Blindness In The Odyssey

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Recommended: Literary analysis of the Odyssey

The novel began with the narrator embarking on a journey to the underworld. As he entered the battle royal, Ralph Ellison set up the narrator’s story using the archetype of the Odyssey. The narrator spends the entirety of the book trying to become enlightened, and to prove to his grandfather and Dr.Bledsoe that he is more than what they think he is. However, the book ends with the narrator stuck in a dark hole, living underground, right back where he started. This contrast to the story of odysseus allows Ellison to demonstrate how the narrator failed to become what he had tried so hard to be, and how his enlightenment had been destined to be a troubled one. An important motif that the author returns to at the end of the book is blindness. Beginning with the blindfolds in the battle royal, then to the blindness of the pastor, Ellison highlights how their physical blindness is also figurative. The black men who fought in the royal were blind and failed to see the white men were taking advantage of them. By the end of the book, the narrator recognizes that “the true darkness lies in [his] mind”(579) but fails to see that had he made other choices, he would never have wound up where he is at the end of the novel. He spends the last moments of the book underground, …show more content…

Ellison brings the grandfather back in order to show that though the narrator has grown up and matured, he is yet to truly overcome his demons. This again contrasts the story of odysseus, because the narrator could not do what odysseus did. He could not escape his darkness, his past, and himself. The narrator himself understands this, “I’m coming out, no less invisible without it, but coming out nevertheless.”(581) The narrator has failed to achieve a proper enlightenment, and even though he may finally get out of the darkness, he will still remain

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