Even today, individuals of all backgrounds struggle to discover the purest, most personal reason for their birth, their unconditional identity. Many have surpassed Maslow’s definition of basic needs and have focused their attention toward more psychological ideals, such as self-fulfillment and self-actualization, such as finding the purpose of their existence, perhaps even their true identity . However, the trouble roots from the sources used to come to such conclusions, often cases our peers, coworkers, authority figures, and even complete strangers. In his novel The Invisible Man, Ellison argues that one’s identity is defined by their own impression of themselves, not by that of others, through the use of the motifs of oration and objects.
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This mission proves to be a challenge, for even the simplest objects awaken profound emotion. On his first full day in Harlem, venturing out to deliver all of the letters Dr. Bledsoe entrusted him with, the narrator walks into a drugstore after being drawn in by the customers’ tempting breakfasts. In spite of his craving, the narrator refused the waiter’s request of ordering him the Special, “proud to have resisted the pork chops and grits” (178). A meal of comfort and nostalgia, the narrator avoided such a dish in an act of discipline, for he was so propelled to return to the college a new, educated man. This scene exhibits the narrator’s most genuine efforts to leave his old self behind, believing that it’s the only way that he’ll be able to grow beyond the repression he faced in the South. He’s willing to abandon the memories and experienced that have molded him into the person he was become in order to improve as he sees right. The south forced upon an myriad of conditions and restrictions set to keep the race from fully blooming, and conscience of this reality, the narrator wishes to reinvent himself with only his intentions in
This mission proves to be a challenge, for even the simplest objects awaken profound emotion. On his first full day in Harlem, venturing out to deliver all of the letters Dr. Bledsoe entrusted him with, the narrator walks into a drugstore after being drawn in by the customers’ tempting breakfasts. In spite of his craving, the narrator refused the waiter’s request of ordering him the Special, “proud to have resisted the pork chops and grits” (178). A meal of comfort and nostalgia, the narrator avoided such a dish in an act of discipline, for he was so propelled to return to the college a new, educated man. This scene exhibits the narrator’s most genuine efforts to leave his old self behind, believing that it’s the only way that he’ll be able to grow beyond the repression he faced in the South. He’s willing to abandon the memories and experienced that have molded him into the person he was become in order to improve as he sees right. The south forced upon an myriad of conditions and restrictions set to keep the race from fully blooming, and conscience of this reality, the narrator wishes to reinvent himself with only his intentions in