The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

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How do we reconcile personal freedom with the need to abide by the interests of society? Should we celebrate individuality or the sacrifice thereof? Or rather, should the individual be subjected to the masses, or should the masses be subjected to the individual? (Allen 144). A myriad of writers have attempted to answer these questions to different ends. In A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Burgess and Kesey reach similar conclusions by employing insane characters to discuss the negative influences society has on the individual; in both stories, characters must endure the mind-altering treatments of morally ambiguous scientists in order to better “fit” into society. The authors both romanticize misfits who remain untarnished by their corrupt peers. Ralph Ellison echoes these sentiments in his The Invisible Man, in which he advocates for individual freedom and personal responsibility instead of the submission to authority. His perspective is best illustrated through an analysis of existentialist philosophy as it relates absurdism in his novel. The narrator in the Invisible Man grapples with finding his place in society until he learns to accept the intrinsic absurdities of life and learns to embrace the freedom that accompanies that realization.

Ellison reasons that, in light of the innate absurdity and purposelessness of life, people must strive for individuality. Just before the narrator listens to Reverend Barbee’s sermon, he observes, “And I remember too, how we confronted those others, those who had set me there in this Eden … who trailed their words to us through blood and violence and ridicule and condescension with drawling smiles, and who exhorted and threatened, intimidated with innocent words and ...

... middle of paper ...

...s, a Critical Study,. Chicago: H. Regnery,1952.

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Ellison, Ralph. Invisble Man. London: Penguin, 1965. Print.

"Existentialism { Philosophy Index }." Philosophy Index. Web. 15 Sept. 2011.

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"Existentialism and the Absurd { Philosophy Index }." Philosophy Index. Web. 15 Sept.

2011. .

Frost, S. E. Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers: a Survey of Their Basic Ideas.

New York: Anchor, 1989. Print.

Russell, Bertrand. Wisdom of the West; a Historical Survey of Western Philosophy in Its

Social and Political Setting. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. Print.

Wilcox, Eliot John. "The Absurd in the Briar Patch: Ellison's Invisible Man and

Existentialism." Apr. 2010. Web. 18 Sept. 2011. .

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