Invisible Man

by Ralph Ellison

When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me.

Or again, you often doubt if you really exist.

You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful.

although the end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.

Since you never recognize me even when in closest contact with me, and since, no doubt, you'll hardly believe that I exist,

You can't give it to me. He bumped me, he insulted me. Shouldn't he, for his own personal safety, have recognized my hysteria, my "danger potential"? He, let us say, was lost in a dream world. But didn't he control that dream world -- which, alas, is only too real! -- and didn't he rule me out of it? And if he had yelled for a policeman, wouldn't I have been taken for the offending one?

"Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open."

Grandfather had been a quiet old man who never made any trouble, yet on his deathbed he had called himself a traitor and a spy,

And to make it worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men of the town. I was considered an example of desirable conduct -- just as my grandfather had been. And what puzzled me was that the old man had defined it as treachery.