Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man

 

This allegorical novel about the Black man in America follows a nameless protagonist as he attempts to find his place in the world. Nobody, he feels, truly sees him—others make assumptions about him based on his outward appearance, rendering him “invisible.” Invisible Man is a subversive bildungsroman, in which the protagonist encounters situations emblematic of early- to mid-twentieth-century Black experience, replete with characters based on Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey, and arrives at a secluded place of quiet, hidden power that holds potential for future transformations.