The Importance Of The American Dream In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

The American Dream is defined as, “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” America is generally perceived as mainly white, although as a country, our population is very diverse. People come from all around the world to chase after the glorified stories they here about America. The American Dream is what attracts other people from all around the globe and from many different cultures to our country. In “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the narrator tells the story about his life and how he is invisible to others, especially white people. He explains how in many ways he goes unnoticed and is sometimes treated as if he cannot be seen. On page 258, he says, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people …show more content…
Simply put, you work hard and you can have anything in life you set your mind to. For whites, this is undoubtedly the case. I know this through experience and from witnessing others achieve it. For blacks, it is not as easy to explain. Especially when at one point in time, they weren’t even considered humans and slavery was a common practice in America. To think that even after ending slavery, discrimination against blacks would stop is completely absurd. To this very day in history, we are still dealing with this issue in our nation. In “invisible man,” Ralph Ellison illustrates that the concept of the American Dream is not applicable for African Americans. He feels that blacks needs to earn the respect and approval of white people in order to find any sort of success because they have always been taught white people have some sort of dictatorship over black people’s lives. Through numerous situations and accounts of horrible acts against African Americans, it seems as if the American Dream is literally a dream, that one day, might never be obtained or achieved by anyone other than