designate the role which Negro writers are to
play more rigidly than any Southern politi-
cian—and for the best of reasons. We must
express ‘black’ anger and ‘clenched militancy;’
most of all we should not become too inter-
ested in the problems of the art of literature,
even though it is through these that we seek
our individual identities. And between writ-
ing well and being ideologically militant, we
must choose militancy. Well, it all sounds quite
familiar and I fear the social order which it
forecasts more than I do that of Mississippi
(Ellison, 120).Perhaps the strongest testament to the value of
Ellison’s novel is twofold: first, the book spawned
conversation about art, black art, and representa-
tion among authors, critics, and students; second,
its theme of invisibility, overlooked for several de-
cades, speaks to a new and growing body of read-
ers and scholars. Invisible Man, now hailed as one
of the great American novels, has a lasting place
in literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Benston, Kimberly. Speaking for You: The Vision of
Ralph Ellison. Washington, D.C.: Howard Univer-
sity Press, 1987.
Busby, Mark. Ralph Ellison. Boston: Twayne Publish-
ers, 1991.
Callahan, John C. “Frequencies of Eloquence: The
Performance and Composition of Invisible Man.”
In The Craft of Ralph Ellison, edited by Robert
O’Meally, 55–94. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1980.
Ellison, Ralph. “The World and the Jug.” In Shadow
and Act, edited by Ralph Ellison, 107–143. New
York: Vintage Books, 1972.
Foley, Barbara. “The Rhetoric of Anticommunism in
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. College English 59
(September 1997): 530–547.
Kaiser, Ernest. “A Critical Look at Ellison’s Fiction
and at Social Literary Criticism by and about the
Author.” Black World, December 1970, pp. 53–97.
O’Meally, Robert. The Craft of Ralph Ellison. Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Sundquist, Eric. Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man. Boston: Bedford Books, St. Martin’s
Press, 1995.
Shauna Lee Eddy-Sanders270 Invisible Man