In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the narrator goes through many obstacles throughout the novel.  The narrator realizes that Tod Clifton, an intelligent black youth leader has disappeared. He later finds Clifton, in Harlem selling Sambo dolls right before he was shot in front of the narrators eyes. The narrator gives a speech during Clifton’s funeral, but doesn’t have much to say. “His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton, and, like any man he was bore of woman to live awhile and fall and die… His name was Clifton and for a while he lived among us…” (Ellison 455) from the shock that Clifton is dead, the narrator keeps repeating himself throughout his speech. The brotherhood becomes furious because the narrator is speaking during a funeral that he has no permission to speak at. This incident later leads Ras the Exhorter, a black nationalist leader, to also become furious with him and complains about the brotherhood and their failure on Clifton’s funeral. Ras later sends men to find and beat up the narrator for the failure on Clifton’s funeral. The narrator realizes the intentions that Ras has towards those of the brotherhood and himself which forces the narrator to disguise himself. Throughout the novel the narrator is called different names as though he doesn’t have his own identity. In the beginning of chapter twenty three, a new identity is given to the narrator, Rinehart. The narrator doesn’t know who this Rinehart person is but soon learns from those around him that he is a very known person throughout the neighborhood. At first the narrator was waiting for a cab and felt as there were some people watching him. the narrator waits for a cab but the cab never arrives. The narrator then sees three men with suits and wearing dark glasses. The narrator then goes into a store and buys the darkest glasses to blend into those around him. As the narrator continues to walk through Harlem, some people approach him and call him Rinehart. As the Narrator says: “Who was this Rinehart and what was he putting down? I’d have to learn more about him to avoid further misidentifications…”. (Ellison 484) At first the narrator was confused as to why they would call him Rinehart but later enjoys it and plays along. Even with the narrator finding his own identity, he was interested into Rinehart and who he was. Although the Narrator is trying to blend into those that are around him, now that he is wearing the dark glasses it’s impossible for him to become the “Invisible Man” knowing he looks exactly like Rinehart.

As we continue reading through the Invisible Man, we still don’t know the narrators name. We start off in Mr. Emerson’s office. The narrator has high hopes but as he is in Emerson’s office another man is attending the narrator. The narrator is shock that he is being asked if he can consider attending another college. At this point the narrator is angry and just wants to speak to Emerson. Once the narrator has knowledge that the man in the office is Emerson’s son, the narrator now understands that he isn’t wanted in the college. To Bledsoe, the narrator will never been enrolled at the college again. At this point Emerson’s son believes he is a horrible position because he now has to decline the narrator for wanting to work. With having a “recommendation” that clearly states the narrator will never be enrolled at college again, clearly shows the interviewer that the interviewee is not capable of doing anything for the company. Even with having such a tragic event happening to the narrator, he moves on but later does through an even more tragic event. At one point the narrator wakes up in the hospital not really knowing what is going on around him. The narrator is unable to provide his name and is constantly in and out of consciousness. The doctors are unsure of what is the best treatment for him. The doctors are in between giving him surgery while another doctor wants to use his machine which performs lobotomies without surgery. Considering that the invisible man is a black man that is completely unaware of what is going on around him, the doctors want to use this opportunity to perform anything on a patient not considering what the patient wants done. I wondered while reading this if the doctors were thinking of performing the treatment without the surgery because he is a black man and the doctors just wanted to perform a treatment under very little or no supervision. The narrator still having no memory of who he is yet the doctors usher him out without having him ask any questions of what is going to happen or what is going on with him. At this point the narrator is put into the world with no memory, and is feeling completely disconnected from his mind and his body. 

In the prologue of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, we can see that the narrator believes that he is invisible to everyone around him. When the narrator realizes that he is invisible, he decides to give up everything and hides underground with 1,369 lights that are wired all over his ceiling and is adding more little by little. As the narrator walks through the streets, he encounters a white man that is completely oblivious to the narrator and starts to cursing at him, before the narrator was going to really hurt the white man, he realizes that the white man didn’t see him. Once the narrator sees the helpless white man’s picture on the Daily News he laughs because the white man was “mugged” by an invisible man. “Without light I am not only invisible, but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s form is to live a death.” (pg. 7) The narrator keeps adding lights to his home to feel visible because while being above ground walking around, he knows that he is invisible and just a shadow walking through the streets.
In Chapter 1 we get a glimpse of the narrators high school graduation and the outcome of his speech for his graduation ceremony. Since the narrators speech moved many people, some people decided to have the narrator give another speech to the community’s leading white citizens. At the end of his speech, the white men award him a briefcase and pretty much demands the narrator to cherish the briefcase because later it will help him determine the fate of his people. The white people also give him a scholarship to the state college for black youth. Although the narrator does receive these gifts, this is just the beginning to why the narrator ends up underground.

There are many people don’t realize the most precious creation that has been given to them. Nature. Nature is wonderful and most importantly beautiful in many ways. In R.W. Emerson’s Nature he discusses how people live their lives away from nature. While being away from nature we absorb everything that society says is correct and completely miss the best thing that is just outside of the door and we lose sight to what created most of the things that we use today. Where does the paper that has many stories on come from? From the trees, Nature. As humans we make assumptions on how nature affects us, but since we don’t open our eyes fully, we can see the true beauty of nature. If we open our eyes to what nature has to offer us, we can see that as Du Bois expresses, “Nature never wears a mean appearance.” If one truly opens their eyes without thinking about what society says about nature, we can fully capture what beautiful creation that is right in front of us.
In Du bois’ The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois discusses the way black and white men are seen. As a little boy, Dubois doesn’t see color but as Du bois becomes older, he notices the way that black men are treated compared to white men. Now that Du Bois understands the differences between the two colors of men, Du Bois questions God, “Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?”. At this point Du Bois doesn’t even feel as home where home is. Du Bois now sees everything around him with new eyes, the eyes of the people and not the eyes of purity.

Both R.W. Emerson’s Nature and W.E.B Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk have no relation but we can clearly see that both texts are discussing the same topic, Creation. Emeron and Du Bois both discuss the views that we as humans have on creation. Although there are many reasons why we view creation a certain way, one of the many reasons why we see creation a certain way is because of the corruption of society. When looking back to both of these text, if we don’t listen to the way everyone else around us think, our view on the true creation will always be pure. Emerson expresses “We must trust perfection of the creation so far…”, although both texts are different they are similar in which creation is made to perfection and we must trust in creation for society does not create who we are or what nature is.