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Rimsha Asher
Miss Pasche
AP Language and Composition
November 19
th
, 2013

Author Ralph Ellison, in the engaging introduction to Invisible Man,
gives insight to whom his narrator is. Ellison is persuading his readers to
believe that his narrator is not invisible, as the people around him
believe. He adopts a sympathetic tone to disclose his narrators feelings
of hopelessness towards the inconspicuousness he tolerates.

One of Ellisons most effective methods of signifying the invisibility
yet entity of his narrator is his utilization of juxtaposition to argue that
he is not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe nor a
spiritual manifestation (Ellison 1). By using this comparison, he
convinces his readers that the narrator exists as a person of his own with
real, human emotions and the desire to be accepted. He also addresses
the identity of his narrator through vivid diction by illustrating he is a
man of substance, flesh and bone, fiber and liquids... and possesses a
mind (Ellison 1). He chooses this expression because by emphasizing
words that create an image of living beings, flesh and bone, he makes the
point that his narrator is not irrelevant, but just as human as the rest of
us. Furthermore, he maintains a first-person perspective by repeatedly
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emphasizing I am to describe the narrator in order to give the readers
a better understanding of him as well as to make the writing more
personal (Ellison 1). By doing so, he gives the impression that his
narrator is not invisible but a person of his own; he refutes the outlook
that people around the narrator have towards him. He wants us to see
the narratorhis thoughts, his feelingsthrough his own perspective to
further his purpose for his narrator to gain consolation from his readers.
This profuse support of the narrators being appeals to the audiences
logic; it indicates to us that he is a human, too.

Next, Ellison shifts to identifying his narrators feelings on how
people perceive him. He denotes his invisibleness with the simile Like
the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as
though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass
(Ellison 1). He describes the narrator as someone who is not in the
limelight, but someone who is submerged into a realm of ambiguous
disorientation, casted away to the sidelines. He makes the narrator seem
like he is a broken man; he is someone no one sees entirely and he is
someone who needs to feel acknowledgement in order to feel whole. He
implements this comparison in order to showcase the narrators feelings
of hopelessnessto tug at everyones heartstrings and make us
commiserate with his narrator. The narrator is someone who has lost
faith in the people around him to discern him and treat him like the
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human he yearns to become. He does not want to feel alone and lost, and
is desperate to find himself, to feel accepted; by conveying this bitter,
morose tone, he builds up his goal to evoke pity from his audience.

All in all, Ellison effectively achieves his goal for us to sympathize
with his narrator by vindicating his desire to integrate into his society.






























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Works Cited:


Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Random House, 1952. Print.