Book #18: The Invisible Man

Author: Ralph Ellison

Published: 1952

Synopsis:

The novel follows a narrator who claims he is invisible. Not in the strange, supernatural way that something went wrong with his genes and made him that way. Neither does he have a special power to actually turn invisible.

He’s invisible because people refuse to see him.

An African-American man takes us along with him through his days before he was invisible, through how he was treated by the whites, repeatedly kicked down and always outcasted by those in power, whom he thought were the judges for his greatness.

Eventually, he meets two parties: Ras the Exhorter and the Brotherhood, both of which are fighting for inequality–though not in the best way. While Ras believes in violence and how blacks can never work with whites, the Brotherhood believes it is possible. But you must surrender your identity, individuality and freedom to them to work as a whole unit.

The story may sound a little strange and unrealistic, but that’s because it is. Heavily influenced by jazz music and culture, the whole book carries a surrealistic feel to it. Ellison constantly switches from real life elements, things that can really happen, to distorted events that are just difficult to wrap one’s head around.

Based on Ellison’s life and the history of the African-Americans during the time of rampant racism and discrimination in the 50s, The Invisible Man is a semi-auto biography turned fiction that takes into perspective what it’s like to be hated because of just skin color, what makes a person’s identity and how only the individual can define oneself–no one else.

Thoughts: 

I’ve never understood racism. I really don’t, even until now. I don’t understand the point, the motives, the values or principles of it. I don’t understand how anyone could actually be a racist and treat those who are different (on a subjective standard) as if their appearance, ancestry, culture and more, are a flaw to their humanity.

But because I never understood racism–nor did I ever really try to find out much about it–it was a totally new experience to have this book dropped in my lap by one of my college professors. I barely knew anything about the Civil Rights movement, what extent this discrimination really went, and the roots of it even before the 50s. I was ignorant and only knew what I had figured out from the movies, books, news and implications that I had absorbed before.

Reading Ralph Ellison’s book though. Now that was something completely different.

It made me care. It put me in the shoes of a black man living with a chip in his shoulder, always trying to belong and be judged as someone greater, not just a Negro wandering around. And what was interesting about it was that Ellison made such a well-rounded book. He touched on so many issues and looked at both sides of things, giving a clearer look on the bigger picture.

I can’t stress enough how eye-opening The Invisible Man was to me. If you’re looking for an interesting, sometimes horrifying, always enthralling book full of knowledge, emotion and excitement, the Invisible Man is the perfect window to look back into the past and see the fault of humankind in terms of race.