The Role Of Identity In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

"Who the hell am I?” This question puzzled the invisible man, the unidentified, anonymous narrator of Ralph Ellison's novel, Invisible Man. Throughout the story, the narrator embarks on a mental and physical journey to find what the narrator believes to be his true identity. Ellison uses the main characters invisibility and conflict with the outside world to illustrate the confusion of identity that many people experience.The narrator's life is filled with constant mental traumas. The biggest psychological burden he has is his identity, well his misidentity. He feels a "wearing on the nerves" for people to see him as what they like to believe he is and not see him as what he really is. Throughout his life, he takes on several different identities

I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Discrimination is negative treatment of individuals on the basis of group membership. Discrimination can range from active hostility to passive neglect. Both of these forms are shown through Ellison’s writings. A study done by four individuals from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia bring to light the conundrum of hypervisibility versus invisibility that African Americans face. In an article about their findings they discuss how one’s motivations can lead to a varying degree of attention to African Americans. In some cases African Americans are considered hypervisible because they draw more visual attention than a caucasian does. Studies have shown that Caucasian Americans visually orient to African American (vs. Caucasian American) faces as if the African American faces were a threat (Bean et al., 2012; Donders, Correll, & Wittenbrink, 2008; Trawalter, Todd, Baird, & Richeson, 2008). These studies show that when African Americans are perceived to pose a social or physical threat, Caucasians are more vigilant, and they pay more attention to African Americans. Although some research suggests that there are circumstances under which African Americans draw attention, other research suggests that African Americans may be invisible or overlooked under other conditions. Studies on the cross-race effect have consistently shown that Caucasian Americans attend to and remember African American faces less well than they do Caucasian faces (Chance & Goldstein, 1996; see Meissner & Brigham, 2001, for a review). Other studies have shown that the cross-race effect is dependent on the perceived relevance of the minority person. For example, although Caucasians display a cross-race effect for African American men and women, the effect is