"Who the hell am I" (Ellison 386)? This question puzzled the invisible
man, the unidentified, anonymous narrator of Ralph Ellison's acclaimed novel,
Invisible Man. Throughout the story, the narrator embarks on a mental and
physical journey to seek what the narrator believes is "true
identity," a belief quite mistaken, for he, although unaware of it, had
already been inhabited by true identities all along. Ellison, in Invisible Man,
uses the main characters invisibility and conflict with the outside world to
illustrate the confusion of identity that many people experience. The narrator's
life is filled with constant eruptions of mental traumas. The biggest
psychological burden he has is his identity, or rather his misidentity. He feels
a "wearing on the nerves" (Ellison 3) for people to see him as what
they like to believe he is and not see him as what he really is. Throughout his
life, he takes on several different identities and none, he thinks, adequately
represents his true self, until his final one, as an invisible man. The narrator
thinks the many identities he possesses do not reflect him, but he fails to
recognize that identity is simply a mirror that reflects the surroundings and
the person who looks into it. It is only in this reflection of the immediate
surrounding that the viewers can relate to the narrator's identity. The viewers
see only the part of the narrator that is apparently connected to the viewer's
own world. The part obscured is unknown and, therefore, insignificant. Lucius
Brockway, an old operator of the paint factory, saw the narrator only as an
existence threatening his job, despite that the narrator is sent there to merely
assist him. Brockway repeatedly questions the narrator of his purpose there and
his mechanical credentials but never even bother to inquire his name. Because to
the old fellow, who the narrator is as a person is uninterested. What he is as
an object and what that object's relationship is to Brockway's engine room is
important. The narrator's identity is pulled from this relationship, and this
relationship suggests to Brockway that his identity is a "threat."
However, the viewer decides to see someone as the identity they assign to that
person. The Closing of The American Mind, by Allan Bloom, explains this identity
phenomenon by comparing two "ships of states" (Bloom 113). If one ship
"is to be forever at sea, [and] another is to reach port and the passengers
go their separate ways, they think about one another and their relationships on
the ship very differently in the two cases" (Bloom 113). In the first
state, friends will be acquainted and enemies will be formed, while in the
second state, the passengers will most likely not bother to know anyone new, and
everyone will get off the ship and remain strangers to one another. A person's
identity is unique to every different viewer at every different location and
situation. This point the narrator senses but does not fully understand. During
his first Brotherhood meeting, he exclaims, "I am a new citizen of the
country of your vision, a native of your fraternal land" (Ellison 328) ! He
preaches to others the fact that identity is transitional, yet he does not
accept it himself. Maybe he thought it distressing being liked not for being his
true self but because of the identity he puts on, or being hated not for being
himself but because of his identity. To Dr. Bledsoe, the principal of the black
southern university where the narrator attended, the narrator is a petty
"black educated fool" (Ellison 141). To Mr. Norton, a rich white
trustee of the black university, the narrator is a simple object intertwined
with his fate, a mere somebody, he explained to the narrator, that "[was]
somehow connected with [Mr. Norton's] destiny" (Ellison 41). To the
organizers of the Brotherhood, Jack, Tobitt, and the others, the narrator is
what they designed him to be. They designed for him an identity of a social
speaker and leader, and to his listeners and followers, he is just that. These
were his multiple identities, and none were less authentic than the others were,
because to his onlookers, he is what his identities say he is, even if he thinks
differently. The narrator always had a desire for people "who could give
[him] a proper reflection of [his] importance" (Ellison 160). But there is
no such thing as a proper reflection because his importance varies among
different people. Subconsciously, he craves attention. He wants recognition and
status and wants to be honored as someone special. He must feel that he
"can have no dignity if his status is not special, if he is not essentially
different"(Bloom 193); therefore he joins Brotherhood in order to
distinguish himself, and to give himself an identity. He gets what he wants,
recognition and fame, but it is not right he thought, for he is recognized only
for his false identity. His identity positions him in the center of attention of
thousands of people, yet he feels he is unseen. In the brotherhood of thousands
of brothers, yet he feels no one knows him. This is his feeling of having a
misidentity, but it is his conception of identity, which is mistaken. To
comprehend identity, it would be necessary to understand that, in a solitary
state, there is no need for identity, because identity is like a name, a label a
person wears for those around him to see. If a person is stranded on an island,
what use will it be to have a name? The narrator thought he "was becoming
someone else"(Ellison 328) when he acquired his new Brotherhood name, but a
name change is simply a prescription for an identity change in the same human
being. A name, or rather call it an identity, is dynamic and interchangeable; a
being is static. Rinehart, in the story, is an identity, which to different
people implied a gambler, a briber, a lover, and a Reverend, and even happened
to be an identity the narrator incidentally acquires temporarily. The narrator
does not understand the fact that "Man is ambiguous" (Bloom 113), that
man is viewed differently from different perspectives, but how a man is seen
will not alter the person he is. The same person in different states of
identities will experience quite a deviation in the way he or she is treated.
