Stereotypes In Invisible Man

“I live rent-free in a building rented to whites, in a section of the basement that was shut off and forgotten during the nineteenth century. Invisible Man is a novel written by Ralph Ellison where the narrator is an African American man who is trying to discover his identity in a society that forces him into invisibility based on the color of his skin. Ellison sought to speak out on the broad issues of race in America and rejecting social protest. In this story we follow the narrator through racism and the oppression he encounters through college, moving to New York, and his fight to help his people reach social equality. Throughout Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison’s purpose is to convey that as a person of color in America, you are invisible

The narrator begins his story by recounting an incident he had with a man on the street who he gets into a fight with. “... when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually.” The narrator, at first angered by the white man’s words and attitude towards him, realizes that the man hadn’t started a fight with him based on him, as a person, but for the color of his skin, another nameless, faceless black man. For this reason, the narrator describes whites as blind and the reason for his own invisibility.The narrator struggles between how he perceives himself and the perception forced on him by others.The man racially insulting the narrator dehumanizes him, and in his anger, the narrator attacks him, forcing him to see him for his individuality. When the incident is then made into a story in the newspaper, it’s labeled as a mugging, making the narrator invisible again as his intent to fight against racism instead further support racial stereotypes, defining the narrator again by racial prejudices. Later in the book, when the narrator is invited to a cocktail party for the Brotherhood by Brother Jack, he overhears Brother Jack’s mistress, Emma say “not quite softly enough, “But don’t you think he should be a little

While the narrator was attempting to hide from Ras’s followers, he tries to disguise himself with a hat and a pair of sunglasses. But he keeps being mistaken for a man named Rinehart who a woman thinks is her bookie, a prostitute thinks he is her pimp, and a group of people think he is their spiritual leader. “They see the hat, not me. There is a magic in it. It hides me right in front of their eyes…” Rinehart serves as a symbol for the narrator on how easily identity can change was the narrator struggles with his own identity. Rinehart is prevalent all of the lives of the people the narrator runs into who mistake him for Rinehart. This realization that Rinehart has multiple identities helps the narrator to realize his own invisibility and how he has always taken on whatever position in life others have forced upon him. Once realizing his own invisibility, he vows to use his invisibility to his advantage but remain visible to himself. Finally, when the narrator falls into the manhole after running away from the men posing as police officers, he decides to stay underground saying, “I am an invisible man and it placed me in a hole - or showed me the hole I was in, if you will - and I reluctantly accepted the fact.” The narrator has fully accepted his invisibility and has vowed to use