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Invisible Man

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 63,341 ratings · 2,275 reviews

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely...more

Paperback, 581 pages

Published March 14th 1995 by Vintage (first published 1952)

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Apr 07, 2013 Megan Baxter rated it 5 of 5 stars

The writing is hypnotic in Invisible Man and the dread all-pervasive. Every time I sat down to read a bit more, I was sucked into the prose, even though it made me deeply uneasy and worried about what was going to happen next.

It is stark, it is poetic, it is difficult, and it is rewarding.

A stunning look at one black man's experience in mid-century America. I almost wrote "the black experience" and then realized that that would be creating exactly the kind of invisibility that the main characte...more The writing is hypnotic in Invisible Man and the dread all-pervasive. Every time I sat down to read a bit more, I was sucked into the prose, even though it made me deeply uneasy and worried about what was going to happen next.

It is stark, it is poetic, it is difficult, and it is rewarding.

A stunning look at one black man's experience in mid-century America. I almost wrote "the black experience" and then realized that that would be creating exactly the kind of invisibility that the main character wraps himself in. Over the course of the book, the nameless narrator is many symbols of blackness to many different people, but almost no one actually sees him as himself, as an individual, as a person.

He is seen as a disappointing letdown to the college dream, a management fink, a union snitch, the voice of the community, the symbol of resistance, a savage black lover, a toady to the white man, and finally, almost as a horrible example.

Thrown out of his college, the narrator makes his way to New York City, to a job, briefly, and eventually to The Brotherhood, an organization working to reform on the world on "scientific" principles. But every time things started to go well, I knew that something bad was right around the corner, and almost dreaded turning the page.

Those he works for want to use him, those who oppose him want to eliminate him, and everywhere, he sees the desire for ideological purity used to justify the suppression of individuals, in the name of liberating those same individuals. The narrator's inability to turn off his sense of self, and his sense of the selfhood of others leads him into trouble, again and again. Being able to tolerate contradiction and ambiguity brings him into conflict with those who want to see only pure and tainted. The many varieties of racism are coolly and lucidly displayed.

The sheer complexity of this book, the ideas that fly off these pages and strike you right between the eyeballs, and it's all wrapped up in a virtuoso display of prose.

Crossposted at Smorgasbook (less)

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Jun 09, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Individualists; Recovering Ideologues

Shelves: modern-library-100, 20th-century, african-american, time-100, national-book-award, national-book-award-author, oklahoma-author

Do you see me now? Do you see me now? How do you not see me? How do I not see you? Let us count the ways. Not only is the narrator invisible, we don’t even learn his name. He is a brilliant African-American who comes of age in the Deep South and moves to Harlem during the thirties. On his journey, he encounters opposition not only from the whites but from different factions of strongly opinionated African-Americans.

“I am an invisible man," he proclaims in the first sentence and proceeds to tak...more

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Feb 16, 2009 brian rated it 2 of 5 stars

after an almost intolerably harrowing and intense first chapter, this book is a major letdown. of obvious historical importance, but an inferior and turgid work of literature in which every character but the protagonist is reduced to an over-simplified archetype meant to represent a particular demographic of american society.

what i found most interesting, however, is that despite having lived another forty-two years, ellison never published another novel. from wikipedia:

In 1967, Ellison experie...more

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Jan 25, 2008 Nathaniel rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is strongly reminiscent of German Expressionist drama from the early 20th century. It suffers from an inability to actually characterize anyone beyond the protagonist. Every other character is crushed by the need to represent a whole class or demographic. All of the other figures are episodes in his life, his personal development, his realization of society's deep-seated decay and his inexorable (and predictable) movement towards disillusionment. Which is to say that it is a heavy-handed, y...more

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Sep 03, 2007 Beggs rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All Americas and anyone interested in race or america

Shelves: favorite-fiction

Invisible Man is still as powerful and elegant now as it was when I first read it in school. I understand it better now that I am a bit more mature. I understand it better reading as an outsider looking back on my homeland. I understand it better as a member of the minority in my chosen home. I understand it less and less as a human.

Less because I cannot fathom the reality that lead to the situation Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist finds the world in. The idea of slavery, Jim Crow and every...more

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Oct 21, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, merkins, penguin-classics, worshipped

A powerful, energetic tour de force: timeless, breathtaking, politically ablaze, tremendously comic. I only have one more thing to say:

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Jan 27, 2009 Rhonda rated it 4 of 5 stars

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.

