Analysis On The Women Images In Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison is a black writer in America and published the novel Invisible Manin1952which won the national Book Award in1953and was hailed as one of theepoch-making epic of the modern American black’s lives and brought him reputation.It is regarded as one of the most influential Afro-American novels since World WarⅡ and holds a very important position in the history of American literature in thetwentieth century.Identity has been an eternal theme for the black writers and Invisible Man is notan exception. This novel describes a black man’s experience of being discriminated inthe white society. Since the publication of the novel, many critics have made someresearch on the identity of the black man from post-colonist view. The novel exploitsthe invisibility of the black people in America and many critics focus on theprotagonist and other men in the novel and pay little attention to the women images.The scholars from home and abroad ignore those women as men neglect women inthe novel. There are nearly20women characters in the novel and most of them arenameless and neglected and silenced as the protagonist describes in the novel “I aminvisible man”. Those women are invisible women mainly because “people refuse tosee me”.Various women images leave deep impression on readers. Women are also aninferior group in the male-dominated society as the black in the white-dominatedsociety. In the male-dominated society, like the protagonist, women also lost theiridentity and are invisible. This thesis will explore the women images in the novelfrom the feminist perspective and analyze the reasons for the formation of thosewomen images, which provides a different view to the interpretation of this novel.This thesis can be divided into five parts. At first, it is an introduction to thenovelist Ellison’s life experience and the writing background of the novel InvisibleMan and literary view on the research of this novel. Most critics and scholars doresearch from ideological aspect and the view-point of colonialism. About theresearch on the characters in this novel, many critics explore the image of theprotagonist or the male characters around him while seldom analyze the female characters. Stanford and Sylvander do researches on the female characters in thisnovel. Stanford paid close attention to Mary and Sylvander classified almost all thefemale characters into two types: mother or Madonna images and seductress or whoreimages. Chapter one focuses on the theoretical support. This chapter gives briefintroduction to the historical development of the Feminism and the main feministviews which include the ideas from Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and KateMillett and an important notion---patriarchy. Chapter two selects several womenimages as analysis subjects. This chapter points out that the female characters underEllison’s hands do not completely fall into the stereotypes of male point of view as theSylvander thought but possess characters with multiple levels which could presentsuppression and limitation of the male dominated society on the female. ChapterThree analyzes the reasons for Ellison to form those women images in the novel fromfour aspects: influence from his mother and wife, his identity as a black man,influence from feminist ideology and consideration for the image of the protagonistand theme in the novel. This thesis leads to the conclusion of the study. According tothe analysis above, this thesis holds the view that Ellison has more sympathy towardswomen.