Literary Devices in Invisible Man
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
The narrator's first job is in a highly patriotic paint company most famous for its Optic White paint color. In order to create this pure white, the narrator is instructed to add ten black drops of...
Setting
The narrator is born and raised in the American South, only to wind up in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem, which is a major center of African-American culture. The narrator finds the contr...
Narrator Point of View
The invisible man is our narrator throughout the entire novel, sandwiching the bulk of his story with a prologue and epilogue from his manhole. Since we hear his story from his point of view, we ca...
Genre
Invisible Man is one of the big daddies of coming-of-age stories. Not only does our narrator physically grow up during the duration of The Invisible Man, but he also matures psychologically. After...
Tone
The narrator tells it like it is—or, at least, how he perceives it. And although his story could easily have turned into something way more melodramatic (not that that would be unwarranted: there...
Writing Style
A life-long lover of jazz, Ellison conceived of Invisible Man as jazz's literary equivalent. Even the idea of "invisibility," which is a sight-based (rather than sound-based) concept gets compared...
What's Up With the Title?
The invisible man is the narrator and protagonist of the story. We never learn his name, but this is his show—the novel chronicles his path to realizing his invisibility. This is not some weird t...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
"You are saved," cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; "you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?" Herman Melville, Benito CerenoHarry: I tell you, it is not me you...
Plot Analysis
The narrator is a model young black man.…but we already know he doesn't stay a model young black man, because, as we learn in the Prologue the narrator is narrating from a hole in the ground. Int...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Bad news with Mr. Norton and Dr. BledsoeThe narrator does his best to please the white and wealthy Mr. Norton, but screws up royally. Dr. Bledsoe, the college president, reprimands the narrator a...
Trivia
Invisible Man won the National Book Award in 1953. (Source)Ralph Waldo Ellison was named after the famous American Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Source)Ralph Ellison's father...
Steaminess Rating
Invisible Man isn't heavy on the sex, but when it's there it's impossible to miss. After all, a naked "magnificent blonde" dancing in the middle of a sea of men isn't exactly subtle. Next up, we ha...
Allusions
The Bible: "Render unto Caesar that which was Caesar's…" (5.22)Mark Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (9.160)James Joyce (16.133)W. B. Yeats (16.133)Sean O'Casey (16.133)Joseph Conrad: Heart...