An Analysis Of Points Of View And Speech Presentations In Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man has been considered as an epic of modern American blacks’ life and oneof the most excellent novels since it was published in1952. The novel relates a black’s everlasting searchprocess for self-identity in America, which is from darkness to light, innocence to maturity. The narratormakes various narrative techniques to reflect the self-identity search process and make the novel be aperfect combination of form and content.Narratology and stylistics are overlapped in points of view and modes of speech presentation. Thethesis makes a detailed analysis of the novel from the points of view and modes of speech presentation,which are put forward in Shen Dan’s narratology and stylistics. On the basis of that analysis, the thesisexplores the relationship between the choice of the techniques and the expression of theme. Two questionsare raised in the thesis:1) what kinds of points of view and modes of speech presentation are chosen inInvisible Man;2) how do the points of view and the modes of speech presentation in Invisible Man servethe expression of the theme? And a tentative conclusion is made as follows:The narrator adopts the first-person internal and external point of view in Invisible Man. Thefirst-person internal point of view relates from the perspective of experiencing the past events and controlsthe information for readers who have no idea about future and become curious about the story development.While the first-person external point of view is from the perspective of the present to recall memories. Itoffers necessary information to readers and reflects the hero’s mature thinking after he knows the truth.Two points of view are adopted alternately in the novel, which is in favor of theme expression of the novel.At the same time, the novel makes the most of direct speech, indirect speech, free direct speech, freeindirect speech and narrative reports of speech to bring the readers to approach to the hero’s inner worldand experience his confusion about racial awareness. Thorough analysis of five modes of speechpresentation is helpful for us to make a better understanding of the novel, appreciation of Ralph Ellison’swriting techniques as well as the novel theme—the hero’s search for self-identity.It is expected that these findings may offer some guidance for research on novel narratology andstylistics and may be helpful for future study on Invisible Man, but at the same time, this research has itsshortcomings. Efforts and contributions from all who are interested in this field that could further the studyinto a more comprehensive and thorough stage are encouraged.