A Study Of Invisible Man On The Writing Techniques In Relation To The Theme

Invisible Man is a novel which uses identity crisis as its theme. It shows the self-consciousness of modern African-Americans and their struggle for their own identities in the racist American society. In the novel, Ralph Ellison describes the process how a young African-American in the 1930s struggled to arrive at a conception of self-identity in the racist American society. It is about a nameless young African-American, who at first wanted to find a position in the society through education. Unfortunately his dream was destroyed because he was expelled from the college by an accident. Then he began his long journey to struggle for self-acceptance. He was finally aware that he should throw off the identities others forced on him and the stereotypes, so that he could obtain his identity that would honor his complexity as an individual without sacrificing social responsibility.My thesis aims at how Ralph Ellison reveals its theme by employing a shifting, improvisational style. By analyzing his writing techniques and skills, namely, the use of symbols, satire, and the uses of different modes of prose style in different settings, I mainly study how the techniques and skills serve the theme. Therefore, I study from three aspects. First, through the analysis of the typical use of symbols, we can clearly see the fact that African-Americans are invisible in the white dominated American society. Although African-Americans play an important role in the building and development of the American society, the whites want to cover them by mainstream white culture and put them in a place to be invisible, to be unseen. It reveals the miserable lives of African-Americans in a deeper sense. Then, I will analyze the use of satire. By studying the typical use of satire, we can get the profound meaning through the simple words. We can know there is, in fact, great injustice in the racist American society. Finally my thesis deals with the different modes of prose style the author employed for different settings in the novel. There are three scenes in the novel: the southern college for African-Americans, the northern city New York, and the underground. Ranging in tone from naturalism to expressionism then to extreme surrealism, the author shows the spiritual process of the protagonist: self-loss, self-quest to self-acceptance vividly.