The Importance of the Truly Invisible Man

In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Ellison likes presenting abstract ideas through the interactions of outside characters on the narrator. For example, his interaction with the yam-selling man during the snowy Harlem nights truly reveals the depth of the narrator's sweet, yam-flavored southern memories. Another abstract idea (and possibly my favorite of them all), is the concept of Rinehart. Rinehart is essentially a persona the narrator embraces when he goes through an outfit change. People throughout the city refer to him under the names and occupations of Rinehart, not paying attention to what he really is underneath the glasses, hat, and suave demeanor. From a pimp to a reverend, Rinehart seems to have done it all. The most ironic part about this situation is that the narrator never encounters Rinehart himself.

Near the end of the chapter, the narrator seems to conceptualize Rinehart on his own, seeing how this man holds so much influence in so many different areas yet no one has been able to fully place down who exactly he is. What's most notable is that the narrator wants to be like Rinehart. He too wants to be able to influence these multiple aspects of society, yet still be his own man on the inside. Rinehart is, as far as this book goes, the closest to invisibility that we've seen.

I think that the narrator's unintentional impersonation of Rinehart has truly opened his ideas to what invisibility truly is, and the fact that the narrator wants to be a "man" like Rinehart is a testament to his developing conscious of identity, and what kind of identity he wants to forge for himself.

Who are you speaking for?

After the narrator experiences the happenings in the "Factory Hospital", we get a sense that he's back at square one. And up until he meets the man selling the yams, this is essentially the case. However, we still see a shadow of his pre-operation self in the beginnings of his speech to the mob. What is interesting is that during the course of the narrator's speech, you can see his change in mentality as the tone of the speech changes. It goes from "law-abiding" citizen to essentially f*** the police. This change isn't a product of his own doing, but it seems like it was brought about through the consistent pestering of the crowd. In the narrator's efforts to move this crowd to take some form of action, he listened to their words and essentially allowed himself to be affect by this mob mentality, becoming their voice. I think this may be because of his lack of own personality at the hands of the factory-hospital. Whatever the case, I think this speech is a good example of the narrator being affected by his environment. Or maybe the narrator had his complacent personality erased and now wants revenge against the authority?