Essay on the Genius of Ralph Ellison -- Biography Biographies Essays

The Genius of Ralph Ellison I am an invisible man. With these five words, Ralph Ellison burn the literary world with a work that commanded the respect of scholars everywhere and opened the floodgates for dialogue about the role of African-Americans in American society, the blindness that control the nation to prejudice, and racial pluralism as a forum for recognizing the interconnection between all members of society regardless of race. I am invisible, understand, simply because volume refuse to see me. . . . That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a shady disposition of the eye of those with whom I come in contact. A thing of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality (Ellison, 1). Roughly autobiographical in nature, Ellisons Invisible Man is besides a chronology constructed to parallel the history of African-Americans, from slavery, Emancipation, subjugation, and a rising consciousness of i njustice perpetrated against them. However, Ellisons literary finesse produced an opus that draws in every member of American society. Rather than alienating whites by portraying a man used by a racist system, Ellison appeals to the universal needs of humanity to be valued, recognized, and respected. Through his portrayal of an enigmatic, complex, invisible protagonist he makes the reader bound upon the societal dynamics that marginalize people and create the unsettling climate that the protagonists needs and feelings may be identical to those of the reader. Ellisons life fate has been called representative of that of African-Americans of his era. Born in 1914 to parents of farming and small business backgrounds, he grew up in O... ...s movement, to the incumbent crossroads of affirmative action and other contemporary race issues. He transformed these issues from being matters of race to matters of humanity. I am an invisible man. The inconvenience iodineself of racism a nd diminished humanity rings through the work. Ellisons own life met with many of the same challenges, yet he made the story one not limited to the African American community. As the last sentence of the book asks, Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? Bibliography Bloom, Harold. Ed. late Critical Interpretations Invisible Man. Philadelphia Chelsea House Publishers. 1999. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. bare-assed York Random House. 1952. Ellison, Ralph. Juneteenth. New York Random House. 1999. McSweeny, Kerry. Invisible Man Race and Identity. Boston Twayne Publishers. 1988.