Invisible Man Essays

Blindness of each the literal and figurative varieties—figures heavily in Invisible Man. Blindness symbolizes the deliberate avoidance of truth, and in the novel it has the strength to remake the world in accordance to its vision (or lack thereof). The narrator, for example, claims that he has grew to become invisible due to the fact other humans refuse to see him. Racial prejudice is the most pernicious structure of blindness in Ellison’s novel, however it is no longer the solely one. Mr. Norton, a wealthy, white trustee of the narrator’s college, can’t or will not see the true nature of his black beneficiaries’ lives. But even more damaging, the e book suggests, is his lack of ability to well known the proper nature of his very own self

Like many white characters in the novel, Norton is blind to the realities of black people’s lives. However, his shape of prejudice is extra covert than others, as he outwardly gives himself as a super supporter of black causes. Despite his generous monetary donations to the college, Norton is unable—or unwilling—to see the summary “Negroes” about whom he theorizes as real, man or woman human beings with specific thoughts and feelings. Tellingly, Norton by no means asks the narrator’s name as they force round campus together, even as he keeps that the two of them share the equal destiny. In all his years as a supporter of the school, he has by no means been off campus grounds. In order to sustain an idealized image of black people, Norton remains willfully ignorant of the real conditions of their lives, sacrificing the precise and the character for the comforting phantasm of false generalities. When Norton does come face to face with the truth of life outside campus grounds, via his exposure to Trueblood and the Golden Day tavern, he suffers a heart attack, an apparent sign of his incapability to take care of the truth.

two his figurative blindness prevents Norton from properly seeing his black beneficiaries, it also prevents him from desirable seeing himself. With his suave and genteel manner, Norton is to all appearances a benevolent trustee—and so he believes himself to be. Yet whilst he claims that his altruism empowers the students, in reality, the opposite is true. Norton takes delight in his work with the college now not due to the fact of a selfless dedication to social causes, but due to the fact it offers him the energy to direct and manage the students’ lives. Norton states that the college college students are “bound to a superb dream and to a lovely monument.” Ellison’s use of the word “bound” here draws a parallel—perhaps unconscious on Norton’s part—between the trustee-student relationship and the slaveholder-slave relationship. The fates of the college students are “bound” to the wills of the trustees simply as the lives of slaves were bound, physically and literally, to the whims of their master.

Ellison shows how humans can be blind to the causes at the back of their beliefs and their actions; in Norton’s interplay with Trueblood, he suggests how people can be blind to their personal desires, as well. Norton’s involved response to Trueblood’s story of incest suggests that underneath his deceptively harmless face—“pink like St. Nicholas”—Norton shares Trueblood’s perverse instincts. Norton expresses fervid devotion for his personal daughter, deliriously describing her beauty in poetic terms. He confesses to the narrator that he “could in no way consider her to be [his] personal flesh and blood”—a seeming expression of humility, but additionally a hint that Norton might be able to deny his own fatherhood and consequently sense justified in expressing sexual feelings for his daughter. Norton expresses a weird empathy with Trueblood. Though repulsed by means of his actions, he also seems to in some way covet the man’s incestuous relationship with his daughter. He insists on having a private audience with Trueblood to hear the intimate important points of his story, and then voyeuristically hangs onto his each and every word. The novel suggests that Norton achieves a certain vicarious enjoyment from Trueblood’s tale, imaginatively taking part in a forbidden act he additionally wishes to commit. “You did and are unharmed!” he accuses him, with some things like envy blended in with his indignation. Norton’s stumble upon with Trueblood displays that below the white pores and skin and rosy cheeks of this powerful, rich man, his “true blood” runs the identical colour as that of the poor, uneducated black man.

The veteran at the Golden Day tavern removes both Norton and the narrator’s figurative blindfolds. He shows the two men the similarities between them, declaring that, just as Norton needs to consider himself a morally respectable, influential humanitarian, the narrator wishes to preserve the phantasm that the college provides him in perfect schooling and the freedom to determine his own destiny and identity. By refusing to renowned his personal naiveté, the narrator is just as responsible for his personal enslavement as his captor is. The fog of false idealism causes both the narrator’s and Norton’s blindness. While idealism may additionally be imperative to instigate any variety of social change, Invisible Man asserts that, until adopted with a degree of indispensable distance, it can also be responsible for the forms of prejudice it seeks to alleviate.