An Analysis Of Afro-American Confusion In Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994), one of the most famous black writers in the contemporary era. He was born in poverty, and had to earn his living when he was very young. It is his rich living experience that helps him to finish the only one novel in his whole life--- Invisible Man, which was published in 1952. Ellison is best known for the novel in America. He won the National Book Award in 1953 because of the novel, Invisible Man, and the novel was judged for the best and the most influential novel after World War II in America in 1964. Although he enjoyed a great reputation in literature field in America, his works were not many. After his death, the executor of his literary heritage, John Callahan, settled his posthumous works and published them as his second novel--- Juneteenth. Many essays study both on the theme of National amalgamation and the art of writing, for example, symbolism and metaphor, but it is seldom to see the essays studying on the theme of Afro-American confusion in Invisible Man at home and abroad.The author of this thesis firstly introduces Ralph Ellison and his works. A review of major criticism on Ralph Ellison and his novel Invisible Man is provided to show the necessity to write the thesis.It consists of four chapters: chapter one focuses on confusion about Black's position and Black's identity. It shows the Afro-American racial confusion by analyzing three black groups with different cognition on their social position and identity. Chapter two introduces the process of Christianization firstly, and then analyzes situations of blacks with different attitudes on Christianization in American society, which is used to illustrate their confusion on religion. Secondly, it analyzes meditation on life by blacks'music. Chapter three analyzes American WASP culture and Afro-American culture; points out the obstacle of cultural integrate, and then reflect black's confusion on the self-identity caused by mainstream and non-mainstream culture. Chapter four is the conclusion of the essay. By analyzing black's racial confusion, existing confusion embodied by religion and music , and cultural confusion, the essay exposes the author's point---blacks should acknowledge their own cultural root, Dialectically fuse into the white world, and change their social position with great efforts. At the same time, it discovers objectively black's weakness.