Ambiguity In Invisible Man By Ralph Ellison

Paul Tillich famously stated, “The awareness of ambiguity of one’s highest achievements (as well as one’s deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity.” In other words, the attainment of moral ambiguity as one navigates through life is a concrete sign of bildungsroman and awareness of one’s invisibility within society. An invisibility which hinders the development of individuality causes people to become complacent with social conformity. In the novel, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the narrator shares his journey of becoming morally ambiguous as he becomes consciously aware of his invisible status as a black man in American society during the 1930s. Ralph Ellison, in his memoir, conveys the narrator’s progressive attainment of ambiguous

morals as he questions authority and explores existentialist concepts; therefore, making the narrator a significant character to the novel as a whole because he reflects Ellison’s stance against racial ideology as a vessel for conformity.
At the beginning of the novel, moral ambiguity is constructed through existential themes implemented by Ralph Ellison. Existentialism highlights the negative consequences of conformity early on in the narrator’s journey to invisibility. When the narrator is participating in the Battle Royal, he does not question the purpose of the fighting. Instead, he worries about the white men’s future impression of his speech. The narrator states, “I wanted to deliver my speech more than anything else in the world because I felt that only these men could judge my true ability” (Ellison 25). The narrator’s focus on presenting his speech to the white men offering him the scholarship presents his dependence on the opposite race and Ellison’s distaste of race ideology. The narrator is relying on the white man's impression to earn money, so he can attend college to become a wealthy educated black man worthy of being seen as an equal in the white Southern community. The narrator is also unconsciously allowing the white men to give him a purpose in life by providing him with the things he wants, such as money and an education, in order to lead him into conforming to white society, which hinders his growth as an individual. The white men’s invisible guidance stumps his individuality by not giving the narrator the opportunity to develop his own thoughts and opinions, as well as to act on his own accord. The narrator would become a puppet under white society’s control, similar to the Sambo doll which Clifton provocatively controls for the crowd’s entertainment (Ellison 431). Ellison’s use of existentialism at the beginning of the narrator’s journey is to provide the audience with an example of how lack of personal purpose and blind conformity can promote deindividualization within a person. Therefore, the person will act without awareness and without restraint, similar to the narrator after presenting his speech and getting his scholarship. When the narrator returns to the college after driving around Mr. Norton and allowing him to converse with Trueblood and rest at the Golden Day, he is scolded by Dr. Bledsoe for allowing Mr. Norton to see the degenerate parts of black society which is kept hidden. Dr. Bledsoe insults the narrator by asking, “Haven’t you the sense God gave a dog? We take these white folk where we want them to go, we show them what we want them to see… I thought you had some sense” (Ellison 102). Before arriving at the college, the narrator believes that driving Mr. Norton where he wanted is considered appropriate because he complied with a white man’s demands. However, Dr. Bledsoe does not agree with the narrator’s decisions because he only wanted to present the virtuous aspect of black culture. The narrator’s actions were neither wholly good or bad because of the different perspectives of Dr.Bledsoe and Mr. Norton, with the latter being calm and apologetic towards the narrator because he sees nothing wrong in the narrator’s actions. Yet while driving Mr. Norton, the narrator is unaware of the underlying consequences he would face after reporting back to Dr. Bledsoe. His actions were unrestrained because he caved into Mr. Norton’s demands without thinking of an alternative route to drive through. Ellison utilizes existentialism at the beginning of the novel to start building the roots of the narrator's ambiguous morals by exposing him to white conformity and deindividualization.
Not only does Ellison use existentialist ideas to build the narrator’s ambiguous morals, but he also utilizes irony to crush the narrator’s innocent trust in other people to build his ambiguity.

Ellison first embeds irony within the narrator’s trust of his own race. When the narrator reads Dr. Bledsoe’s reference letter to Mr. Emerson, he is in great disbelief because the letter directs Mr. Emerson to give him false hope of returning to the college and attaining work from him. After digesting the purpose of the various letters he received from Dr. Bledsoe, the narrator bitterly decides “that [he] would go back and kill Bledsoe… [he’d] owe it to the race and to [himself]. [He’d] kill him” (Ellison 194). Before fighting with Dr. Bledsoe, the narrator greatly admired him because he is a successful educated black man with connections to very powerful and wealthy white men. Ralph Ellison constructed Dr. Bledsoe to contradict the existentialist theme of the novel with regards to conformity. Dr. Bledsoe conformed to white society by following precedent social cues for African Americans, such as doing what the white man asks and being polite to them. Ellison utilizes Dr.Bledsoe as a catalyst for destroying the narrator’s blind trust in authority figures to contrive the narrator’s maturation and ambiguous morals. Before Dr. Bledsoe’s betrayal, the narrator would only commit good deeds to appease the white men and Dr. Bledsoe in order to conform into white Southern society; however, after Bledsoe’s betrayal, it is evident that the narrator’s moral has somewhat shifted. He can no longer trust his own kind, even though they have similar experiences of being African Americans in a white-dominated society because they all have their own agendas to follow and are only using the narrator to achieve their goals. The developed distrust further manifest itself and propels the narrator along his journey to invisibility. When the narrator confronts Brother Jack and questions his

