Invisible Man Motif

One could argue that we are all just puppets and dolls who are destined to dance on concealed strings, never realizing who or what pulls them. Ralph Ellison's novel, The Invisible Man, is filled with depictions and mentions of dolls as if to remind his audience that no one has entire control over their own lives.

In the story, the unnamed narrator, the "Invisible Man", comes to the realization that all his life he has been a servant, puppet, and plaything to those around him, especially to white people. Whoever they were, be they Dr. Bledsoe, the president of his college, his dead grandfather, who told him to undermine white people, or members of the Brotherhood, who pretended to care for and about him because he was doing them a service,

is unimportant: there had always been an invisible string attached to him, directing his each and every of his thoughts and actions.

When it comes to the Sambo dolls, not only the thread but Invisible Man's own physical characteristics mirror those described: "It's cardboard hands were clenched into fists. The fingers outlined in orange paint, and ... it had two faces, one on either side of the disks of cardboard, and both grinning” (446). The hands "clenched into fists" is the Brotherhood's message in short: mighty and powerful, ready to battle in any way for what one supposedly believes in at any moment. However, these fists are controlled solely by the one holding the strings and not the person themselves, just as Invisible Man was told what and how to say things by the Brotherhood as well as who to be. Moreover, the black Sambo puppet is completely content and unaware that he is merely a toy and easily manipulated like most black people during Ellison’s time. The puppet smiles obliviously to the crowd surrounding him, watching his every move and back to his controller, his puppeteer. It is this smile specifically on the face of the doll that enrages the Invisible Man because he

does not understand how people can put up with being controlled, especially when he recalls his grandfather's parting words to him. However, the Black Sambo doll is the Invisible Man, just as many African Americans of Ellison's time were. They allowed white people control them, whether they were conscious of it or not.
Another prime example of doll symbloism comes from very near the beginning of the novel.

During what is often referred to as the "Battle Royal Scene", the naked, blonde, white woman present is illustrated as possessing hair "that was yellow like ... a circus kewpie doll" (19). Using this piece of imagery, Ellison draws an interesting parallel between the struggle of the dark man and fair woman. The fact that they are both described as dolls in the novel is no accident. Both the girl and the man are merely showpieces and toys for the white men in the novel: the white woman being a stripper only there to entertain the white men and Invisible Man being a naive, ambitious black boy who is also only there for these high-brow men's entertainment. Both the narrator and the girl are merely toys to the men, and the men soon lose their interest in them, throw them aside, and move on with their lives without a second

thought.
Finally, the last occurrence in the story with a doll develops again with the dancing Black Sambo doll. Near the epilogue, while Invisible Man is escaping the insanity of the Harlem riots, he discovers a manhole that he can crawl into and the darkness of shadows below. Because he is trying to stay safe and is honestly rather curious about what could be in the hole, Invisible Man decides that he wants to see what is going on around him. When he enters the manhole, he begins to burn the different objects in his briefcase that he had collected in his travels because he has no other light source by which to see and keep warm. He goes through his case and when he tries to burn the Black Sambo doll with a match, "it burned so stubbornly that [he] reached inside the case for something else" (568). The puppet's resistance to the fire is symbolic of the fact that people living in today’s society, will never truly be able to escape their puppet-like captivity that rules their lives in the forms of prejudice, hatred, and scorn.
Dolls and puppets in Invisible Man, though their purpose may seem vague, are a key factor in delving deeper into the true intention of the novel. Both in the book as well as in real life, people live their lives trying to be self-sufficient and progressive people, but there are always threads held by someone or something that has some control over their future. Whether they are family members, significant others, or racial prejudices, everyone has at least one string that controls them, and Ellison challenges the reader to find their strings and cut them off just as the Invisible Man did.