An Interpretation Of Invisible Man From The Perspective Of The First-Person Narrative

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) is a famous contemporary African-American writer and one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. His first long novel Invisible Man, on which he spent altogether 7 years to delicately complete, is acknowledged to be his only long novel when he was alive. Since its publication in 1952, Invisible Man evoked huge response in American literary field and in American society. Invisible Man is considered to be Ralph Ellison’s representative work which relates a growing story that an ordinary American young man hopes to find a place for himself in the white-dominated society through his own efforts.On the basis of all kinds of researches both home and abroad, Invisible Man surely gets much attention. On one hand, in the early stage, it obtained much high praises from literary scholars. But on the other hand, especially in the late period, it received some commentators’ criticism and reproaches. Among the analyses of this work, most of which are about themes as well as writing skills. Here the analysis of themes means the investigation on identity, while writing skills mainly refer to the rhetorical skills, such as symbolism, ironies and so on.In the theory of Narratology, narrative patterns deserve much attention from literary circle. Since the birth of novels, the discussion of narrative patterns has never come to an end. In reality, the deciding factor for narrative patterns is exactly from what kind of standpoint the author interprets the work. The key issue of interpreting the work is whether the author interprets the work from the first-person perspective or from the third-person perspective. As a matter of fact, there are numerous literary works written in the first-person narrative. For example, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Paul Zindel’s Pigman, and Sherwood Anderson’s I am a Fool. Invisible Man first attracts readers’ attention by its name, and then the novel can absolutely evoke readers’ great curiosity for its application of the first-person narrative..As a whole, this thesis is composed of three parts, that is, introduction, main body and conclusion.The first part is introduction. It starts with a brief introduction of Ralph Ellison and his masterpiece Invisible Man. Then it gives a general overview of the studies on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man both home and abroad. Finally, it highlights the significance of this thesis.The second part comes to the main body of the thesis, including three chapters.The first chapter illustrates the narrator with multi-identities. As a narrator with multi-identities, this part interprets the relationship between "I" and "the author", and between "I" and "the narrator". Then, this chapter puts emphasis on the functions of the first-person narrator in Invisible Man.The second chapter analyzes the first-person narrative language. First of all, it analyses "self-narration" language in Invisible Man. "Narrative language" is made up of three major forms and they are "relative" and "descriptive", "measure" and "rhythm", "dialogue" and "monologue". Then it stresses "child-like" narrative language in Invisible Man. In the novel, "child-like" narrative language is skillfully interwoven with this work, so characteristic image of the invisible man is successfully shaped.The third chapter focuses on the significance of the first-person narrative and the advantages as well as limitations of the first-person narrative in Invisible Man. Nowadays, in literary field, more and more writers are interested in using the first-person narrative in their works. It is clearly seen that the first-person narrative indeed possesses its own particular narrative advantages. Firstly, this chapter briefly illustrates the artistic appeals of the first-person narrative in Invisible Man. And then it mainly analyses limitations and obstacles of the first-person narrative in the novel.The last part is conclusion. First of all, it summarizes the thesis, and then it gives the final overview of the three main factors of the first-person narrative reflected in Invisible Man. In the end, this chapter points out the novelty and deficiency of this thesis, and it puts forward some potential solutions for applying the first-person narrative in literary works and it also points out that keeping on studying the application of the first-person narrative in Invisible Man is of great necessity and importance.