Hope And Oppression In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

There are many articles and essays on Ralph Ellison 's novel Invisible Man about the narrator being invisible in society. But throughout the book it is seen that the reason he is invisible to society is because of society’s oppression of African Americans in the novel and in America. The relationship between the novel and in real life instances of oppression are tied together. With oppression there is the deal of false hope and the sense of keeping African Americans from achieving their goals. The white people in American society and even some black people being controlled by them white people are causing the main problem in Invisible Man. Using many scholarly articles to justify the three biggest events of false hope and oppression in Invisible …show more content…
Bledsoe and Norton from the college, gave him recommendation letters to possibly receive a job in New York. They seemed to be willing to help him out in finding a job. The narrator was very happy and even left the college early to start a new life in New York. Later realizing that receiving a job in New York was very difficult. The false hope was in the form of these seven letters of recommendation. Six out of seven letters were declined until the very last letter. The last letter was when the narrator realized what the contents of the letter contained which was actually condemnation instead of recommending him a job to work. From the Ralph Ellison and the American Canon an Invisible Man criticism explains how the letters are led to false hope and oppression for the young narrator desperately looking for work. Stated in Nadel’s criticism of Invisible Man, “The most significant thing about this letter is that it is not intended to crush the invisible man 's hopes that happens only by accident but rather to extend them. Bledsoe 's letter presents this systematic offer of false hope, furthermore, not as a sadistic joke, not even as a self-interested conspiracy...” (Nadel 115) It wasn’t intended to be on accident but Bledsoe wanted to get the young colleague out of the college and as far away from the place as possible. He wanted to crush his hopes of getting back to college in the fall and the false hopes of getting a …show more content…
The accepted him into their group for him to speak for the African Americans in Harlem. The Brotherhood and him, spoke of men, women, and race equality. The majority of the Brotherhood was bossed around by white people while only some blacks were the speakers for them. Later throughout Invisible Man the narrator realizes that the blacks were being oppressed once again. In the Brotherhood group, the blacks were only a mediator in the group. The whites controlled the science of the Brotherhood while the blacks created speeches about what they wanted to hear and portray to the audience of Harlem. In the scholarly journal called “Racism in Ralph Ellison 's Invisible Man” it explains the relationship of whites hoping to oppress the African Americans in America. From Fosse’s journal she wrote, “But little is made known to him of the true forces behind The Brotherhood, and of the true nature in which the movement is heading...and the hopes of suppressed African-Americans living in Harlem take a back seat, as do the narrator 's, when he discovers that he, too, has been duped by the fundamental white forces whose brainchild of equality the organization has feigned to champion.” (Fosse 1) It does relate a bit to the book but it is a well developed image of what the white powerful people are doing to the blacks in not only Harlem, but in America. The Brotherhood’s