y society as an entertainment, but he is not respected even for his own ability.
Marriage for a woman like Lily Bart is a form of slavery no matter how much she may seek it. The legacy of real slavery has much to do with the position faced by the Invisible Man in Ellison's novel. The main character is a black man who is invisible in white society because he is black, in black society because he takes on various expected roles accepted by white society, and to himself because he has been subsuming his real character in these roles and has not allowed himself to exist as a real person with his own point of view. Each of the roles is supposed to be what the black man needs and wants, but each of the roles also fails this man. He is in reality an individual human being, and none of these poses accepts this fact or makes it part of his reality. He withdraws more and more from outside society, becoming an unde
...