Identity in a Color-Conscious Society in 'Invisible Man' Essay

“Still, I was more afraid to act any other way because they didn’t like that at all”.

(Ellison, Invisible Man 1952)

Ellison’s Invisible Man represents one of the most significant problems of American society which is racism and the conflict it generates in African American life. The degree of psychological trauma the protagonist of the novel suffered due to the conflicts of double identity and double vision (which are explained in the first chapter of this thesis) is devastating. Throughout the novel, this internal conflict leads to and influences the narrator’s discovery of his true personality and potential in a multicultural American setting. The dual self-awareness that an African American has about himself is expanded by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, as double-consciousness which is thoroughly explained in the first chapter. Du Bois defines double consciousness as African Americans being forced to view themselves through the hostile and imposed perspectives of white Americans, also struggling to maintain their own self-defined opinions of themselves at the same time. Double consciousness theory affirms that African Americans can “see” themselves through (and look from) their individual and black perspectives while also seeing themselves through (and looking from) the perspectives of the dominant white culture. Hence African Americans, as oppressed people, have been forced to develop a dual perception of who they are as human beings and as blacks who are positioned as racially inferior in a white supremacist society. (Wikipedia 2021).

Du Bois argues that African Americans must be aware of whites’ negative and racist perceptions as subordinated people. In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903 DuBois analyses the concept of double consciousness into three different approaches; First, the power of White stereotypes on Black life and the way of thinking, second, racism and the segregation of Black Americans from White Americans, in the end, Du Bois reveals the internal conflict between being an American from African succession and being an American from White American succession. (Essay 2018). This chapter will deal with the third issue mentioned above and the impact it has on the narrator of The Invisible Man. Through the usage of concepts like invisibility, blindness, and alienation Ellison explores the double vision, double identity, and the internal struggle with the narrator’s self-perception.

The narrator's realization that everybody was attempting to define him goes back twenty years ago since he was a young boy. He recalls in mind his grandfather’s last will on his deathbed saying to his son 'Keep up the great battle.' He preaches to his nephew to satisfy the white man's desires while remaining wary and sour inside. The old man goes on by saying, that this was how he lived his life, on one hand pretending to be a silent “meek” man who tries to satisfy his master, on the other hand trying to deceive them, but now on his deathbed, he realizes that has lived in a 'deceitful” life. The narrator's family thinks that the old man has lost his mind, but these words lay upon him as a 'curse' throughout the novel.

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 gave up my gun 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 on ’em to death and destruction, let ’em swollen you till they vomit or bust wide open (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952, 16).

The protagonist, who is said to look like his Grandfather, is seriously concerned by these words, which he fails to understand and torment him through his uncommon journey into invisibility, so according to his grandad’s advice blacks should keep two identities, they should obey and try to satisfy the White’s wish so that to meet the whites’ expectations. Whereas they should remember their sourness and bitterness, and fight against this imposed deceitful identity. “ It was as though he had not died at all, his words caused so much anxiety.” (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952).

Even though the narrator is considered “as an example of desirable conduct” (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952), by the whites of the community where he lives, he subconsciously perceives the duality of his actions, on one hand, if he acts following the white’s expectation he feels like he is committing treachery toward his people (as his grandfather considers it), on the other hand, if he does otherwise he cannot go far with his life. Yet in this pre-invisible phase of his life, the narrator tries to meet white’s stereotypical expectancy that they have for black people. As Pape Mawade Sylla emphasizes those generalizations have influenced profoundly the psyche of the African Americans who try to suppress their true self by Whites’ demands so that they can be accepted and integrated into American society. (Sylla 2022)

Due to his desirable conduct, the narrator is invited to deliver a speech on his graduation day, but before this, he and other black boys had to participate half-naked in a” battle royal” for the sake of entertaining the important well-dressed townsmen of the white society. The prize for the winner is some gold coins set on an electrified carpet in which the two last standing should drag themselves along to collect the coins. The narrator is thrown into the boxing ring and is shaken and bloodied. He manages to stand at the last two but he loses at the end. Still, the narrator does not look impressed by the bloody black guys who fight furiously at each other, he is concerned about his final speech. “On my graduation day, I delivered an oration in which I showed that humility was the secret, indeed, the very essence of progress. (Not that I believed this could I, remembering my grandfather? -I only believed that it worked.)” (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952, 17). The speech included humiliating words to the blacks and pleasing words to the whites. While delivering his speech, he made a mistake instead of saying “social responsibility” he said, “social equality” which made the whites very angry but as soon as he corrected it, he was praised with a scholarship.

‘social….

What? They yelled.

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‘……equality- ‘

The laughter hung smokelike in the sudden stillness, I opened my eyes, puzzled. Sounds of displeasure filled the room. The MC rushed forward. They shouted hostile phrases at me. But I did not understand. A small mustache man in the front row blared out, ‘Say that slowly, son.

What, sir?

What you just said! Social responsibility, sir, I said.

You weren’t being smart, were you, boy? He said, not unkindly.

No, sir!

Are you that” equality” was a mistake?

Oh yes, sir, I said, ‘I was swallowing blood.’

Well, you had better speak more slowly so we can understand you. We mean to do the right by you, but you’ve got to know your place at all times. (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952, 31).

From this passage is evident that the Invisible Man both knows his place and will stay within it:” Are you sure about “equality” was a mistake? OH yes, sir, I said, ‘I was swallowing blood.” (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952, 31). Then his grandfather’s “curse” comes to his mind. This event is the first tremor that awakens the narrator’s perception of who he is in reality and what others expect him to be. In his heart, he knows that he has played the fool as his grandpa suggested to him. Once the fight and the humiliating speech finish, he realizes, that he is just like the other black men: blind and unseen by whites as an individual. Thus, blacks are invisible to them as individuals who can be integrated into society. As Cornel West suggests the dilemma and obstacles that black people face deprive them of individuality, in addition, it reduces blacks to abstractions and objects born of white fantasy and insecurities, as exotic or transgressive entities, as hypersexual or criminal animals. (WEST 1993, 85).

Meanwhile, William James asserts, that African Americans chose to deal with racial discrimination and to protect themselves passively but never fight for their rights and the false identity given to them by Whites. (James 2007, 12). Once again the battle royal event catalyzes the illumination of the narrator over the position of the blacks, in particular, he witnesses the lack of power of African Americans in society, even though has just won a scholarship and now has the potential to obtain a career, he becomes aware that he will never be seen as anything more than entertainment for whites. At this point, Du Bois’s first assumption of Double Consciousness is in full effect as the main character is forced to present himself in a way that he did not intend since is seen within the stereotype frame he feels powerlessness to act differently. The idea that the white Americans had of African Americans was stereotypical and was deep-rooted in the belief of the superiority of White Americans and the inferiority of African Americans.

The narrator s submissiveness is praised by the white school superintendent who grants him a calfskin briefcase that contains a scholarship to attend the local college for Negroes: Keep developing as you are and someday it will be filled with important papers that will help shape the destiny of your people. (Ellison, Invisible Man 1952, 34).