Reading: Invisible Man for Black History Month

 
By Jake Weatherill from Lewisham Branch

 

When choosing this book for today's blog post for Black History Month, I thought I would go with something I hadn't read before, but had been meaning to. This led to much internal debate, mainly because I have a very long reading list. After a fair bit of deliberation, I decided on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. For a long time, it had been a book I would pass often when shelving, curiously picking it up and reading the blurb anytime I walked past. Finally, I committed to reading it.

 

 

 

Entry for Jazz from Encyclopedia Britannica

Our story starts underground. Sitting alone in a well-lit basement is our nameless Narrator. Smoking cigarettes and listening to Jazz. Hidden away from the world, a black man living below a white's only apartment block. Siphoning power from the mains. Unknown and undetected. As invisible as the title.

The Narrator contemplates his situation, and his metaphorical invisibility. The Narrator points out that he is invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me.' With this statement he tells us of how he came to be sat alone, brooding in the light.

 

 

 

 

Originally from The Deep South, The Narrator has been invited to read an essay he wrote for school to the white dignitaries of his home town. Nervously excited at the prospect of addressing some of the town's most influential people, he envisions himself as Booker T. Washington for a new generation.
After being forced to participate in a humiliating Battle Royal for the attendees entertainment the bloody and battered Narrator delivers his speech, finding himself hesitating after being challenged for daring to talk about social equality for Black people. Given a briefcase and a scholarship to a prestigious college at the end of the evening. The Narrator sees the opportunity to escape from his life, and embark on his ambition.

   

 

 

After settling in to life at the college The Narrator is seen as a promising student who shows potential. As such the college's head Doctor Bledsoe asks him to drive around one of the trustees. After taking a wrong turn the trustee is introduced to a world he didn't know existed. Despite not being at fault The Narrator is expelled for risking the college's reputation. He endeavours to go to New York and earn the wages to re-enroll, something Bledsoe let's him believe. Equipped with letters from Bledsoe that are addressed to some of the trustees of the college that The Narrator believes to be requests for a job for himself.

 

 

 

After constant knockbacks, our Narrator ends up working for Liberty Paints, but finds himself being blamed for a fault that was not directly his, and drawn into a conflict between his foreman and disgruntled Union workers. His path winding through hospital, the streets of Harlem, seeing him dragged into the world of The Brotherhood, a political party. As his tale unfolds, we discover what has lead the Invisible Man to hide away. 

Ellison's novel is a stark, almost brutal, story of the life of a black man in late 40's/early 50's US. Ellison's protagonist starts out as an ambitious, optimistic character, but finds himself being broken by the world around him. The author chips away at the protagonist's hope, using unvarnished reality combined with cruel turns of chance to see The Narrator stripped down to a bare, bitter core by the time he has gone underground. We the reader have an intimate view of this thanks to our insight into the Narrator's mind, making the story cut deeper.

 

Colour Bar Ended at Public Bar. 12 Feb 1954 Entry from The Times Digital Archive

 

 

Yet Ellison's story is ultimately an empowering one. It's the contemplation of a man's fall from grace. An introspective look at his short rises and seemingly endless falls. The fact we get such an intimate look at this process only helps us appreciate that while this is somewhat justified rage at an uncaring world, there's also shoots of hope. 

 

 

 

This idea of duality plays throughout the book. Hope and despair. The future and the past. Even the imagery of external light and internal dark shows that Ellison sees this sometimes contradictory duality playing out constantly in life. But rather than seeing these as conflicting forces, Ellison arguably frames them as coexisting facts of life. While the duality is real, neither individual part cancels out the other.

 

Invisible Man is an intense, powerful read. Ellison's use of a personal touch and strong descriptive imagery helps this. It's a tale about the death of naive world views and the birth of something ultimately more pragmatic. 

Most importantly though it's a story to make you stop and think. And it definitely succeeds in that.