Point Of View In Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man

In the Invisible Man, Ellison’s use of the motif of vision to allow him to portray the point of view of a man who is struggling with societal issues. With Ellison’s story, the point of view does not change but there are examples around IM that show others with similar issues. It is perfectly normal to be a narcissistic thinker when one is alone, but as soon as another individual is added to the cause, selfish ways of thinking are unacceptable. IM is a selfish individual who has a negative outlook on life and believes that there is no greatness left in the world and that it is up to him to fix it. Unfortunately due to opposing views IM has failed to see eye to eye with the Brotherhood, who sees the excellence in the world causing a conflict.

Schema is “a cognitive framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information”. Cherry explains that schema is developed over time can change as humans age, schemas are like the brain’s shortcuts. An example of a schema being used in East of Eden is when Adam met Cathy, he immediately referred back to the only other woman who had been in that house in his memory, which was his stepmother. Adam’s stepmother was a quite sweet young woman who Adam liked quite a lot, he associates her with Cathy because his brain has built a schema for a woman. For someone to change their schema they have to be told that they are wrong and have to be given an alternative “however, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude pertinent information to focus instead only on things that confirm our pre-existing beliefs and ideas”. IM does this when he sees a black man versus a white man, this could also have to do with how he grew up in the south. The place where an individual is raised affects their schema if they are raised in a racist society they are mostly likely to develop racist schemas. Prejudice is also a type of schema which can be one of the negative aspects of schemas, this can also be developed by the media. That could be another contributing factor to IM’s prejudice to his own race, he reads about people like Ras the Exhorter

In the Invisible Man, IM looks at characters like Brother Jack and his schema refers to “white is right” and assumes that he is a good man, which is wrong because he manipulated every black member of the Brotherhood. Similarly, when IM sees a character like Tod Clifton his schema refers to all the negative influences the media and the South have drilled into him and deems Clifton as evil. Though IM’s assumptions are socially incorrect he feels there is nothing wrong with his judgment because psychologically his brain does not know any better. That is why when Clifton died he realized that his schema for evil was incorrect and he needed to change it