BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harris, E. Lynn. Invisible Life. New York: Doubleday,
1994.
Lawrence T. Potter, Jr.
Invisible Man Ralph Ellison (1952)
Greeted by controversial reviews when it was first
published in 1952, RALPH ELLISON’s Invisible Man
continues to stand the test of time. The main
character journeys through the United States at
a crucial moment in history—a moment that
promised freedom and infinite possibilities but
kept that for a privileged few. The main character,
however, does not know this and optimistically
moves from one disappointment to the next, be-
lieving that this time he will be allowed to succeed;
in the words of Dr. Bledsoe, the president of the
African-American college to which the protago-
nist wins a scholarship in a circus-like contest, he
is kept running.
The inspiration for the novel was a book and a
concept: Lord Raglan’s The Hero and the problem
of white-picked black leaders. Ellison’s craft is so
careful and precise that much of the long, tightly
woven novel was mapped from the beginning. Ac-
cording to Ellison,
I began it with a chart of the three-part divi-
sion. It was a conceptual frame with most of
the ideas and some incidents indicated. The
three parts represent the narrative’s movement
from, using Kenneth Burke’s terms, purpose
to passion to perception. These three major
sections are built up to smaller units of three
which mark the course of the action and which
depend for their development upon what I
hoped was a consistent and developing moti-
vation. However, you’ll note that the maximum
insight on the hero’s part isn’t reached until the
final section. After all, it’s a novel about inno-
cence and human error, a struggle through il-
lusion to reality.Ellison’s invisible and unnamed protagonist
attends college until he makes the mistake of al-
lowing a white board member to see beneath the
layers of blackness created by the college president;
he is sent to New York, with what he believes are
letters of recommendation, to keep him from ever
returning to the school. In New York he encoun-
ters and survives one harrowing experience after
another. A large portion of the book examines the
Communist Party in the United States. By the end,
the novel follows the main character’s journey
from childhood to adulthood, from naiveté to self-
realization, and demonstrates the paradox that is
the United States: a country founded on ideals
where the lived reality, for many, is a betrayal of
these ideals.
Though the book was awarded the National
Book Award in 1953, most contemporary re-
viewers hedged when it came to Ellison’s creative
prowess, exalting the book’s theme or character or
subject but qualifying the praise with “but he’s not
perfect,” “the book is not flawless.” Additionally,
many pointed the finger at Ellison for not overtly
participating in African-American literary move-
ments. And Ernest Kaiser, in a 1970 review of the
novel and of its reviews, argues,With a Niagara of words, with innuendoes and
rationalizations aplenty, he tries to justify his
nightmarish, escapist, surreal, nonsocial pro-
test, existential novel. But it is to no avail. That
a white critic has to ask him about the lack of
protest against Black oppression in his novel
embarrasses us all. Ellison tries to destroy
Wright and his social view in fiction. But here
again Ellison is speaking for the somewhat
insulated, educated Black middle class in the
South. He says he fears the Left more than he
fears the murdering state of Mississippi. He
says that Blacks are not pressuring him to join
the Freedom Movement and that his inane
reply to Howe is action in the struggle for
Black freedom! (Kaiser, 92–93).In his own work and interviews, Ellison re-
sponded with an unpopular position for the times.
When confronted with Irving Howe’s critique of
his work he remarked that Howe and others like
him want toInvisible Man 269