Invisibility As Metaphor For Alienation In Invisible Man
Alienation is the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved (Google dictionary n.p.). Invisible Man is a metaphor for a black man’s experience during this time period. The institutionalized racism of the society ultimately leads the main character to feel alienated and isolated from a society that he wants to be a part of. His alienation is a direct outcome of the racist values of that society and a negation of his true self.
A central theme of Invisible Man is our main character’s invisibility and his quest to find his true identity and become visible and accepted in society. The novel begins with a young idealistic man in the South who is determined to educate himself to expand his opportunities. However, the simple color of his skin plagues him and makes his life a constant struggle between fitting into “dominant society” and staying authentic to his black culture (Lieber 1). At multiple points in the book, our main character is made an outcast. Our main character yearns to just be seen for who he really is and not what society of the early 1930s United States chooses to see him as. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word ‘invisible’ to mean “incapable by nature of being seen: not perceptible by vision” (Merriam Webster n.p.). I believe, however, that the invisibility found in Invisible Man is not meant to be read in such a literal sense. I believe that the alienation occurring here is of the narrator’s true self. Although the main character is literally seen by others, he is ultimately portrayed as somebody different from who he really is as a person. Our narrator is stripped of his true identity and is reassigned to another one, not one of his own choosing. In the novel, we see how each new setting that he encounters contains people who have different beliefs on how black people should be viewed and valued in society. Each group manages to find a reason and a way to ostracize the narrator. He is invisible in the sense that no matter how hard he tries, no matter what he accomplishes, no matter his skill, no matter his worth, society will choose to contract his existence. “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison prologue). Although the feeling of this invisibility is expressed through the voice of our narrator, ultimately the shackles of invisibility are placed on him by a society that renders him voiceless. It is a society that causes his alienation.
The voicelessness that the narrator feels is very much a reflection of the time period of the novel. Invisible Man is set in 1930s America at a time when racist prejudices and biases were commonplace. For example on a macro level “discrimination occurred in New Deal housing and employment projects” making it difficult for African Americans to get good jobs and own their own homes (Libray of Congress). On a micro-level, there are constant suggestions throughout the book of how black people can become more successful by literally becoming more white. The narrator sees an ointment in a shop window that claims to lighten black skin: ”Win greater happiness with whiter complexion.” (Ellison ch.13). This example suggests the subliminal message of society was the belief that you only have a chance at happiness if you are white. (Pinckney n.p.).
William Clements Stone, a well-known businessman, and philanthropist, once argued that you are “a product of your environment.” He goes on to say, “so choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective” (Stone n.p.). However, the second half of this philosophy only works when one can choose his own environment. In the case of our narrator, he doesn’t have this luxury. Indeed he struggles to be successful and to excel because the environment around him does not nurture his natural talent such as his gift of public speaking. Although he has this extraordinary gift, we still end up seeing him as voiceless. “I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I’ve tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied” (Ellison Ch. 25) The refusal by others to let him speak the truth further alienates him from everyone else. The main character owns great talent, but rather than accepting him he is deprived of proper opportunities due to the pigment of his skin.
The relationship that the main character has with the world and his struggles really epitomize how hard it was for a young African American male, who were regularly excluded from high or even mid society, in the pre-Martin Luther King jr. era to feel accepted into society and not alienated from it. Sadly for our main character, the civil rights movement didn’t begin until 1955. From 1955 until April 4, 1968, “African Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced” (The King Center). Following the 19th century, segregation took a far stronger form in the deep South. African Americans saw an abundance of improvement in quality of life, which was accessed through education. A connection can be drawn to this book. Our main character is simply trying to get ahead in life by getting an education, with the end goal of getting a respectable job. His attempt at getting a college degree is dashed through no fault of his own. In addition to this time period not being one of equal opportunity, it was also a very frightening time as well with lynchings still almost commonplace in the deep South. Our main character didn’t just live in a time of lesser pay and opportunities, our main character was living in a time of fear as well. Invisibility goes beyond simply being a factor that limits our main character economically and socially. Invisibility is the force that pushes our main character out of his own skin to do everything in his power to be seen by the white man. This self-assigned task, stemming from outside pressure, is ultimately his biggest shortcoming: trying to build himself this fake identity leads him into a downward spiral. We end up seeing from this how his treacherous decision ends up hurting him throughout the rest of his journey. It takes him till the very tail end of the novel to realize that the only way of acquiring visibility is by being and acting as your own self, not what people paint you to be. Throughout the novel, the narrator’s hopes and dreams of upward mobility are destroyed, he is given a ceiling early on of what he can accomplish.