The different treatments can lead to how one feels about one's own being, which,
in some cases, might illusion oneself as being a different person. John Howard
Griffon, the author and narrator of the true-life novel, Black Like Me,
demonstrated the interchangeability of identities and its effects. For himself,
a white man, to understand what it is like to be black, he decides to
"become a Negro" (Griffon 8). By simply darkening his skin with a
medication, he gives up his life as a privileged white southerner, and
"walks into a life that appears suddenly mysterious and frightening"
(Griffon 9). Similarly, the narrator steps into a life of northern privileges he
could only dream of when he was in the South. Probably "it was the clothes
and the new name and the circumstances" (Ellison 328) which is so
unfamiliar to the narrator that causes him to feel so different, and so strange,
leading him into believing that he is becoming someone else. Perhaps he is
startled that people likes him so much, which makes him think he "had
become less of what [he] was, less a Negro" (Ellison 347); much like how
Griffon is shocked when he glares into a mirror that reflects a "stranger,
a fierce, bald, very dark Negro" (Griffon 191). But unlike the narrator,
who rejects reality by assuming invisibility, Griffon stands face to face with
the people who see his new identity. Although Griffon initially felt divided
into "two men, the observing one and the one that panicked" (Griffon
48), he eventually learns how people are seen through multiple perspectives. The
narrator sees the meaning of identity as the universal perspective of a being.
He acquires fame and recognition through the influential role he plays as a
leading activist of the Brotherhood, and thinks everyone will regard him that
way. Feeling full of confidence and dignity, he greeted two black fellows in a
bar, thinking they would be astounded to see him. But, to his surprise, they
"only look at [him] oddly"(Ellison 416). To those two, his fame is his
notoriety because they do not like his race philosophy. The narrator works for
an ideology that promotes equality among all humans, whether black or white,
male or female. While the two black fellows hold an opposing ideology, a popular
conventional belief in blacks at the time that "insisted on respect for
blacks as blacks, not as human beings simply" (Bloom 33). Instead of being
seen as a social leader, he is seen by those two as a social disgrace in the
eyes of the black community. The narrator sees himself as a walking stereotype.
He is right because anyone who is perceived through an identity is a stereotype
because no identity reveals exactly who a person is. Like a stereotype, identity
exists externally from the person it identifies because it exists within the eye
of the viewer. The narrator, during his fight with a white man on the street,
suddenly realized that he is fighting a person that "had not seen
[him]" (Ellison 4). However, that white man does see him, just that he is
seen through an identity without any respect. The narrator is disgusted with
people stereotyping him; therefore, he wants to believe himself as invisible. He
does not want to speak at Clifton's funeral, yet the people will not leave until
he performs what is expected of him to give a speech. He comes to view his fame
as a stereotype no different than that of those "black brothers who
entertained them [white people] with stories so often that they [white people]
laughed even before these fellows opened their mouths" (Ellison 413). The
narrator can believe himself to be whatever he wants, but what he sees of
himself is not what others see of him. He cannot decide for others how to see
him, although he can influence the way people see him just as easy as how J. H.
Griffon adopted his new identities when he "wakes up in a black man's
skin" (Griffon 161). According to The Closing of the American Mind, all
identities "depend on the free consent of individuals" (Bloom 110).
For example a president holds his identity only because people elect to see him
that way, otherwise he is like any ordinary Joe. Even if he thinks of himself as
really nothing more than of common flesh and bones, he is no less a president
because his identity is for the public to perceive and not for himself. Even if
there is a single person who considers him a president, he is a president only
to that person, just like how the narrator is perceived as a "fink"
when he stumbles into a Union meeting. This is his identity in a particular
setting, to those particular people, despite which, he truthfully denies it.
Identity is "something [over] which one has no control" (Griffon 7).
The narrator believes he finally found his true identity when he realizes he is
invisible to his surroundings; therefore, he assumes invisibility. However,
invisibility is only his way to avoid reality. He is not invisible but simply
not seen as what he thinks he should be seen as. He feels invisible only because
no one really understands him, but, in reality, can any person be fully
understood? A person can only be understood to an extent. Not even brother or
sister, a best friend, a spouse, or a person's parents who created him or her
can totally understand. As John Corry says "…[he is a] black nationalist
…and the here … Here…he can enjoy his invisibility" (Corry 1). Nobody
is seen exactly as who they want to be seen, but that does not mean they are
invisible, just that the identity they are presenting might not be what the
world expects. Despite the narrator's belief that, after his long journey, he
has finally found the true understanding of identity and discovered his real
identity, he is mistaken, for all the identities he experienced were real. He is
the "same human individual," seen differently "only in
appearance" (Griffon 161) and that shows invisibility is a false
revelation. Every different person who sees him holds a unique perception of
him, even if he does not like how he is perceived; it is still a unique identity
of his very being, and that identity is real on a simple basis that it exist.
Because identity is a tool for the beholder to assess the identified, it belongs
only to the beholder and not the identified. Without other people around, a
person will not have an identity and there will be no need for one. That is the
whole reasoning behind identity. The reflection of the world upon the main
character builds a false identity with in, while he does not realize his true
identity until his invisibility refuses to allow him to reflect the world.