In Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man, to be born African American is to invite downfall and chaos in a world governed by whiteness. Ellison's narrator toils in obscurity and becomes de facto invisible. The Invisible Man is about the exclusion of self-illumination - darkness of the soul in the absence of identity.
Ellison makes repeated references to the black man's "cast down" (30) status. In a world where the exultation of skin pigmentation has reached a point where individual identity ceases to exist, the black American becomes invisible. Unseen by others, he cannot see himself. Through chameleon-like behavior, his attempts to establish a suitable face which society will acknowledge ultimately fail, and the black American is left even further removed from his true self.
Differences of perception within society and within the mind internalizing those perceptions drive a wedge between Ellison's narrator (known only as the "Invisible Man") and his sense of self. These differences are so extreme that the individual loses all identity. Not merely out of his element, he is invisible. The Invisible Man is an underground man existing in a dank netherworld of symbols whose substantive and human embodiments are denied by the higher powers that be. The true meaning of his invisibility becomes understood by the hero through his adventures as a black in a white world and through his stubborn denial that American society sees whiteness as near to Godliness and blackness a condition of subordination and malaise. This is a place rife with contradictions. It is "the black hole that is brighter than Broadway" (Ellison 148).
Two worlds exist for the narrator: the reality of the physical, solid universe and the invisible world of prejudices, attitudes, agendas and motives (as represented by characters such as Bledsoe). The Invisible Man's world is a place where whiteness is everything and black is less than nothing. Upon losing...