You should read this. You really should. It was eye opening, challenging, insightful, unsettling It made me think and research and discuss. It made me wish I had a teacher and classroom full of students to help me through it. It was refreshingly honest and bold and eloquent. I struggled with this rating because my experience of reading this book was difficult and laborious. I think some context about the work would have helped me to engage. I wasn't sure what I was delving into when I started You should read this.
I wasn't sure what I was delving into when I started - only knowing that it was a book on the top greatest American novels of all times. I spent the first half of the novel orienting myself to what the author was trying to do. It was jarring and confusing reading the book without the anchor of historical importance, literary context, etc By the last quarter, I was fascinated and moved With books of this type, books of cultural importance, books with deep symbolism and message, I find it helpful to have a preparation in reading it.
My experience of the book was skewed because I went in expecting a good story but found instead a story that was heavily symbolic and in every turn.
It took me a while to get my focus off the plausibility or likability of the story and characters and onto the message the book was trying to convey. I wonder if my experience would have been better had I known what I was reading. The plot was a framework on which to hang the ideas.
The plot was secondary. I made a great error by skipping the introduction. I often avoid reading the back of books or reviews or even the introduction before hand because they give away the story. However, here is a book where I did myself a great disservice by skipping all that. If I were going to be very responsible - I would start again on page one and reread this book from the platform on which I now stand I want to say that I will attempt this book again in the future knowing what I know now In the meantime, I plan to read introductions more often.
This book not only taught me and challenged me on issues of race relations, questions of identity, problems with ideology, etc I read this book wrong and therefore I nearly wasted it. May 05, Tom Mathews rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: anyone who likes to have their horizons expanded. Shelves: read-in , history-historical , group-reads. While no assessment of the black experience in America would be complete without a discussion of racism, Invisible Man is so much more than that.
I could talk for hours about the many, many fascinating ideas that Ellison imparts, but I will settle for describing one chapter out of the many great ones Ellison created. In this chapter, our narrator has managed to find a job at a paint factory.
I suspect I will be running for a long time to come. Dec 08, B. Shelves: favorites , modernism-and-post-modernism-stuff. I do not consider myself a "bibliophile" at that time, but I was now on my way.
I have always felt it difficult to describe the impact that Invisible Man had on me, but it woke me from my dogmatic slumber. I had, as most did, gone through a world in which I knew things were more precarious arbitrarily cruel for me because my ethnicity, but I did not truly question—or should I say had the question put to me why this was in such an intense way. Life in my neighborhood was a precarious one in which danger and the threat of death was the ever-present miasma.
I had felt like lightning had been written into my soul and was trying to understand what I had read. I was coming into my 14th year on this Earth and had never read any lines like that in my life. Maybe in the Bible there were epic passages close to that, but to find something that summed-up what my—and many peoples around me—life looked like and I had only read the first twelve pages of the novel.
After a few months just reading that prologue and finally feeling confident enough to go on, I proceeded to read the rest of the novel and decided that I must read everything by this man and understand how to understand the world as he did. When I found out that this book had been banned by Randolph County [school board], North Carolina for not having any "merit", on the weekend before banned books week, the irony could not be more incredible.
The book details the personal, cultural, and existential alienation and forced invisibility of the main character and others like him. It has been ranked in almost every list of greatest novels of the 20th century and is one of, if not the greatest, novel of post-war America. The fact that this book could be banned in the 21st century means that it is still important and the themes it brings up more alive than when it was written.
The thing about banning a book is that you usually increase interest in it that way and it was no exception here as demand for the book doubled days after it was banned. What surprised me was how forceful and decisive public outcry was that only 10 days after it was banned vote , the ban itself was overturned vote. So it seems our nameless narrator can, for the time being, come out of his "hole" in Randolph County, NC.
I don't know where to began with this one. I guess everyone who likes to read has that one book. This book is that to me. Before I read this book I didn't know that I had a opinion or view on anything really especially not race or politics. I picked this book up in the 8th grade as apart of an assignment I had to do on the author and my aunt just happened to have a beat up copy of this book.
Let's just say that it opened my eyes to the world around me and I still can't fathom the impact that this book has had on me. I have read many books since some could be considered "better" but I still hold this book closest in my heart and well I know this isn't a proper review I may yet do one of those later this is a book I would not have to think twice on recommending to anyone. View all 4 comments. May 01, Jesse rated it it was amazing. The chief irony, as has been noted through article headlines, is that in drawing a most stunning portrait of an invisible man, Ralph Ellison became arguably the most visible black writer of all time Toni Morrison , assuredly would also receive votes.
The irony being a result of Ellison using key events of his life as a foundation for the major plot points of his novel attending an all black college, a move north, communist association , and then after telling this story of invisibility suddenl The chief irony, as has been noted through article headlines, is that in drawing a most stunning portrait of an invisible man, Ralph Ellison became arguably the most visible black writer of all time Toni Morrison , assuredly would also receive votes.
