Invisible Man: Analysis of Major Characters
"Invisible Man: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the complex tapestry of characters in Ralph Ellison's seminal novel, "Invisible Man." The unnamed narrator serves as the central voice, reflecting on his journey from the Deep South to a northern city that embodies African American life. His narrative reveals both personal and collective struggles faced by black Americans, framed within themes of identity and social invisibility. Dr. A. Herbert Bledsoe, the college president, embodies conflicting roles: a compliant figure to white benefactors and a tyrant to his students, highlighting the complexities of leadership and racial dynamics. Mr. Norton, a seemingly benevolent white financier, represents misguided liberalism, while Brother Jack, the manipulative leader of the Brotherhood, employs revolutionary rhetoric to mask his own limitations. Other characters, like Tod Clifton, a dedicated activist, and Ras, a militant proponent of Black Nationalism, further illustrate the diversity of political ideologies and responses within the African American community. Together, these characters illuminate the struggles for agency, identity, and representation in a racially stratified society. This analysis invites readers to explore the rich, nuanced portrayals of race and individuality in Ellison's work.
Invisible Man: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Ralph Ellison
First published: 1952
Genre: Novel
Locale: The Deep South and New York City
Plot: Social
Time: The 1940's and early 1950's
The narrator, the canny, unnamed voice of the story. The narrator looks back on a life begun in the Deep South and brought north to the United States' premier African American city-within-a-city. In language full of richly oblique double meanings and nuances, he speaks of writing “confession,” of ending his “residence underground,” and of implying in his own specific case history that of an altogether wider, historic black America.
Dr. A. Herbert Bledsoe, the president of the college that the narrator attends. In one guise, Bledsoe plays the perfect Uncle Tom, fawning and grateful, who dances to the tune of Norton, a white philanthropist. In another, he acts as a despot, the college's presiding tyrant known to students as “Old Bucket-head.” He expels the narrator in the name of maintaining the image of “Negro” behavior that Bledsoe believes expedient to put before white America.
Mr. Norton, a New England financier and college benefactor. As his name implies, Norton equates with “Northern.” He is a figure of would-be liberal patronage who sees his destiny as helping African American students to become dutiful mechanics and agricultural workers. An encounter with the incestuous Truebloods, however, awakens his own dark longings for his dead daughter.
Brother Jack, the leader of the Brotherhood, a revolutionary group. The white, one-eyed leader of the group's central committee, he takes up the narrator as “the new Booker T. Washington.” His is the language of “scientific terminology,” “materialism,” and other quasi-Marxist argot. He leads a witch-hunt against the narrator, only to have his glass eye pop out, showing him as truly a half-seeing, one-eyed Jack.
Tod Clifton, a Harlem activist. Initially, Clifton operates as a Brotherhood loyalist, a youth organizer pledged to fight African American joblessness, the color line, and Black Nationalists. Fascinated by the Black Nationalist Ras's Caribbean “Africanness,” however, he drops out. Tod is shot by a white police officer, and his death sparks a long-brewing Harlem riot.
Ras, the Destroyer, a militant, West Indian Rastafarian. Ras advocates, in the style of Marcus Garvey, a back-to-Africa nationalism. He derides the Brotherhood as a white-run fraud serviced by deluded black lackeys.