Ras’s threatening to kill the narrator makes him see the world as meaningless and “absurd”. The experience Ellison makes is not of one black man seeking to break free from a stereotype or exploring his black identity, rather of a man seeking a group in which he can be identified. The narrator realizes that his self-identity is the source of significance in his own life and acting to meet others’ expectations can only be unhelpful. His acknowledgment that he is not what others call him or consider him as is his freedom. Ellison frees his character from the confines of group identity; hurling Ras’s spear back at him depicts the narrator’s rejection to be a subject any longer to others’ demands. He finally commits himself fully to an attempt to
