Racial Discrimination In The Invisible Man By Ralph Ellison

Racial discrimination represents an issue which damages the foundation of any civilized society – it turns people against each other and has no basis except ignorance and thirst for power. Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” approaches this problem through the eyes of a young black man, at the beginning of the twentieth century in America, an invisible entity without a voice in a divided society, in which political decisions are made by the white people in power. The main character is appropriately given no name, being an epitome of all black people in America. After the Civil War and the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, black people were officially freed from slavery, and during the reconstruction period which followed, they gained more influence in political and social circles. Nonetheless, the following years brought drastic changes due …show more content…
Having a name would mean having an identity, a personality, being perceived as a distinct individual, but being stripped of something so common emphasizes the protagonist’s feeling of invisibility in a world to which he does not matter. Invisibility is not a physical problem, but it is rather the way in which the others see him. Therefore, invisibility is closely related to blindness, which “is the state of those who refuse them as individual beings. Thus, these conditions are complementary.” (Lopez Miralles 3) Blindness is not a disease of the body, but a malady of the mind, a problem of the “inner eyes” (Ellison 3). Ignorance and prejudice are, in the end, just matters of convenience for those from the upper layer of society, who are too afraid to lose or even share power, as the Invisible Man noticed: “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” (Ellison 3) Consequently, reinforcing racial stereotypes would only strengthen the foundation of their power, at the cost of a divided