Identity in Invisible Man
Obviously identity is a large part of the novel and the Narrator has an identity crisis throughout the entirety of it so far. In the beginning of the novel the Narrator is focused only on getting into college to become and educated man and change the world for the better, and believes that as long as he does not cause any trouble these opportunities will be available to him.
His identity first comes into question when he meets the veteran in the tavern. He speaks to him and learns that he used be be educated and a doctor with very impressive skills, and yet he is in a mental hospital with all the other people at rock bottom. This is very confusing for the Narrator and he tries to make excuses as to why such a skilled man wouldn't be somewhere else practicing his profession. The Narrator then completely flips when it is revealed that Bledsoe sent him on a wild goose chase to get rid of him, going from "oh if I follow orders everything will be OK" to wanting to kill Bledsoe for this betrayal.
Later in the book we see him decide to live as a northern man, almost sacrificing his southern past especially in the scene where he's proud of himself for resisting the special meal and going with toast and OJ. This persona crumbles after he meets two people who represent him, one blue print guy and a man who asks why he's suppressing his southern roots.
We know from the prologue, that eventually he thinks of himself as a righteous person, living in the shadows and siphoning power from the Monopolated Light and Power company. I think it is interesting to see this character's transitions from one identity to another, and how many more it'll take to finally land on our current narrator.
At first I would say the narrator's identity was centered around success. He wanted to "do well", and thought the best way to achieve that was to go to college and then get a job at the college. He identity crisis starts when that avenue towards success is ripped away, and when he also starts considering the injustice of the world in greater depth
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree, and I hadn't thought about it in those terms before. The current narrator is far less driven by "success" and more by his ideals and goals for the greater world - in fact, he thinks very little about his own well-being and "success" after the factory, in fact only taking the well-paying public speaking job to pay his rent and help our Mary, not because he wants the money for himself.
DeleteI wonder what will cause him to become how he is in the prologue. He has made so many changes to his identity based on his surroundings and the surroundings will not stop changing! It is hard to tell if he is changing for the better or for the worse sometimes but the general trend is that he is becoming more aware which is good. I'm looking forward to what come next!
ReplyDeleteInvisible Man is no doubt centered around identity. I think the Narrators lack of his own identity is really what makes him invisible. It was interesting reading about all of the identity changes the Narrator has gone through. It's going to be especially interesting to think about his idenity and how it will change after being given a completely new one in the most recent reading. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that identity is crucial for this novel, the title itself is Invisible Man. I also find that the lack of name identification adds onto this effect, and we truly just see how the narrator's personality and worldview changes as he experiences his life. Especially since we start the novel off with the current day narrator, I am interested to see what changes he goes through before landing on who he is today.
ReplyDeleteYeah the unpredictability of this book makes it hard to say what could possibly turn him into the person hiding in a basement full of lightbulbs that we see in the beginning of the book. As you said, the identity of the narrator changing has a lot to do with his experiences and also particularly the people that have power over him. It seems like over the course of the book the people in power are getting more obviously bad & controlling - starting with Bledsoe's secret plot to get rid of the narrator and shifting to literally being trapped in some box with doctors practically torturing him.
ReplyDeleteYou highlighted something that's really hard to convey with words, and that's the somewhat random and arbitrary changes in how the narrator views himself. All the changes are due to the various things he experiences, like the server assuming he wants a southern breakfast or Bledsoe exposing his two-faced identity. Each change makes sense within the context of its own scene, but within the overall narrative there's no real clear progression, and from what we know it the prologue it almost seems like his thoughts are collapsing in on themselves.
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