thoughts on invisible man.

Overall I enjoyed Invisible Man although the book was so incredibly dense that there is so much more I can still pick out of it. Like Mr. Klimas said in class, anyone could have written the story about an underprivileged black man from the South, however because the narrator was so intelligent, and we knew this, it made the story much more tragic and much more powerful. I think I liked the book because of the deep symbolism it had. Although some people may argue that it was too much, and I agree that it is a lot, I was amazed at what Ellison was able to incorporate. (I also felt pretty darn smart that I could find a whole lot in the symbols and allusions, but that's beside the point) I think that the novel has so much packed into it because of the message it is trying to convey. I felt it was like Heart of Darkness in a sense, without the whole heads on stakes thing, because it was able to show a darker side of human nature and human history. The battle royal scene, Jim Trueblood, and the narrator’s entire journey were all examples of how despicably humans can treat one another.

Similar to my reaction to Heart of Darkness the book was disturbing in parts but it also was a book that carried a heavy message and I found that this is what attracted me to it. It's not a book I would choose to read during a week at the shore, but overall I think that the book has made me look at myself differently. I empathize with the narrator because of how he was constantly manipulated throughout the novel, but it was almost surprising to see how such an intelligent man could be so easily controlled. When the narrator finally discovers his stupidity at the end of the novel I think it was a good way to end it. After all his suffering, the narrator finally finding the truth in his life, is like a window of hope. Ellison may have ended it this way hoping that we as humans could learn from the actions in the book and find a way to see the faults in our nature.