Blindness In The Invisible Man Essay

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The Element of Blindness
Failure to see clearly alters the perception of an event and limits one’s knowledge of their surroundings. Nothing is what it seems, causing an inconsistency in the truth which leads one to question the vision. Everything then becomes twisted and not what it seems, causing an inconsistency of the truth and leading one to doubt their vision. This scenario can be compared to the reoccurring theme in Ralph Ellison’s, The Invisible Man. Throughout the novel, nothing is ever quite as it seems to the narrator as he struggles to understand the truth about society and ultimately himself. This aspect of blindness is littered throughout the novel, emphasizing the prejudice of the time period and how many, including the narrator, were blind to see the truth of racism within society.
Throughout the novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison works with many different forms of blindness and unclear vision and how it relates to insight. The narrator describes his invisibility by saying, "I am invisible, under-stand, simply because people refuse to see me."(p3) The fact that people refuse to see him as an equal causes him to pass through thin cracks and people not being able to realize the minor things he might do for example “now, aware of my invisibility, I live rent-free in a building strictly to whites, in a section of the basement that was shut off and forgotten during the nineteenth century, which I discovered when I was trying to escape in the night from Ras the destroyer” (p6). The story begins with the self introduction of an invisible man. As the narrator of the story, states that his “nor is my invisibility exactly a biochemical accident to my epidermis” (p3). He is an invisible man because people are unwilling to dis...

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...cussion many themes play a role in Ralph Ellison’s invisible man novel the theme that faces the protagonist life the most through the novel was the fact that he search for acceptance in all of the wrong places causing him to be blind walking into some situations in novel because he was naive and felt that people like Bledsoe and Mr. Norton was at his best interest however they could care less about what the protagonist was doing with his life. The protagonist let the wrong people choose his faith in life causing him to miss a wonderful opportunity in finishing college but he listen to Barbee’s speech which he felt was a great reason to drop out of school and move to Harlem to better himself however, the protagonist wanted to feel accepted so bad it altered his way of thinking making it harder for him to think for his self making him blind to most of his choices.

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