literary devices
Theme
- The veil of invisibility can be cast upon anyone, thus dehumanizing them: The beginning of the novel opens with the quote “I am an invisible man…I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison 3).Throughout the rest of the novel, this quote is demonstrated as the narrator is trying to find his identity, but is continuously set back due to his race and the inequality that is always around him. As conveyed through the stereotypes of the coin bank and the Sambo dolls, the black Americans are only seen as entertainment and something to be used by the whites. Moreover, when the narrator joins the Brotherhood, he thinks he has found a way to combat this racial inequality, but they prove only to be using his race to their own gains. In his time with the Brotherhood however, the narrator was given a new name and a task, and thus changed his whole being and grew a part from his previous identity. Even though the narrator believed this to be beneficial at first, it soon proved to be the source of his own destruction. Thus, through the entirety of the novel, while the narrator thought he was working for racial equality, he was in time ensuring quite the opposite. Through his many experiences in the South and Harlem, the effects of prejudice and inequality begin to have their influence on the narrator, on both his mind and his being. As a result, he comes to accept his invisibility as his identity, ensuring his dehumanization and separation from society.
Motifs
- Blindness: Throughout the novel, there are an excessive amount of references to some form of blindness. Such as when the boys fighting in the battle royal were blindfolded, which caused them to not recognize that the white men were using them as entertainment; when the statue of the Founder was described as having blank eyes, or when Reverend Homer A. Barbee is revealed to be blindfolded; which both show the colleges’ failure to identify the racism and white supremacy that they themselves are supporting. The most important references to blindness however occur in relation to the narrator and his acceptance of the beliefs of the Brotherhood. When he is giving his first speech as a part of the Brotherhood, the narrator is blinded by the bright lights, and later in the novel when he and Tod Clifton are on a street corner rallying support, they are unable to see who belongs to what side when a fight breaks out with Ras’ group. Here, the blindness that the narrator experiences are a result of his blind acceptance of the ideals of the Brotherhood, and his inability to see what the Brotherhood is really in support of. This is strengthened further, when in chapter twenty-two, Brother Jack is revealed to have a glass eye. In this instance, the true beliefs of the Brotherhood are finally revealed to the narrator and their attempts to have the community blindly accept them. Due to the motif of blindness, many instances in the novel are made more significant, as they draw attention to important underlying meanings that the narrator faces. Additionally, the narrator’s membership and roles in the Brotherhood are made mysterious, as their true ideals prove to be beyond the sight of the narrator.
- Invisibility: Although not as extensive as the motif of blindness, that of invisibility is still significant to the novel, if only concentrated mainly in the Prologue and Epilogue. In the novel, the narrator describes being invisible in both a good and bad way. While invisibility does allow you to be freer in your movements, it still makes you blind to the sight of others. In the Prologue, the narrator describes how he is able to get away with stealing light from Monopolated Light and Power, demonstrating the advantages of his invisibility in being able to not pay for the light and thus allowing him to live a life of his choosing. However, at what expense does his invisibility come? As shown at the Liberty Paint Plant, the authority of the whites dominates the blacks, despite their reliance on their work, and covers up their identities, showing that due to the forces of inequality, the narrator’s invisibility came at the cost of the loss of his identity; which he indeed loses in joining the Brotherhood. In opposition though, towards the end of the novel, when the narrator is able to finally realize the extent of the Brotherhood’s power, he undergoes a change in character and extreme growth, later accepting himself as an invisible man, and whether or not others can see it, that his identity is real. Through the use of the motif of invisibility, the growth of the narrator is conveyed as he comes to live a life where he can separate himself from the destruction of society and assume an identity that gives him meaning.
Symbols
- The Liberty Paint Plant: In chapter ten, the narrator finds work at a paint plant called Liberty Paints. He begins the day by mixing the Optic White paint that the plant is so famous for. In doing so, he has to pour black paint into white paint, that when stirred becomes even whiter. Later in the chapter, the narrator works in the furnace room, which is where the base paint is mixed in order to make the Optic White paint. Here, as before, the racial inequality of the plant is symbolized as everywhere the black workers are made invisible by the white workers, and the white paint covers up the black paint when mixed. However, as proven by Brockway, the success of the company is only due to the work of the blacks, but is never revealed because of the attempts of the whites to dominate them. This racial inequality is further demonstrated in the slogan of the plant’s paint: “If It’s Optic White, It’s the Right White”; meaning that anything other than white is not right. As a result, despite the Liberty Paints Plant reliance on the work of the blacks, their attempts to conceal them in everything demonstrates that the North is not all the narrator expects it to be.
- Brother Tarp’s leg shackle: In chapter eighteen of Invisible Man, just after he receives an anonymous letter from someone warning him to slow down, the narrator is given a piece of leg shackle from Brother Tarp; which was worn by him for nineteen years in a chain gang and afterwards on his way to the North when he escaped. Even though he made it to the North, he decided to keep the shackle to remind him of his time in the chain gang, and then gives it to the narrator to remind him of their cause. Because the shackle is bent and open, it symbolizes the freedom that Brother Tarp gained, but by keeping it, it represents a reminder of the past and what they are fighting to get rid of. Later in the chapter, when Brother Wrestrum tells him to put the leg shackle away, the meaning of it is strengthened, as Wrestrum tries to hide evidence of black American history, which would only conflict with the ideals of the Brotherhood. Another significance of the leg shackle is whenever the narrator slips it over his knuckles, which he involuntarily finds himself doing when he is either in danger or is undergoing conflict with the Brotherhood’s beliefs. For example, after Tod Clifton’s funeral, the narrator walks into a Brotherhood meeting, where he confronts Brother Jack of having too much authority and control over what the community thinks. When Brother Jack becomes enraged, the narrator slips to shackle over his knuckles, kind of offering him protection if the tension escalates any further. Another instance of this is when in Harlem, Ras the Destroyer and his men are after the narrator in an attempt to kill him. Here, when he slips the shackle over his knuckles, he experiences a revelation of the extent of the power of the Brotherhood and the discovery of his own identity. As a result, the leg shackle not only symbolizes a reminder of the past and an insight for future actions, but also protection and discovery.
- The Sambo Doll: In chapter twenty, the narrator comes across Tod Clifton in an alleyway surrounded by people as he displays and sells dancing Sambo dolls; which represent the entertainment that black Americans offered to white men in times of slavery. However, by being displayed now, they prove to show that those stereotypes still exist. At the time, the dolls seem to move on their own, but in actuality, as will later be discovered by the narrator, they move by the pulling of an almost invisible string. As a result, the doll symbolizes how stereotypes and racism persist to control the movements of a person. Furthermore, as Clifton sings a song criticizing the values of the Brotherhood, he conveys the message that it is the Brotherhood who is pulling the strings, contrary to what the narrator thinks.
Citation: Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, 1995. Print.