Perplexity, Struggle And Initiation In An Invisible World

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994), the most important African-American writer since 1950s, is also an outstanding literary critic, and one of the most significant pioneers of American cultural studies. He has made a milestone contribution to both African-American literature and the entire American literary creation.Invisible Man, the most important work of Ralph Ellison, has been regarded as one of the American classics and an epic which reflects the modern African-American life. Because of its unique themes and exquisite styles, the novel has attracted great attention in the field of literary criticism. Though the novel has been extensively interpreted and criticized from different perspectives, such as the themes, symbolism, the writing techniques and the profound cultural origins, etc., the psychological analysis of the initiation in Invisible Man has been little explored so far.The initiation story is based on the growth of the characters and focuses on the psychological development of them. This thesis attempts to trace the process of the protagonist's growth and explore the basic plot pattern of the initiation novel: innocence—ordeal—epiphany—maturity. In the process of pursuing himself, the protagonist has suffered from lots of repressions, pains and frustrations. However, he finally chooses to bear the sufferings, resist the prejudices and maintain his individuality, which has been fully exposed in Invisible Man. The psychological growth of the protagonist is in accordance with John Fowels'theory of nemo, which asserts that the conflicts between one's "ego" and his "anti-ego" will help to achieve the spiritual growth in the course of a person's initiation.Therefore, by tracing the protagonist's experiences, this thesis aims to analyze the protagonist's mental and psychological initiation after his experiencing inner perplexity and struggle, and draw the conclusion that the achievement of maturity is the ultimate victory of the inner conflicts between "ego" and "nemo".There are mainly three parts in this thesis.The first part is the introduction. This part mainly makes an introduction to Ralph Ellison's life and his literary career, and most importantly, some literary reviews about Invisible Man and the structure of the thesis.The second part is the main body of the thesis and consists of three chapters:Chapter One focuses on the theories of initiation story and "nemo", which provide a framework for analyzing the protagonist's growth process and the inner conflicts in the course of his initiation.Chapter Two discusses how the growth process of the protagonist follows the basic plot pattern of initiation story:innocence—ordeal—epiphany—maturity.Chapter Three explores how the conflicts between the protagonist's "ego" and "nemo" help to achieve his spiritual initiation.The third part is the conclusion part. The process of one's initiation follows a fixed plot pattern in general, and during this process, man's inner perplexity and conflicts have been becoming glaring. Ralph Ellison is acutely sensitive to modern people's psychological conditions and artfully puts the inner conflicts between "ego" and "nemo" in the invisible man's experiences. Therefore, this thesis is of certain significance to study individual's inner conflicts from the perspective of initiation.