Race Conflict in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man
1
Race is experienced in Invisible Man in a variety of ways. In the beginning of the book, the narrator describes himself as “invisible”—as being flesh and bone and yet going unseen by people. He goes unseen because he is a black man and people choose not to see the black man: they do not want to get involved in that world. Instead, they expect the black man to tread softly and to not make much noise—and so that is what the narrator does, though he has suffered from the occasional outburst of violence.
The narrator’s journey of identity is shaped from beginning to end as a result of race. Prior to going to the university, the narrator is forced to fight in a battle royal for the amusement of the white elites in the South. This is his first big step in his life’s journey towards isolation and invisibility; it is a step in which race and violence are linked in his experience: blacks fighting is a cheap amusement for whites and there is no getting around it—partaking of the rules of the system is the only way for a black to get anywhere. So the narrator does as he is told and goes to college—but even there he gets into trouble because another white elite wants to see what black culture is really like: the narrator shows him, and that causes a problem for Dr. Bledsoe who is disappointed by the violence that ensues. Bledsoe states, “Your poor judgment has caused this school incalculable damage. Instead of uplifting the race, you’ve torn it down…I gave you an opportunity to serve one of our best white friends, a man who could make your fortune. But in return you dragged the entire race into the slime!”—all this because the narrator simply did as the “white friend” asked him to do: show him the underside of the black world. As a result, the narrator is chained with a shackle, which Dr. Bledsoe calls a “symbol of our progress”—a remnant of slavery (Ellison 140-141). When the narrator stands up for himself and threatens to tell the white friend of Bledsoe’s treachery, Bledsoe calms down and acts friendly and tricks the narrator into accepting letters of recommendation that are anything but. The narrator learns from this that white people simply cannot be trusted. But of course as the book goes on he also learns that the whole human race is afflicted—not just whites. However, in a system ruled by whites the Negro is expected to stay in his place. And that is why the narrator simply disappears at the end of the novel: he has learned that the only thing to is accept the fact that he should just embrace being invisible.
2
What it means to be invisible is this: it is to go unseen—to blend in with the night, not because of one’s skin color, but because in the world of the whites that which is not white is cast out into the darkness where there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth. To be invisible is to be part of that darkness. This is the way the narrator feels in the beginning of the novel when he recounts bumping into a tall blond boy who snarls at him for not getting out of the way. The narrator jumps the blond boy and nearly slits his throat with his knife out of anger—but then he realizes it is not the boy’s fault: he simply did not see him because he was invisible. He was angry at this invisible thing beating him and not having any idea what it was: that is how the narrator rationalizes the blond boy’s anger. Thus, to be invisible is to be misunderstood—or rather to not be understood at all.
Each phase of the narrator’s story exhibits invisibility in different ways. In the first phase, when the narrator takes Norton to see the black world it is a mistake even though Norton asks to be taken. The invisible world and the white world are not supposed to mix. The narrator does not understand the meaning of his own invisibility at that point. In his innocence, he thinks it is okay. Bledsoe proves to him that it is not acceptable at all.
In the next phase, when the narrator is in the big city, invisibility is exhibited in a different way: here, the invisible world is enmeshed in the white world, yet those who are invisible are meant to keep quiet and not intrude upon the serenity of the white world even though they occupy the same space. They should be like ghosts. This is evident in the Brotherhood, which appears to chastise the narrator every time he gives an impassioned speech to the blacks to stand up and face their oppressors—whether it is at the moment the elderly black couple is thrown out of their home by the police or whether it is at the funeral of Clifton, who was shot by the police. The Brotherhood is, as Ras states, controlled opposition meant to keep the blacks invisible and quiet. Finally, the narrator adopts a disguise, which doubles his invisibility, as he attempts to undermine the Brotherhood—but he ends up in a fight with Ras and sealed in a coal mine by a pair of whites. For not being invisible enough, his punishment is entombment. His experience intersects with his grandfather’s words, “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 gun back in the Reconstruction”—in the sense that by being invisible he is like his grandfather who gave up his gun during the Reconstruction Era. By giving up arms, he gave up his defense and right to be treated as a real person. To be a real person in America, one has to fight for it—that is the lesson of the novel—otherwise, one is a traitor to one’s race—an invisible man.
Works Cited
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. NY: Vintage, 1992.