If one were to describe the first chapter of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man in three words as, “Blood! Racism! Invisibility!,” the potential reader would be left horrified or extremely intrigued. The novel’s opening chapter describes an intense “battle royal” the protagonist participates in which leaves the reader both exhilarated and indignant. Invisible Man‘s significant first chapter employs color and light symbolism during the “battle royal” to argue that the black race is invisible to the white race which causes a vulnerability in the former.
Cigars are an important symbol of light in Chapter One when the protagonist participates in the “battle royal.” Ellison writes, “All of the town’s bigshots were there… smoking black cigars… each of us ..was issued… boxing gloves and ushered out into the big mirrored hall… the room… was foggy with cigar smoke… the men kept yelling, ‘slug him black boy!’” (Ellison 18). The color choice of the cigars symbolize how the white professionals at the hotel are using the black boys like they frivolously use and light their black cigars. Ellison also employs the black cigars to reveal how the white men do not clearly see the black boys both mentally and physically. The boys’ humanity is invisible as the white men only see them as primitive fighting machines – a source of entertainment. Comparatively, the men’s smoke fogs the room into a haze so they literally cannot see the boys.
The white men and race’s warped perception of the boys is akin to a concept described in “The Fact of Blackness,” the fifth chapter of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Fanon writes, “The white world, the only honorable one, barred me from all participation. A man was expected to behave like a man. I was expected to behave like a black man – or at least like a nigger” (Frantz 260). The smoke in the hotel obscures the white men from seeing the boys’ true nature. They treat the boys as they expect black people to act: violent and animalistic, as Fanon says. Unlike Fanon, Ellison iterates this point through imagery and symbolism, rather than explicitly.
The white men’s blindness and violence towards the boys causes the boys themselves to become blind and therefore vulnerable. The novel’s protagonist recalls during the match:
All ten of us… [were] blindfolded with broad bands of white cloth… Quite a struggle was going on. Chairs were being kicked about and… voices grunt[ed] as with a terrific effort. I wanted to see… more desperately than ever before… when I raised my gloved hands to push the layers of white aside a voice yelled, “Oh no you don’t black bastard! Leave that alone” (Ellison 21-22)!
Though he is fighting his own race, it is the white professionals at the hotel that inflict (and eventually force as seen in the last line of the above quoted passage) violence and vulnerability. The white cloth, like the white race’s inhumanity, tightens around the protagonist and leaves him unprotected and unsure what is going on. Ellison claims that to be black is to be at the mercy of the white race and completely unguarded.
Ellison beautifully employs color and light symbolism in Invisible Man through the “battle royal” to argue the ways in which the white race makes the black race invisible and vulnerable. What’s admirable about this horrific opening chapter is its unexpected nature. Ellison’s protagonist only participates in the “battle royal” on a whim before giving his speech and has no idea the extent of violence and racist slurs he will have to endure in it. The black race, though blindfolded by white cloths, must somehow also always keep an eye open to the racism and inhumanity waiting behind the grey-colored wall.
