Black Consciousness in the Twentieth Century Essay

Ralph Ellison began his 1952 novel with the sentence; â€Å"I am an invisible man.† (Ellison 3) These five words summed up the way in which the majority of Black Americans felt about their place in society at the time. The Civil Rights Movement was still years away, and the caste of American society had placed the Black American near the bottom. The book is in the first person narrative, narrated by a man who considers himself by society’s view point to be invisible because of his race.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The self-awareness of the Black American was limited to only what the white establishment would allow – and in the majority of the country, that was very little. However, the essence for the change that would occur had already been born. The awakening, in the late 1950s, of the Black American would take place in religion, politics, self-awareness and literature. This would become exemplified by the manner in which women in the black communities were treated. The rise of domestic violence was an issue, even in 1950s America – and in both the homes of blacks and whites.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There would be, though, differences in which this awakening would manifest itself. For some, like those who would march with Martin Luther King, non-violence and pacifism would be the dominate tool to their awakening. For others, the awakening would come in the form of a religious rebirth, and strong assertion of their place in society. There was a responsibility being neglected in the role of the black male to uphold his place of caregiver to his wife and family – as well as to the community as a whole. This was an important issue to realize, as the teachings of Islam would tell. â€Å"The white man wants black men to stay immoral, unclean, an ignorant†. (223). During the course of the novel the protagonists lists ways in which he has become invisible and the reaction he stirs within society because of his ‘blackness’, and as Ellis illustrates in the prologue of the book, â€Å"I live rent-free in a building rented strictly to whites, in a section of the basement that was shut off and forgotten during the nineteenth century.† (Ellis prologue).   The narrator goes on to state that light is a necessity for him since light to him is equivalent to truth (much as it was in Plato’s cave – so here the reader gains a sense of philosophy and of intelligence from the narrator). Throughout the course of the events that aid in defining the narrator the major first event occurs on his college’s campus.   The epiphany that the invisible man has during this time is that a black man whom he had once aspired to be like (i.e. to leave a legacy for his college) is not at all worthy of his aspiration but instead is merely a black man who has disguised himself enough to be able to ‘survive’ in the white dominated society.   Thus, the invisible man has his first exposure to mis-identities and the almost innate need that black men feel they have to become someone else in order to be a part of white society. In another act of deception in the book, the narrator (after a boiler room ‘accident’) is hospitalized; during a state of consciousness he discovers that he has been experimented upon with shock treatment without his knowledge.   This is a severe breach of his constitutional rights as well as his humanity.   Thus, the narrator finds out that he is not considered to be human, or even subhuman but rather a thing, an object, a less than real entity whose presence is a constant element of scorn and fear to the white race (at least through each of the experiences the invisible man has had with white people). Thus, not only is he destroyed through the perception of white people but through his own culture and race as Dr. Bledsoe has given the invisible man letters of recommendation whose intent was merely to waylay the invisible man from coming back to college and to not (as the invisible man had thought was their intention) to get him a job.   Therefore the invisible man is hoodwinked by a person whom he thought he could trust and this leads him to further epiphanies of himself and his race and either’s misconception. The novel is truly about self-awareness through objective perception.   Although the narrator finds brief solace with the Brotherhood and brother Jack (a black organization seeking to unite the black community in New York), this soon turns into another form of hate through jealousy.   The narrator’s position is replaced and he travels outside of Harlem only to return and find his friend dead.   Despite efforts to try and unite the Brotherhood again, the narrator is soon forced to recognized his grandfather’s maxim, â€Å"over come ’em with yeses, undermine ’em with grins, agree ’em to death and destruction. . .† (Ellis). The novel is about a man whose invisibility is plagues by mis-identity, and whose overall undertones of outside prejudices define his life as well as his identity up to a point.   The ‘yes man’ that his grandfather advised him to do was a type of camouflage technique in which a man can exist wholly without being noticed by being, in essence, no one at all – by becoming invisible in order to survive.   The sacrifice that the invisible man does is to waylay his hopes and dreams in order to be nothing so that he may survive, not be gunned down by either Brother Jack or by the police.   In essence Ellis’ book contributed greatly to the recognition of the black consciousness and the state of the Civil Rights movement in order for blacks to not be invisible in order to exist. WORKS CITED Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. Random House Inc. New York.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1952. Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Klein, Marcus. After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century. New York: World, 1964. McSweeney, Kerry. Invisible Man: Race and Identity. Boston: Twayne, 1988.