THE INVISIBLE MAN

BY RALPH ELLISON

Symbols: Jack• Communism in America• Blindness: glass eye

•Sees with only one eye•Other eye destroyed by Brotherhood

•Blind to individuals•Does not see the IM

• Blind to own tendency to manipulate

BLINDNESS• Blindfolds in Battle Royal• Founder’s blindness• “Black and blue”: Louis Armstrong:

“What did I do to be so black and blue”

• Rinehard

BLACK AND WHITE• Illuminated the blackness of his

invisibility• Light bulbs (1369)• Paradox: knowledge (light) needed

to accept his blackness•Blacks needed to hold up white society•Optic White paint: Brockway•White cops, black horses•White society on backs of black slaves