The novel Invisible Man by Raphel Ellison carries a lot of mean in it. A reader can learn more than one lesson from this novel, and those lesson could be life changing. Ellison writing technique is a little different than other authors. Somethings a reader just might miss if they are not reading carefully. one theme that really gets other to the reader and that surely could not be missed is the theme of becoming your own father. Ellison really gets out to his readers and lets them know that they should not allow society to tell them who they should be.
He lets them know that they could be whoever they would like to be. He does this through his use of symbolism of the dark lensed glasses, his use of names, and his creative figurative language such as similes and metaphors. These techniques help his readers to see his message very clearly. Ellison’s use of names really helps the readers to understand each character. Ellison made it where each character name basically told the readers who they were and their purpose in the story. For example, there was a character named Brother Trap.
A reader could suspect that Brother Trap covers situations up just as a tarp would cover something up, and that is exactly what he does. So why doesn’t our main character, the narrator, have a name? It means a lot that the readers do not know IM’s name. Ellison does not give out IM’s name because this lets the readers now that IM does not know who he is. IM needs to find himself for his self. In the novel IM says “I was pulled this way and that for longer than 1 can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own.
I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what | called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man. ” This quote tells it all. IM is allowing other to make him into something they would like him to be. It’s like he is a blank canvas and everyone else is trying to paint his picture. Like when IM joined the brother hood they gave him a name, and in the hospital the doctor wanted to change him into to what would be acceptable in society. It also seemed like IM only had to paths to go down.
He could be like Bledso, who name could mean that he is not true to his blood, who steps on his own kind to get to the top. He was the one who sent IM away. He told IM that he needed to kiss up to the white people to get power. IM hated Bledso so much, but it was ironic that he was becoming somewhat like him. He could be like Trublood, whose name could mean that he is true to the blood, who is true to his roots and is okay with being black. He is rewarded by the white people for basically living up to the stereotype of black men. They a both seen as what society want they to be, and that is what IM is excepted to be.
By Ellison doing this he shows the importance of making your own path, and the society gives to you. Again, become your own father, and don’t allow other to tell you who are. Ellison also has various symbols that gets the theme across to his readers. one of the symbols are the dark lensed glasses. IM wore those glasses to hind who he really has, and people started thinking he was someone else. IM started to act like the person that everyone was mistaking him for, Rinehart. The person who he was really not. The dark lensed glasses show how people try to hind who they really are just so they can fit in.
It shows how people try to be what society tells them to be, and not who they truly are. By doing this they are weakening their identity. In the novel IM asked “Could he himself be both rind and heart? What is real anyway?… His world was possibility and he knew it. ” IM is basically asking can a person be the same on the outside as they are on the inside? Ellison presented this question to make his readers really think. This question really makes a person reflect over their life. Is being what society says really who they are on the inside?
Through Rinehart’s character Ellison shows his readers that it is better to be the rind and the heart. Ellison uses creative figurative language to get his readers to understand how IM really felt. He uses simile and metaphors to so this. IM says “Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me. ” This quote really describes how the IM really felt around people.
He is comparing himself to a mirror because it seemed like people could only see their selves when they look at him. IM say they see everything except him. Ellison is saying that people may make you out to what they want you to be not what you really are. Just as the brotherhood wanted IM because he was good speaker, but they wanted him to say what they told him. They didn’t want him to be him and say what he wanted him to say, therefore, they didn’t see him for who he is they just saw what they wanted to. It’s as if they were looking in to a mirror seeing their self and not him.
