, continues. “Which eye is really the blind one?” Tim asks. After all, if both Jack’s eyes were glass, if he was physically blind, he would be able to see Tim all the better, his inner vision not clouded by interference from his outer.

"Still, could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? What is real anyway? But how could I doubt it? He was a broad man, a man of parts who got around. Rinehart the rounder. It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it. He was years ahead of me and I was a fool." (p498)

This marks Tim’s revelation that he is in reality invisible. Not so much invisible, though, as formless. Like an amorphous blob; he is not seen because it doesn’t fit into a catergory, and when anyone believes they see him, it is only a small facet of who he is, could be, or is not. The problem with the Brotherhood is that it views things in terms of what’s right or not, what is or isn’t. That’s not the way the world works. Reality is not clear and defined, it is constantly shifting. IDIC, infinitely diverse, depending upon through who’s eyes you look, when, and at what. Rinehart takes advantage of this. Tim was stuck trying to mold himself into just one image, and then when someone else looked at him and didn’t see him for who he was, it distressed him. Rine, on the other hand, recognizes all the possibilities, all of the ways people can see him, and instead of conforming to one, conforms to none and all at the same time. He takes advantage of his invisibility, reveling in it and flowing with it rather than fighting it. What’s even more ironic is the fact that Rine is so invisible, he is never even encountered in real life; Rine is more of an idea, a way people look at things, than a person. So much so that Tim can plunge into his realm simply by changing his outward appearance. He falls out of his organized world and into the flowing and undefined world of true reality. It’s funny, in Rinehart’s church it even says “behold the invisible” several times. Rinehart IS the invisible, just like Tim, like everyone else. “Behold the seen unseen,” refers to the same: those who are seen physically unseen mentally, because they are wrapped up in a classification, in a skin color or walk or hat or glasses, more than they are seen as a real person.

"I looked at Ras on his horse and at their handful of guns and 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 the Nortons, but only from their confusion, impatience, and refusal to recognize the beautiful absurdity of their American identity and mine." (p559)

Looks like I was wrong; THIS is the ultimate realization of his true invisibility. The simple strangeness of his situation, standing in front of a man in Zulu armor on a horse, surrounded by men who want to kill him simply because of what he stands for in his mind, has caused Tim to look back over his path, seeing his journey for the delicate balance that it is. He has spent his entire life running, being pushed from situation to situation, and yet never getting anywhere. And this is why his invisibility is an advantage. He finally sees that nobody sees him, so why run from them? Even Ras, up on his high horse, sees not him, but the path he takes. It’s funny, Ras thinks that white men are dominating his world unfairly, but they are as blind as he is for thinking that. Everyone blunders about in a world of mirrors or fog, seeing what they chose. As he says, “didn’t they tolerate both Rinehart and Bledsoe?” Bledsoe pushes against the world, throws his power around to gain more, is conspicuous and prominent in every way. Rinehart blends in, is recognized by many but known by no one, gains his power not by exerting it but by taking advantage of his undefined nature. And both are, as Tim realizes, tolerated. For they are all invisible to each other. He nails the idea exactly: the whole point of everyone’s actions is to define themselves. Men of power do so by exerting it (like Bledsoe, Emerson, Norton), men without it do so by seeking to gain it (as he did), destroy it (like Ras), or perhaps by accepting their lack of identity and using it to their advantage (like Rinehart).

"He registers with his senses but short-circuits his brain. Nothing has meaning. He takes it in but he doesn’t digest it. Already he is -- well, bless my soul! Behold! a walking zombie! Already he’s learned to repress not only his emotions, but his humanity. He’s invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man!" (p94)