The irony being a result of Ellison using key events of his life as a foundation for the major plot points of his novel attending an all black college, a move north, communist association , and then after telling this story of invisibility suddenly garnering praise and winning awards. Yet this irony is most keenly viewed through our 21st century eyes; we must remember that Invisible Man was released in , a full dozen years before The Civil Rights Act.
And thus, for Ellison, his visibility was mostly seen as the rise of a great Negro writer despite his best efforts to shed that appellation. And, to put it bluntly, the critics of his day were wrong. IM is not just a great work of African American fiction, it is a great and timeless work of art. Ellison is able to paint the struggle of Invisible as rationality education, logic, reason versus irrationality patronization, racism, Jim Crow. The hues of paranoia that shade Invisible foreshadow Pynchon, and DeLillo, writers whom, to be sure, do not work with Negro themes.
Invisible is universal because he represents any rational man who attempts to navigate an irrational society. The specific plot points obviously deal with black themes of racism and black identity, but in no different way than Philip Roth deals with anti-semitism, and Jewish identity. Ellison also incorporates nuanced symbolism borrowed from Europe's Modernist movement: the black puppet that Tod Clifton sells, the briefcase that accompanies Invisible on his journey, the paint company representing white supremacy whose paint is used on goverment buildings.
These are more out of Joyce, or Eliot, than Langston Hughes. And yet, within this Western-styled novel that contains a universal narrator and protagonist, the most advanced ideas of black identity are explored. Invisible is a white man's destiny, as that man decides to treat black colleges as a way toward building a legacy, not toward black equality. Or the Brotherhood a loose parallel of the communist party, with whom Ellison had a falling out using racial inequality and blacks frustration with the status quo to help agitate and propagandize: not in order to truly help blacks gain equality, but in order to boost membership and further their cause of spreading communism.
At every turn Invisible is used, never asked for his opinion or ideas, but told what is best for him. Even the black authority uses Invisible - the brutal Dr. Bledsoe who sells out Invisible by subtly manipulating him, encouraging him to run, nigger, run. And this drives him underground, this irrationality that allowed a nation founded on freedom to contain four million slaves, that allowed tenants such as seperate but equal, that allowed a master novelist and artist to be called a Negro writer.
And yet within IM there is hope of reconciliation: where the Prologue which reads more as a Foreword is filled with violence, drug use and theft, the Epilogue reading as an Afterword contains philisophical gestures of understanding, and reluctant acceptance. Just as Ellison attempted to reach across racial lines sometimes to the detriment and consternation of other black writers and intellectuals and use his individual intelligence and creativity to push white racial prejudice further into the realm of irrationality.
But Ellison also bemoaned his own race's unwillingness to seriously take on Western art and ideas and not just fall back on minority provincialism to use his words. Because to Ellison, blacks are not just minorities they are part of the American concsiousness and he should know, he gave them their voice. May 08, Diane Barnes rated it it was amazing. This book was brilliant. I'm tempted to stop right there, because what else can be said?
If I hadn't known that the novel was published in , I would have sworn it was a contemporary tale. Does that mean Ralph Ellison was ahead of his time, or that time has stood still and nothing has changed in 64 years? So many of the quotes and positions of The Brotherhood could be taken right out of the mouths of our current crop of politicians on both sides of the U.
Some favorite quotes: "My God, boy! You're black and living in the South - did you forget how to lie?
Even if it lands you in a straitjacket or padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way. And remember, the world is possibility if only you'll discover it. What a waste, what a senseless waste!
Our fate is to become one, and yet many Ellison ' s words instead of my own, but I will repeat my first statement: This book is brilliant. View all 7 comments. Dec 12, Duane rated it really liked it Shelves: american-classics , rated-books , reviewed-books , national-book-award , guardian Winner of the National Book Award. One of the defining novels of the 20th century. You don't find racism and bigotry just in the South, you find it everywhere, and in many different forms and layers.
Ellison does a masterful job of showing this through his unique style and prose. It's impact and influence on the reader will forever change the way you view your place in society and how your actions influence the lives of those around you. Revised Feb. View 1 comment. Dec 28, Bam cooks the books ;- rated it it was amazing Shelves: book-vipers-monthly-read , classics , library-book , reads , books-to-read-before-you-die.
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? But it didn't take long to realize my mistake when I began reading Ellison's classic. T "Now that I no longer felt ashamed of the things I had always loved, I probably could no longer digest very many of them.
And then realizing, no matter WHAT you do, it will never be enough because of the color of your skin Highly recommend! Jan 27, Rhonda rated it really liked it. I read this as an elitist college freshman and understood it all as an allegory. The opening pages were more than a little shocking and graphic, but I accepted them in a way that was outside of actual life.
