This week’s post about the novel is about the Post modernist American novel by Ralph Ellison Invisible Man – A novel that examines several questions of the African-American identity and individuality from a perspective that was radically different from novels written until then, this novel has been regarded as the American picaresque novel which does not get cast in stereotypes. The Invisible man is invisible to himself, to others and the readers. He lives unconscious of the false glory that has been thrust upon him. The Invisible Man is nameless. He dreams of fashioning his destiny in the North where the people are freer. In the South the Black is glamorized in a negative sort of way as the White man’s destiny (Mr. Norton’s statement) Mr. Bledsoe rises to the highest position in the college by yessing his bosses. He tells them those words which they would like to hear. The Invisible man is an outsider everywhere. He is acknowledged as a great orator, an excellent organizer. He is simply used and when he becomes dispensable he is thrown out.
The only place where he is treated kindly is at Mary’s in Harlem where he is put up on his arrival in New York. The rest is all artificial. All the others seek to exploit him. For the Brothers, he is their propaganda machine. He is the face to mask their racist agenda. Ras the exhorter, the fanatical Black Nationalist, is right in that sense. He believes that the brotherhood is controlled by Whites. However the narrator or the Invisible man is not ready to accept it.
Ellison talks about the invisibility factor. The Invisible man is a mere presence. He is not even a blood and bone personality. His presence may be acknowledged physically but he cannot pierce the psychological barrier where society evaluates itself; there, he is a notion, an abstraction, a tool or an object. He witnesses the murder of his fellow brother Toby Chiffon. At the funeral the Invisible man tries to stir the crowd. But diffidence sets in. He dons another appearance masking himself behind a pair of large green glasses. The Invisible man is not about characters or persons. It is a political novel and does not try to downplay the racial contents. Ellison analyses the psyche of the Black, a psyche that has been battered and bruised by years of physical and intellectual oppression. Ellison’s novel foregrounds the important political questions as to what is the Black man’s domain. What has he /she been made out to be; the White man’s burden, strong, hard working but gullible, moral less and soulless or foolish and ignorant. When will the Black man or woman be his/her own? When will award or punishment, love or hate or culture be spoken of in their terms? Are equality and liberty mere ideals or real choices that the Black is capable of exercising and enjoying? (To be continued)