Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

"I ahm no black educated fool who t'inks everything between black mahn and white mahn can be settled with some blahsted lies in some bloody books written by the white mahn in the first place. It's three hundred years of black blood to build this white mahn's civilization and wahn't be wiped out in a minute. Blood calls for blood."

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is a piece of work...I came in prejudiced because I had discussed the novel's literary merit with a English teacher at my high school, and he and his students found the book to be subpar. I must agree. The language Ellison uses and his style is often confusing and drawn out, so much so that by page 200 I was ready to stop reading. Of course I had to force myself to finish reading it anyway, since the novel is always listed as one of the best in African-American and American literature. Nonetheless, the novel does include several valid critiques of black nationalism, Marxism, and the absurdity of life. Black nationalists, represented by Ras the Exhorter, are completely opposed to any black working with whites, and ultimately calls for the riot that engulfs Harlem near the novel's conclusion. His hatred for whites is self-destructive since Harlem will not be able to stand up to the white repression. The Marxists, referred to as the Brotherhood, only use the narrator as a tool to reach out to the black masses of Harlem, thereby reinforcing the narrator's invisibility by dehumanizing him and others in Harlem.

Moreover, the Marxists include racists in their ranks and operate autocratically, endeavoring to channel the energy of the masses to use for their own preference. Thus, the Marxists continue the dehumanization and imposed invisibility on colored folks, and ultimately manipulate black nationalists such as Ras into beginning the self-destructive riot. This brings us to the absurdity of life, since black folks have few options in life but to accept their invisibility and live out their own individualized absurd life rather than die for that of others. Life is absurd since there are now real outlets for black existence. Black life, such as that of the narrator, is perpetually abused, taken, and exploited by other blacks (Bledsoe, president of the black southern college the narrator comes from), The Brotherhood, Ras's black nationalists, white racists, and white philanthropists, who each use black lives as a means to an end. In the end, as the insane man at the Golden Day explains to a white philanthropist and the narrator, a Hegelian master-slave dialectic reveals both sides to be dehumanized, and each one becomes detached from reality, preferring to live in a fantasy where whites are a divine force and blacks are simply tools to achieve an end.

So, the novel is quite interesting despite the length and often boring writing style. The narrator's experiences from the South to Harlem during the ideological battle between black nationalism and Marxism illustrates the invisibility, or dehumanization of blacks by white society and blacks who internalize the oppressive forces in society. The narrator accepts his invisibility, moving underground to escape society, but decides, after sharing his story with the reader, to return to the surface because he could not whip his mind, meaning his thoughts compelled him to return and continue the struggle for consciousness. Therefore, the absurdity of life is something one must resist, in order to raise consciousness and create meaning in one's existence. Ellison also provides a portrait of all the contradictions of black urban life, including the classism, color prejudice, and collective self-destruction that inhibits acknowledgement of black invisibility. Overall, an interesting book from a social, or philosophical perspective since it is essentially about the nature and consequent absurdity of black life in the United States. If only it were much easier to read...