I knew that it was written a long time before I read it and it was to be perused and appreciated rather than absorbed. I think scholars tend to do that kind of thing because it keeps us at arm's length to feeling. Who is Rinehart? Why does the narrator turn against the Brotherhood? Summary Key Facts. Tense Past, with present-tense sections in the Prologue and Epilogue Setting time The s Setting place A black college in the South; New York City, especially Harlem Protagonist The narrator Major conflict The narrator seeks to act according to the values and expectations of his immediate social group, but he finds himself continuously unable to reconcile his socially imposed role as a black man with his inner concept of identity, or even to understand his inner identity.
Previous section Full Book Analysis. But the narrator's excitement soon turns to disillusionment as he discovers that the North presents the same barriers to black achievement as the South. Realizing that he cannot return to college, the narrator accepts a job at a paint factory famous for its optic white paint, unaware that he is one of several blacks hired to replace white workers out on strike. Nearly killed in a factory explosion, the narrator subsequently undergoes a grueling ordeal at the paint factory hospital, where he finds himself the object of a strange experiment by the hospital's white doctors.
Following his release from the hospital, the narrator finds refuge in the home of Mary Rambo, a kind and generous black woman, who feeds him and nurses him back to health. Although grateful to Mary, whom he acknowledges as his only friend, the narrator — anxious to earn a living and do something with his life — eventually leaves Mary to join the Brotherhood, a political organization that professes to be dedicated to achieving equality for all people.
Under the guidance of the Brotherhood and its leader, Brother Jack, the narrator becomes an accomplished speaker and leader of the Harlem District. He also has an abortive liaison with Sybil, a sexually frustrated white woman who sees him as the embodiment of the stereotypical black man endowed with extraordinary sexual prowess.
But after the tragic death of his friend Tod Clifton, a charismatic young black "Brother" who is shot by a white policeman, the narrator becomes disillusioned with the disparity between what the organization preaches and what its leaders practice.
As a result, he decides to leave the Brotherhood, headquartered in an affluent section of Manhattan, and returns to Harlem where he is confronted by Ras the Exhorter now Ras the Destroyer who accuses him of betraying the black community. To escape the wrath of Ras and his men, the narrator disguises himself by donning a hat and dark glasses.
In disguise, he is repeatedly mistaken for someone named Rinehart, a con man who uses his invisibility to his own advantage. The issues Ellison so powerfully addresses are those that confront everyone who lives in the modern world: not only racism but the very question of personal identity, our frustrated impulse to assert ourselves in a world which is metaphorically blind. Shortly before his death Ellison acknowledged the fact that his novel had expanded the very meaning of the word "invisible.
Born and raised in the rural South, he is a star pupil at a college for black students. He dreams of racial uplift through humility and hard work, a doctrine preached by the school and the larger Southern culture.
The naive young man is "educated" by being slowly disabused of all his ideals. Despite this, in the end he chooses to reject cynicism and hatred and to embrace a philosophy of hope.
Ellison wanted his novel to transcend the rage and hopelessness of the protest novel and assert a world of possibility, however remote.
It is surreal because "life is surreal," and it is funny—often hilariously so—because "what else was there to sustain our will to persevere but laughter? The novel also reflects the rhetorical richness of the African-American culture, using a wide range of idiomatic styles.
Through it he asserts the excitement of human experience in a world in which the unexpected is always happening. How are minorities treated in our culture? What justifications do white people make to themselves for this treatment? Do African-Americans ever show prejudice toward one another? The questions below test reader comprehension, suggest themes for in-depth discussion, and point the way toward more extensive reading and research.
Students should be encouraged to read the newspapers and watch the news on television, keeping a journal on contemporary events that touch racial themes. Why is Mr. Why have white people lavished help upon Trueblood since his disgrace, when they ignored him before his crime?
Why do the students and teachers at the college hate and fear Trueblood and the other "black belt" inhabitants? Bledsoe give the narrator a second chance at the college? Why does the narrator refuse grits and pork chops at the breakfast counter?
Why does young Mr. Emerson show Invisible Man the contents of the letter? Why does Invisible Man mistrust his offers of friendship? What is the motto of the Liberty Paint Company? What is their method of keeping paint pure white? In what way does the ethos of the company resemble that of the American Republic?
Why is Lucius Brockway against unionization? Is Brockway being used by the white bosses, or is he taking advantage of his position and knowledge to use others? Ellison gives a detailed catalogue of the belongings of the elderly evicted couple.
What do these individual items signify? Why does Emma think Invisible Man should be "a little blacker"? Why is it appropriate that the narrator is unable to rid himself of it? Why does Brother Tarp choose the narrator to be the recipient of his leg chain? Does he see it as specifically mocking him? What does the word "Tod" mean in German?
Why is this a symbolically appropriate name for Tod Clifton? What does Invisible Man mean when he says that Sybil sees him as an "entertainer? In what way is the riot at the end of the book reminiscent of the battle royal at the beginning? What has accounted for the change in Mr. Why does Invisible Man move underground after the riot? For in-class discussion 1. Do you feel that Dr. What about Tod Clifton? And what about Rinehart?
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