I cannot apologize for what I believed because it was the only way I could have...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Sony rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is incredible! I didn't understand all of it, but I understood most of it, and what I did understand touched my soul. The narrator's journey from trying to be "somebody" in the South to finally becoming "someone" in New York was fascinating, and analogous to his emotional/psychological journey. He goes from internalizing overt oppression to embracing another sort of deceptive oppressive to a startling realization about the world, how they see him, and finally who he thinks he is. But w...more This book is incredible! I didn't understand all of it, but I understood most of it, and what I did understand touched my soul. The narrator's journey from trying to be "somebody" in the South to finally becoming "someone" in New York was fascinating, and analogous to his emotional/psychological journey. He goes from internalizing overt oppression to embracing another sort of deceptive oppressive to a startling realization about the world, how they see him, and finally who he thinks he is. But what makes this book powerful is that he represents so many other people. He's telling a story about how marganalized people are constantly being defined and seen in the eyes of others and how they embrace and reject those definitions and reflections of themselves. The writing is gorgeous, and most of the times, fluid and easy to sink into. I found myself looking forward to reading, like I was going to go visit an old friend. He tells a good story. It feels very personal, and too often I could relate to his thoughts and feelings.

However, there were times when I got confused and lost because sometimes he uses esoteric allegories and analogies to describes experiences. When that happens its easy to get lost in the descriptions because its hard to grasp what's really happening. But that didn't happen often.

What's really striking is how little this story has aged. It was written in the 50's I believe, yet the issues, the identity crisis, even the upheaval portrayed in Harlem still reasonate with what's going on today. It's scary, and amazing. It's like Ellison had a prophetic vision about the very nature of man, power, and identity and put it into a tale that will be timeless because the nature of the things he's talkig about is timeless. I highlighted several passages throughout, but my favorite one is the one that perfectly summarizes why he wrote this novel. He is one of the marganalized, one of the invisible, yet by experiencing all that he's gone through and sharing his story he is making the invisible visible for others who cannot see or refuse to see those who are made invisible in our society:

"Being invisible and without substance, a disembodied voice, as it were, what else could I do? What else but try to tell you what was really happening when your eyes were only looking through? Who knows but that, on the lower frequency, I speak for you?"

I will be re-reading this again.(less)

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Oct 09, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to K.D. by: TIME Magazine 100 Best Novels, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, time-100

This novel can make you angry. A story of a young black man's search of his place under the sun. Heavy emphasis on being black and the difficulties that he has to go through because he is black. A book that oozes with racism. The problem of being a black during the 20's-50's in the Deep South as well as in the North in the now called Land of Freedom. Of the Brave. Of Opportunities. This book screams at us: Black. BLAck. BLACK.

The eloquent unnamed narrator is a black man who participates in a con...more

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Jan 24, 2008 Erin Mallon rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone. It should be required!

Recommended to Erin by: Sunny

All my fears for this book were completely unfounded. I expected something dry and historic, and certainly something that couldn't begin to answer the questions it appears to deal with. It is in fact something alive, empathetic, and which poses questions much larger than even broad racial issues can. It is a book about humanity, identity, and the many ways we see these things-or, more appropriately, the way we often don't. More astounding, it seems to offer answers. Not the one-sided, simplified...more

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Mar 19, 2008 Kay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: I wrote my master's thesis on Ellison's novel because I thought the first time that I read it that it is one of the most significant pieces of literature from the 20th century. Now that I teach it in my AP English class, I've reread it many times, and I'm more convinced than ever that if you are only going to read one book in your life, it should be this one. The unnamed protagonist re-enacts the diaspora of African-Americans from the South to the North--and the surreal experien...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Jabari rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone, especially high school students

Shelves: required-reading

As the ancient Mayans said, this world is an illusion, like a smoky mirror, and we live according to a lie we call 'Reality'. Racism is a part of the lie. There's no such thing as a black or white person, it's merely one of many roles or masks that people put on or have put upon them. I've felt this since an early age. Ellison, with every word, phrase, and paragraph illuminated, textured and liberated this truth that sleeps in the diseased heart of America. If that is the case, then who are you...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Bethan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: regular-fiction

A very interesting novel. Oddly, it often carried a surreal, science fiction effect to me yet was about realistic situations. It's not a dry book and there's plenty of movement and action as it follows a young black man from his disappointed college ambitions to becoming a Harlem speaker for social progress. He is concerned with race politics: how to be and act to get ahead as a black man, or for black people in general.

His college is patronised by wealthy white men and is stewarded by the head...more A very interesting novel. Oddly, it often carried a surreal, science fiction effect to me yet was about realistic situations. It's not a dry book and there's plenty of movement and action as it follows a young black man from his disappointed college ambitions to becoming a Harlem speaker for social progress. He is concerned with race politics: how to be and act to get ahead as a black man, or for black people in general.

