Sight And Blindness In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, addresses many issues facing African Americans in society and intellectual movements during the early 1900’s through the eyes of the narrator, also known as the Invisible Man. During the early twentieth century, white perception was a key component in the lives of African Americans, and crucial to establishing their place in society. The narrator witnesses and experiences many instances of blindness and lack of sight towards African American potential in society, their role, ideals, and race through out the novel. Ellison’s use of sight and blindness portrays the flawed nature of many people’s visions, ideologies, truths and prejudices, all of which have lead the narrator to believe himself to be an invisible man. People’s incompetence to see what is around them has led to bestowing ignorant invisibility upon another person. The narrator experiences the societal ignorance and blindness whites have towards African Americans when he bumps into a blond white man in the dark …show more content…
The brotherhood is upset with narrator for giving Clifton’s eulogy, revealing the organizations blindness to racism, which is represented by Brother Jack’s glass eye. Their anger over the eulogy and not Clifton’s death reveals that the group attaches more political importance to racist’s dolls and how it affects the group’s racial image. Although they try to reject racism, they only agitate it more to support their antiracist portrayal. However, their idealism is flawed in nature and the group knows it when they valued racial stereotypes over racist murders, and attempted to hide their true intentions. The brotherhoods blind ideology forces the narrator deeper into blindness, and eventually to relinquish his previous identity, making him invisible once again. The narrator becomes physically bind after he gives a speech for the