Initial Takeaway from the Invisible Man...

From brief summary on back of book I know that the book will eventually reveal itself to be about racial prejudices. It tells of a story that faces the perils of the great racial divide and also narrates the ignorance of society towards race. The effects of racial prejudice are revealed thorugh the perspectives of the people made victim anf those who inflicted prejudice on others. So ,what does the title have ot tell us. Unlike some titles, I believe the “invisible man” will be telling in my understanding of this text. From the firstline of the prologue which states, “I am an invisible man”, I know the protagonist to be the subject of Ellison's title. I will be looking into how his feeling of invisibility plays into his character development.There are a couple of motifs that I have already noticed just in the prologue. As the title suggests, there is reiteration of the idea of being invisible. The main character, whose name is not known yet, even opens the prologue with "I am an invisible man".Since this book is not science fiction, I presume the protagonist’s “invisibility” is completely metaphorical. But, in what sense? Invisibility, is one looks at its denotations, mean 1)not visible; not perceptible by the eye 2) withdrawn from or out of sight; hidden 3) not perceptible or discernible by the mind 4)not ordinariliy found in financial statements or reflected in statistics or a listing 5) concealed from public knowledge.The second motif is that of eyes which is frequently mentioned even throughout the first few pages. It seems that the protagonist’s feeling of invisibility is one that is 1) not visible; not perceptible to the eye. The man states, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me”. This is such a telling and profound statement. It is to me a direct commentary on what prejudice and ignorance is, refusing to see what is right in front of you. This type of ignorance is what which causes racism. Furthermore, the nameless protagonists is the victim in this story and generally society is the victimizer. The protagonist speaks of the eyes of people he witnesses. In just the first page, there is mention of the “eyes “ motif four times which seemed to me to represent an idea that could pervay throughout the novel. Eyes are regarded as windows to the soul or as a barometer of emotions. More simply eyes represent focus, clarity, vision, perception, observation. This is ironic as the pople he encounters do not see him . The source of his invisibility is the inability of pople (presumably “society”) to see him. As an African American man, the protagonist is most generally probably speaking of the case between blacks and whites in America. Much of the unrest and turmoil that ensued was dues to a refusal by some to reject social bias and injustice. It will be interesting to see how the speaker copes with his reality even though society perceives a different reality.