His college is patronised by wealthy white men and is stewarded by the headmaster Dr Bledsoe who represents the black man who is obsequious to the white man at the expense of standing up for black people, as the narrator found out to his cost. On the other pole, the agitator Ras the Exhorter is the black man who believes in waging war on white men to further black people. The narrator didn't seem to think that this really solves anything (which I too think: it escalates things and just causes a cycle of destruction).

The narrator is hired by a social progress 'Brotherhood' as a speaker for his oratory gifts but they aren't interested in his views or really in him. He's just a tool to them and he saw their true colours when they betrayed his fellow black Brother, Clifton's humanity for a cold and scientific principle that missed the bigger point that Clifton was probably killed for being black (a Trayvon Martin-like situation).

So ultimately, from his experience with these three ways, the narrator's humanity and place in the world is invalidated, and hence he is "invisible". So.. what is he to do? Politically and socially he doesn't really fit in anywhere or there is no place for him. He withdraws into his invisibility and explores it. He has no easy solution but I think I see this novel as about 'seeing the individual' and the humanity of the individual. He seems to retain grip on the principle by which I take to mean an ethical one of equality, for it is a good founding stone for all it cannot really do in the messiness of the real world where colour and identity do exist. I think it's a good conclusion: moderation, balance; seeing both the chaos and the pattern. (And hopefully I'm not projecting and haven't misunderstood it..)(less)

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Nov 25, 2012 Chelsea rated it 3 of 5 stars

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...more 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 - only knowing that it was a book on the top 100 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... but up until that point I found myself lost and often dreading opening the book.

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.... but... its 600 pages and I've got a to-read list a mile long. I want to say that I will attempt this book again in the future knowing what I know now... but I can't promise.

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... but it challenged my understanding of what it means to be a good reader. I read this book wrong and therefore I nearly wasted it.(less)

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Feb 27, 2013 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-reading-list, 2013-star-wars, 2013-a-z

This book is a work of sheer genius, with an incredible amount of content and storyline (600 pages!) that, to be quite honest, is hard to keep up with. I originally gave this book 4 stars because I finished it very confused when I first read it 15 years ago, but this time I realize that part of the challenge of this book is putting words to the narrator's experience in Black America, when that experience is fraught with contradictions and smoke and mirrors, placed upon it by White America, racis...more This book is a work of sheer genius, with an incredible amount of content and storyline (600 pages!) that, to be quite honest, is hard to keep up with. I originally gave this book 4 stars because I finished it very confused when I first read it 15 years ago, but this time I realize that part of the challenge of this book is putting words to the narrator's experience in Black America, when that experience is fraught with contradictions and smoke and mirrors, placed upon it by White America, racism, and history. Concerning one of the main themes of the book, the narrator himself says in the epilogue: "It escapes me; I can't figure it out." If that's true for him, then why shouldn't I be confused?

Ellison's writing style in this novel is both very accessible, and also very literary. The broad strokes and dialogue are well-written and easy to follow, but he interleaves complex wordplay, allegories, and poetic descriptions as a constant background harmonic, adding layers of meaning that require more than one sitting to grasp. In that way I would compare this novel to one of Shakespeare's plays, or to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I can easily tell you what happened in the book, but I desperately wanted footnotes during the course of the book to help me understand what was happening. At the same time, the book was so long that footnotes would have only ended in a disastrous stall for me, so I think the reread every ten years or so is the best strategy.

Although I feel this book has earned 5 stars, I confess that I am still at a point in my evolution that I only appreciate it at a 4.5 star level. This second reading was enlightening for me. I was surprised at the many important scenes that I had forgotten or misconstrued. I found myself understanding things that I had not understood before. And having done that, I realized that it was partly my own limitations, not the novel's, that had kept it from being a 5 star book for me.

Realizing that the complexity of his writing and the issues being discussed were part of the obstacle for me allowed me to forgive myself a little for being confused much of the time. And having understood much more the second time around allows me to feel hopeful I will eventually "get" most of this book. So until we meet again, my fine friend, I will keep you here in my heart among the other great books that I have had the honor to have read.(less)

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May 19, 2008 Jesse rated it 5 of 5 stars

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...more 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 1952, 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.
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Jun 30, 2010 Mercedes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow, after reading a lot of light stuff lately this book knocked me on my ass. I love knowing from the first paragraph that you are in the hands of a master. This narrative of an invisible man in society was fluid and vibrant – jazz like. Makes sense as Ralph Emerson Ellison was also a jazz musician. While I don't pretend to understand the dynamics of being an African American male in society, I could still relate to the idea of diluting into invisibility by trying to fit into what society dicta...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Fawaz Ali rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: platinum-list

This is a fascinating book by all standards. It is actually a celebration of literary genius. Ralph Ellison creates a compelling character, one that we all could identify with. This is not the story of black struggle; it is the story of human struggle. Please read this book slowly and you will find pieces of yourself scattered within.
No question, this is one of the greatest books of the 20th century.

