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Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1951) It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. So starts Invisible Man, the novel that explores the search of one man for his humanity. Long before the cliff notes of Ellison's seminal book were published, the book spoke about the difficulties of Americans finding their identity in the context of race and society. The book traces the life of an African American from his struggles at a school in the South to his move to Harlem, where he is exulted as a leader for a communist like radical group, 'the brotherhood.' The character of the book is first convinced of his worth in their eyes, but he realizes again that he has been duped, "I thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men." Invisible Man was generally praised when it first was published. There was some criticism of his thinly veiled criticism of the communist party. There was also a lot of reviews that are somewhat painful to read considering the racial attitudes of the time. For example, Saul Bellow wrote the same year it was published, "There is a way for Negro novelists to go at their problems, just as there are Jewish or Italian ways. Mr. Ellison has not adopted a minority tone. If he had done so, he would have failed to establish a true middle-of-consciousness for everyone." This book is important to read over many non-fiction books of a similar subject. Though Bellow shows us his racist attitudes of the time, he is right in one sense. Ellison illuminates us about race and conflict within black society, but his book transcends this. He unveils a atomization and confusion of American Society as a whole. MORE: A summation of Kaiser's review A cotemporary review |
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