Ralph Ellison Invisible Man

As the narrator moves on discovering what and who he truly is he eventually discovers his true identity, which ironically is the identity of those in the midst of him as his revelation is that within the sea of people, he truly is just another invisible man. As a young, black man among other young, black men that were never expected to get out of their little ‘hole’ and achieve anything, our narrator had ambitions that nobody anticipated would be fulfilled. As everyone told him, “You’re nobody son. You don’t exist - can’t you see that,” he proved them wrong, yet eventually abdicated his position and proved them correct (Ellison 112). Such would’ve also been the feelings of Ellison, who moving from a small town to a large city found himself in the midst of amazing people who eclipsed his achievements and made him feel …show more content…
Not only does everyone belong to a group, they also belong to themselves. After a long journey of truly finding himself, the narrator concludes at the very end, “I am an invisible man.” (Ellison 444) His epiphany leads him to leave society and live on his own, similar to the people that Ellison admired like Emerson and Thoreau who heavily approved of self-reliance and the power of the individual. These individualistic qualities proved to be vital for the narrator on his voyage to invisibility as he reverts to small acts of protest that fulfill the inner activist within himself. An interesting symbol is the light, which signifies his discovery of self-identity and his fear of darkness which represents the struggle he had to go through to find peace within himself and the words his grandfather left with