•
Rating: One can grow in many ways, and one of the most common is taking a few hard knocks. In the face of suffering, disappointment, and confusion, one can grow; not that one goes looking for them, it's just that they have no trouble finding us.
The unnamed protagonist of "Invisible Man" (1952) endures quite a few blows, and each one is an epiphany, a sudden and unexpected realization of something that was always known, even if only on a subconscious level. He understands a bit more about the world, about himself, about society, about being an African-American in a racist America. He grows, but whether he progresses is up to the reader to decide.
Ralph Ellison transcends the boundaries of African-American literature: realism is obsolete, insufficient to represent a particular and complicated situation like that of black America. So, he resorts to symbolism, modernist influences (Joyce's epiphany, incompetence), Marx, Nietzsche. And finally, a story is born that is monumental, a beacon, a point of reference: bitterly ironic, bewildering, unreal yet truthful.
The protagonist is invisible because he is socially ignored and useless, he is inept, involuntarily so, but still inept. In his own way, however, he is different from the characters of Eliot, Joyce, or Svevo. Ellison's creature is combative, despite everything. He fights, but he is a black fish floundering out of water in a white America proud of being so. The author manages to surpass the typical characterization of Modernism, to internalize Symbolism, to put Marx and especially the ideas and actions inspired by him at his service, to bend Nietzsche to his needs. The great European culture blends with the great African-American concerns, forming a picture of contrasting colors, a juxtaposition of drabness and brilliance.
Being a man in the twentieth century is already hard, and being an African-American means questioning even the physical identity: what are you if not an invisible man, a cruel joke of life? Yet, to surrender, never. That's where the difference lies. Superficially, perhaps, he throws in the towel. But the unconscious continues to fight, a subtle struggle, invisible like those who fight it. However, invisibility is not solely negative; it is equidistance from everyone, equidistance from compromise with whites and radical separation, it is being above good and evil. Thus, the eternal dilemma of the African-American is resolved with originality, with a series of plot twists each more bewildering than the last, until the unexpected solution, if it is a solution. Ralph Ellison tears away the veil and shows his world, which is the world of many, but they just don't know it.
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By 'gnurant
Ellison writes like this. A classic prose that within just ten lines becomes experimental, surreal, psychedelic, and dreamlike with constant shifts in rhythm where the reader almost struggles to keep up.
The novel is raw, pessimistic, devoid of rhetoric and compassion, and unfortunately, it offers no solution other than the realization of one’s invisibility; the starting point from which to face the world for future redemption.