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Sep 08, 2011 Ann rated it 5 of 5 stars

I started reading this because my Kindle recommended it - well, it appeared as a screensaver, and I'd never read it, so I bought it! It is annoying me at the moment (I'm nearly halfway) because it is SO well written it takes you in to the narrator and you feel what he is feeling. And when he's a bit confused, tightly wound and on edge, it's not a nice way to feel!

OH-kay - have now finished the book.
In summary: Wow. You become the narrator.. Stunningly, subtly powerful. And what magical words, b...more

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Aug 01, 2010 Tortla rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: dedicated students of American literature

Shelves: classics, schooly, dragons, writing-on-writing

It started out as a book with a promising premise: a man is invisible to a society which he disdains. He is violent and self-righteous and mysterious, and introduces a world of complicated struggles against ignorance. Or something. But then the story begins. It's a long-winded narration of how this man has come to be invisible--and less than 100 pages from the end of this plodding 500-page-plus tome there are still only hints of this "how." It's a story of a man becoming jaded, told from the per...more

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Nov 22, 2008 Christina rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Ethics Studies Students

Shelves: required-for-high-school, list-ap-literature, 2008-reads, classics, list-college-readers

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

4 likes · like · see review

Aug 02, 2008 Aleathia Drehmer rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with social awareness or who needs some

Recommended to Aleathia by: Ed Churchouse

I finally finished this book!! I had preconceived notions as to what this book was about before I started reading it and they were shattered almost instantly. I guess I take things too literally most of the time and the idea got into my head that the main character would actually have powers of invisibility.....like superpowers.

Instead, I was taken on a journey through the eyes of a black man in the beginning and middle stages of racial upheaval in the north, particularly Harlem. The book is den...more I finally finished this book!! I had preconceived notions as to what this book was about before I started reading it and they were shattered almost instantly. I guess I take things too literally most of the time and the idea got into my head that the main character would actually have powers of invisibility.....like superpowers.

Instead, I was taken on a journey through the eyes of a black man in the beginning and middle stages of racial upheaval in the north, particularly Harlem. The book is dense with thought and internal torture of the inspection of how races of people interact with one another and also, how we deceive ourselves when we want something to be as we'd like it. We can put on our own blinders with the sheer thought of hope.

I cannot begin to do this book justice by trying to review it or explain the intricate nature of the journey, because it is written like the saddest jazz song you have ever heard. I am not a musician. I am just a woman.

"I moved forward, found the steps and started down. Below the bridge lay the hard stone river of the street, and for a second I looked at the waves of cobblestones as though I had expected water, as though the fountain above had drawn from them. Still I would enter and go across to Harlem. Below the steps the trolley rails gleamed steely. I hurried, the sound drawing closer, myriad-voiced, humming, enfolding me, numbing the air, as I started beneath the ramp. It came, a twitter, a coo, a subdued roar that seemed trying to tell me something, give me some message. I stopped, looking around me; the girders marched off rhythmically into the dark, over the cobblestones the red lights shone. Then I was beneath the bridge and it was as though they had been waiting for me and no one but me--dedicated and set aside for me--for an eternity. And I looked above toward the sound, my mind forming an image of wings, as something struck my face and streaked, and I could smell the foul air now, and see the encrusted barrage, feeling it streak my jacket and raising my brief case above my head and running, hearing it splattering around, falling like rain. I ran the gauntlet, thinking, even the birds; even the pigeons and the sparrows and the goddam gulls! I ran blindly, boiling with outrage and despair and harsh laughter. Running from the birds to what, I didn't know. I ran. Why was I here at all? I ran through the night, ran within myself. Ran." --Ralph Ellison "Invisible Man"
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Jun 22, 2008 Marc rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All young children

Recommended to Marc by: Forgotten named school teacher

This was one of the first books I seriously read in High School. When I say seriously, I mean I took in its meaning and purpose rather just appreciate a good story. This book is about a young black man on his quest to be successful in a society dominated by white men, in a time where being colored, one was looked upon with the same significance one would look at a blade of grass. His fruitless quest to be come seen and no longer invisible, awoke within me an awareness, I have not ignored in the...more

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Oct 04, 2007 Paige Nguyen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dear Journal,