position as leader after Clifton’s death, the narrator and he get into a physical altercation. The narrator recalls the outrage he felt when he saw Brother Jack’s glass eye on the floor and his collapsed left eye lined with redness (Ellison 474). The narrator again is dumbfounded by another man’s betrayal, yet this time it is a white man in a position of power. The narrator confesses that he thought about strangling Brother Jack about his glass eye because he becomes aware of his being taken advantage of; the Brotherhood used him for his orating skills to achieve their goals of making a change in society through powerful speeches to encourage action. Between Bledsoe’s and Brother Jack’s betrayal, the narrator has developed and is coming to terms with the ambiguous morals he fostered. Presently, the narrator has no qualms about his selfish morals and indulges in them, such as deciding to stay in the Brotherhood even though he wanted to leave in order to complete his own agenda.
Finally, the narrator’s moral ambiguity is presented in Ellison’s well-constructed metaphors about race ideology. Throughout the novel, Ellison focuses on how the black community’s achievements are covered up by white society. For example, when the narrator gets a job at Liberty Paints, he is assigned to work under a man named, Kimbro, who demonstrates how to make pure white paint. During Kimbro’s explanation, the narrator’s internal monologue states, “ … I hesitated; the liquid inside was dead black. Was he trying to kid me?” (Ellison 200). The narrator is dumbfounded by the method utilized to make the pure white paint, which looks slightly grey to him, and quietly questions Kimbro. The narrator’s doubt in Kimbro presents his moral ambiguity by him questioning Kimbro’s authenticity as neither good or bad because he genuinely stupefied by the paint. Liberty Paints also provides Ellison the opportunity to introduce the concept of racial conformity by making it a metaphor depicting how African American contributions to society are overlooked and credited to white people. The narrator’s reaction to the unmixed paint could also be interpreted as a reaction to understanding the injustice black people face in white society. Ellison also emphasizes the indirect servitude of African Americans to white Americans and the injustice African Americans encounter, which is still prevalent today. When the narrator finds Clifton advertising a black Sambo doll, he is engulfed in rage. The Sambo doll’s appearance is reminiscent of the black community’s distinct features; therefore, the doll is representing the black community (Ellison 431). African Americans are being manipulated and coerced by white Americans to follow their orders, whether the orders are given explicitly or implicitly. African Americans are not given the chance to pursue their individual destinies or make a change in society because they are held back by invisible strings tied to the white establishment. Furthermore, white society restrains black individuality through incarceration or death. When the narrator observes a cop beat Clifton up and murder him for selling the dolls, the narrator is morally conflicted. He states that he would “… hold on desperately to the Brotherhood with all [his] strength”; however, later on, he questions Brother Jack, asking, “what if [he] were wrong? What if history was a gambler… ” (Ellison 435, 441). At first, the narrator is confident of making a social change through the Brotherhood to ensure that no one is treated like the black Sambo doll. But after witnessing Clifton’s death, the narrator rhetorically questions the purpose of the Brotherhood’s existence and its figurative rival, history. The rhetorical questions towards the Brotherhood indicate the narrator’s fluctuating trust within the organization which leads him to commit acts against the Brotherhood in favor of delivering justice to Clifton's death such as giving a speech fueled by personal emotion instead of political correctness. Also, the eulogy given by the narrator at Clifton’s funeral is his attempt at redeeming himself for not attempting to intervene Clifton’s death. Ellison’s racial metaphors allow the narrator to gradually build his morally ambiguous character by exposing him to situations which give him the opportunity to be introspective.
Ralph Ellison created the narrator as a manifestation of his distaste for racial ideology and racial conformity in the United States during the 1930s. Ellison wrote the narrator’s story as if he is completing a journey to reach invisibility so the audience can see the narrator’s bildungsroman and his gradual attainment of ambiguous morals. Both the narrator and Ralph Ellison stress the importance of developing individualism within a society and being proactive to make a social change.