It is society’s racist structure and inability to accept the narrator as equal which severely damages and alienates the narrator. Throughout the novel numerous episodes bring our narrator farther and farther from his true self, ultimately alienating him from his own culture. First, we see the battle royal at the start of the novel. Being a great public speaker, the narrator is brought to deliver a speech to a group of influential white men. He receives a scholarship to a negro college. Beforehand, however, he is forced to fight in a “battle royal” where he is set up in a fight against other blindfolded black men in boxing matches (Ellison ch.1). After this humiliating experience is over the black men are laughed at because they try to get gold coins that have been deliberately placed on an electric carpet to further humiliate them. Ultimately, this scene serves as “an initiation” for these up-and-coming black men in the south, almost like a hazing (PBS n.p.). I think this is an important start to the book and a window into the lives of these young black men because ultimately it sends the message that the powerful white men will control and humiliate the black and man and he will not amount to much.
Following this event, the narrator recounts the college incident. The narrator is told to drive around an important trustee named Mr. Norton (who mentions that a poor, black man impregnated his daughter). After hearing this story Norton says he needs a drink, so the two of them stop at the Golden Day. A fight breaks out at the bar, and Norton actually passes out because he is so shocked by the incident. Back at the university, the narrator is reprimanded by the college president who found out about the detour taken with Mr. Norton to the Golden Day and to visit the old slave quarters. The narrator gets in big trouble because he should have shown Mr. Norton a more idealized view of everyday black life. Because of this incident, our narrator is sent off to New York City with seven letters. He tries to get a job but soon discovers that he’s on a wild goose chase because the letters are actually holding him back. Instead of sending positive references, the university president has betrayed him by sending negative letters about him, controlling his prospects, and alienating him from the opportunities of a good job. I think this gives this another perspective on upper-class white society.
A man named Emerson helps our narrator to get a job at a lowly paint factory. Ironically the trademark paint at this factory is its superior “Optic White” (Ellison ch.10) paint color. The narrator is made assistant to a black man by the name of Lucius Brockway. The two of them end up fighting. The two of them forget about the paint and factory duties. As a result, a tank explodes which knocks the main character out cold. I believe that this is a foreshadowing of the main character and his relationship later on with the Brotherhood. Both here with the paint factory and again with the brotherhood, black people are turned against themselves in the white man’s world they live in. Perhaps it suggests that when society does not accept black people they feel alienated from all groups, whether black or white. In the novel, the narrator has almost no friends.
The narrator ends up being taken to Harlem where he starts to find a voice. He gets taken to the home of Mary, a kind woman who lets him stay in an apartment for free. Being brought to Harlem is a very significant change of setting in the book; After all, Harlem is known for being a place of black empowerment, with the cultural “Harlem Renaissance” having started in the 1920s (National Museum of African American History and Culture n.p.). A passionate voice from within is discovered in our narrator when he witnesses the eviction of some old black folks from their house. He makes a stand before a large crowd and once again delivers a speech, objecting to the eviction. He finds himself in a place where black people flourish and he starts to break out of his shell and feel less alienated.
After initially rejecting an offer by the Brotherhood, the narrator takes a job to pay Mary back for her hospitality. The Brotherhood demands that the narrator be completely stripped of his identity and now he’s given a new one. Even now, as our main character is in a new environment, which should be one of positive nurturing, he has been stripped of his identity once again, but by his own brethren.
The racism brought onto our main character by society ends up detaching him from a society that he yearns to be a part of and to be accepted in. The alienation he faces is rooted too deep in society for him to be given a chance. Towards the end of the book when he is running away from the police the narrator jumps into a manhole and the police cover it. He “remains in the hole” and “reluctantly accepted” his fate (Ellison ch.25). This is the ultimate metaphor of alienation. Society has placed him in the hole and the only way he can get out of the hole is to use the papers in his briefcase to light his way out. Somehow he still holds onto the hope that despite the alienation that he lives with he will be able to climb out of the hole by accessing his past and rediscovering his true self.