I almost regret taking the job driving Mr. Norton. even thought the job does come with a good pay (especially since Mr. Norton is a millionaire); I made a mistake of showing him the cabins where the slaves live and I mentioned Jim Trueblood. I was just trying to show him the countryside. I felt like an idiot because then he asked about Jim Trueblood. I told Mr. Norton of how Jim had impregnated his daughter and then the next thing I know Mr. Norton was wanting to talk to Jim! I got...more

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Sep 03, 2007 Javier rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: post-college

I didn't really like this book. Maybe I just didn't get into it enough, or maybe I misread it, but I feel that, for me, Ellison here had little new to say; I feel I've learned far less with this book than with many others that I've read recently. Granted, I think the way race is dealt with in this book is something important to consider--something that I often forget about. I would agree with one of the reviewers here who says that the mere fact that our country (or any country, for that matter)...more

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Dec 29, 2008 Afrijewel rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book in college, freshmen year 2nd semester...not willingly. For me, honestly speaking it was a hard read. The professor dissected each chapter...no joy in that initially. But I am glad I read, again a must read. It spoke of racial barriers, politics...and to be truthful I think of James Bond...as related to undercover agents - ulterior motives.

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Jun 15, 2007 Erica rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Every American

Shelves: favorites

This is as of now my favorite book. I can't even really explain it...but it just got me. I"d have to re-read it again to say exactly why. Sometimes someone just writes one work and it's a masterpiece. That's why whenever someone says that Harper Lee didn't write To Kill a Mockingbird I try to use IM as a defense. It is actually possible for a person to produce one great work and then be done. Two little gems about race in America...they stand alone in their genuis and yet are slighted. I'm sure...more

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Mar 09, 2009 Whitaker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-canon, united-states, 2009-read

A powerfully told parable of race and identity.

This novel is just as trenchantly relevant today as it was in Ellison’s time, for the politics of identity is just as much, if not more, as potent an issue today as it was then. Muslim, fundamentalist, gay, red, blue … The labels of today obscure as much as the labels of yesterday did. Yes, many of the characters other than the nameless narrator are types, but is this not the point that Ellison wishes to make? For are they not trapped in roles too?...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars

Invisible Man

As the book gets started, the narrator is expelled from his Southern Negro college for inadvertently showing a white trustee the reality of black life in the south, including an incestuous farmer and a rural whorehouse. The college director chastises him: "Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of an education are you getting around here?" Mystified, the narrator moves north to New York Cit

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Jan 19, 2009 Kenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 11th-grade-books

Unfortunately, society isn’t always beneficially to one’s search for an understanding of one’s own identity. In fact, society, as a whole, is very detrimental to this quest for self-knowledge because society contains so many factors that all influence the person to act one way or another. With a character with no name or sense of himself, the novel Invisible Man portrays how society hinders and misleads an individual in his search for his own identity. Especially in a time when racism and stereo...more Unfortunately, society isn’t always beneficially to one’s search for an understanding of one’s own identity. In fact, society, as a whole, is very detrimental to this quest for self-knowledge because society contains so many factors that all influence the person to act one way or another. With a character with no name or sense of himself, the novel Invisible Man portrays how society hinders and misleads an individual in his search for his own identity. Especially in a time when racism and stereotypes are prevalent society, an individual is vulnerable to unfair expectations, as well as lots of hatred, which in turn makes it difficult for an individual to find his true inner self.
The setting of this book is actually quite relevant to understanding the importance of society and how it affects the invisible man throughout the book. Although not clearly stated, the book seems to take place during the late 1930s to possibly the early 1950s in both the South and in Harlem, New York. It is significant to note that social equality for blacks and even women was not attained yet, so both racism and sexism are prevalent in the book. Ralph Ellison frequently describes how white men viewed blacks and women by given them specific actions. For instance, in the very beginning a group of black men, including the invisible man, fight in the middle of a ring blindfolded. The fight makes these men seem like animals or beasts; this generalization of black people that they are violent and animal-like affects how an individual views himself because the individual feels that he has to conform to what society expects him to be.
With all these outside factors influencing the way he thinks, the invisible man has to be cautious before he does what he truly wants to do. This in turn prevents him from living his own life, free from the different forces of society. Perhaps, the most unfortunate thing about all these negative effects by society is that the invisible man understands that he, by himself, cannot fix these problems. Racism and stereotypes, as well as the big ideologies in society, are too great for the individual to end and thus, the individual is harmed by their effects on his or her own identity. As the invisible man did, the best solution for one to not be affected by society is to live a life invisible to all of society and its negative aspects. (less)

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About Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born Ralph Waldo Ellison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). Ellison references music in his...more

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“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” — 1,518 people liked it

“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?” — 141 people liked it

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