Racial bias is a thing and a topic that unfortunately still exists and is certainly relevant till this present day, it’s very sad to see that regardless of all one could be or what one could achieve, color is still the first thing that is seen, a society that continuously strips one of their identity and refuses to see the individual for who they are other than the color of their skin.
In Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison introduces the character without a name which might be shocking but truly serves a purpose, the lack of a name for the character bears witness of his lack of identity, though it’s not of a physical sense rather of a social sense, this lack of identity relates to Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness whereby one feels their identity is divided into parts obstructing the sense of a unified identity. This social invisibility that Ellison portrays marginalizes one by color and is present in reality for African Americans which testifies to Fanon’s ideology of experiencing trauma daily yet our nameless character in Invisible Man is able to deal with it comfortably. The struggle to continuously alternate one’s character in order to fit in will only lead one to lose part of one’s true identity, the limitations of vision on how one’s viewed eventually caused the character to be unsure of how to behave around white people and always conscious of having to change to fit in only led him to begin to question his real identity. It was clear to observe that the complication of inner self wasn’t restricted to just racism but also to general ideologies. The character sees himself as an invisible man and reckoned with the belief that its beneficial to be invisible and concealed anyways, since he is unable to function accordingly to his true personality it is safer to embrace the invisibility in an attempt to flip the stereotype, a strategy in which he eventually found docile.
As he attempts to find his true place in the world he emerges from “hibernation” as a complex individual who is willing to offer his own contributions to the society whilst hoping that utilizing his knowledge will encourage others to affirm and acknowledge the reality of the external beliefs and behaviors. Ellison related the still relevant topic and social problem that is present in the society, he illustrates and points out how racial discrimination is deeply engraved in Americans.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