This is perhaps the most succinct description of what it means to be invisible. It is to be invisible in the soul, to be as a thing, mindless. This is exactly what white people want, according to the vet. They want objects trained to respond as they expect, predictable and perfect. The vet is perfectly right, Tim is even blinder than Norton, sees even less, even though he was born and raised black from the beginning and should have that heritage in his blood. This passage also marks part of the development of Tim’s character. He, too starts out as blind as he is invisible, seeing other people as forces in his life to be dealt with but not as people. Later he develops into another form of blindeness, elevated, perhaps; he learns in the Brotherhood not to look at individual people, but at least to see groups of people for what they are. Finally he begins to recognize his own blindness, to question others, and last of all to live in complete invisibility. There is another irony in this situation: only an insane man is able to recognize everyone’s roles with intellegence and clarity. Perhaps this is true of society; it can only be viewed with true relativity by someone who is completely outside of it. And who is more outside of society than the insane, for they are by definition nonconformist. As for Mr. Norton, he is “confusion come even into the Golden Day.” He is incongruent, another man made invisible by his color, a thing to be feared, hidden behind money and power. What would you do if an invisible man turned up unexpected in your bedroom? Why, you’d attack it out of fear -- that’s why the inmates fear Mr. Norton; he is unexpected and out of place.

"’Pork chops, grits, one egg, hot biscuits and coffee!’ He leaned over the counter with a look that seemed to say, There, that ought to excite you, boy. Could everyone see that I was southern?" (p178)

This incident is very much like that of the Brother asking Tim to sing. The counterman naturally assumes that because Tim is southern and black, he’d like a good southern meal. Who is being more prejudiced here? The counterman, for his assumptions, or Tim, for assuming that the root of the assumtions is prejudice. Had the counterman made the same offer to a white man (as he apparently does), would TIm have thought twice about the motive? The offer may be driven by stereotype, but the funny thing is that it’s true. And even funnier is that Tim feels obligated to prove to the world that he’s not unsophisticated by contradicting the counterman. As if it was a sin to act black. This kind of thing is something he’ll have to get past if he ever wishes to recognize his own invisible. Now he’s worse than thinking other people see him for what he is; he goes so far as to trying to let the way they see him govern who he is instead of vice versa. To think that by changing the way one acts, one can change oneself! Ah, this is the realization he must come to: He tries to do this, modifying self through action. Rinehart, on the other hand, keeps himself the same and yet acts a wide variety of ways. The young Tim in this part of the book could not comprehend such a thing; to appear different is to be different, to him, since what is one but how others percieve you? A simple trick to avoid dealing with invisibility. And then the white man comes along and orders the special himself, leaving Tim feeling ashamed for his foolishness in trying to conform. Or rather, trying to not conform, to break out of expectations. That’s why he never manages to stay blind, because every time he thinks he’s found someplace where he can fit into the way other people see him, thus feigning visibility, he is jostled out, his reality is shaken up.

"’It’s a clean-up campaign,’ I called, wanting to laugh. ‘These old folks had all their stuff cluttering up the sidewalk and we cleared the street. . . ‘

"‘You mean you’re interfering with an eviction,’ he called, starting through the crowd." (p283)

This was probably one of the funniest, wierdest, most moving scenes in the whole book. First of all, the imagery was impressive. Speechmaking technique was demonstrated excellently Tim talks of belongings strewn like chitterlings, uses them to tell the tale of the old people’s life, to relate their life to the lives of everyone. And he also uses repitition, “law-abiding people.” Funny, in the end it simply serves to drive them to NOT be law-abiding. I suppose it’s reverse psychology in some sense. And it’s funnier that Tim manages to rationalize it all so it almost makes sense, clearing the street of junk. His speech is almost mesmerizing, the words falling in a pattern that has meaning even beyond the meaning of the individual words themselves. It has such rhythym that one is forced to admit that even what seems like meaningless rambling can have power and force to move. Tim almost acts possesed, like he’s gone crazy, he is so out of character. I wonder how it is he can pattern his speech so well, when he himself doesn’t even know where it’s going when he starts out. And then he finds himself confronting the policeman, the flow of oration ended, and thinks he’s gone crazy, as intoxicated with his speech as those around him. It’s interesting that the policeman can instantly recognize that he’s the one in charge, even though he wasn’t speaking when they walked up.