Imagery In Invisible Man

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Ellison uses description of decorations such as mirrors, portraits and signs to reflect and foreshadow Invisible Man’s struggle in defining himself, especially during the stages of rebirth and perception.

Before IM leaves the college, the description of portraits suggests that he is overwhelmed by the dominating power of the white people, who are the trustees and benefactors of the college, but at the same time IM wishes to be the same as them. All of the portraits appear blurred and veiled. As IM looks as photos of the Founder and other people in a gallery, he sees “photographs of men and women in wagons drawn by mule teams… a black mob that seemed to be waiting, looking with blank faces, and among them the inevitable collection of white men and

IM uses “mob” to describe the uneducated black people, and rather than merely “waiting”, those black people are more like paying tributes to the wagons of white people. Like those people, IM is also repressed by white people’s power invisibly, but instead of feeling sympathetic for those people of his own race, he “identifies myself with the rich man reminiscing on the rear seat,” admiring the white people. In both Mr. Norton and Bledsoe’s rooms there are portraits of the Founder and “men of power”. He has a sense that the Founder is “looking down at [him]”(103). This imagery is similar to the “Big Brother is watching you” scene from George Orwell’s 1984, which depicts a highly repressive society and lack of freedom. IM has to do what he is asked. IM does not realize that he is being controlled, and he even claims that those portraits are “like trophies or heraldic emblems”(137). IM does not realize that his freedom of both thinking and acting