"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 inhabiting true identities all along. 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 "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 does not reflect himself, but he fails to recognize that
identity is simply a mirror that reflects the surrounding and the person who
looks into it. It is only in this reflection of the immediate surrounding can
the viewers relate the narrator's identity to. 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 question 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 Lucius Brockway's engine room
is important. The narrator's identity is derived from this relationship, and
this relationship suggests to Brockway that his identity is a
"threat". However the viewer decides to see someone is 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] ˇK 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 unalike 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 exclaimed, "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 "were somehow connected with [his (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. Those were his multiple identities and
none were less authentic than the others 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
joined Brotherhood in order to distinguish himself, and to identify himself. 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 thousands of attentions, 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 ˇV or rather call it 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 looked at 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
Griffin, 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 how 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
Griffin 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, Griffin stands face to face with the
people who sees his new identity. Although Griffin 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 played 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 ˇK 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 for 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 how 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 not too sincere in 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 ˇV just as easy as how J.
H. Griffin 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 "depends on the free consent of individuals" (Bloom 110). 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 to that person.
Just like how the narrator is perceived as a "fink" when he stumbled
into a Union meeting. That is his identity in that particular occasion, to those
particular people, despite he truthfully denies it. Because identity is
"something ˇK which one has no control" (Griffon 7). He 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 a brother or sister, a best
friend, a spouse, or a person's parents who created him or her can totally
understand. Nobody is seen exactly as what they want to be seen as, but that
does not mean they are invisible, just that the identity they have on might not
be what they desire for. 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, therefore
it belongs to the beholder and not the identified. Without people around, a
person will not have an identity and there will be no need for one. That is the
whole reasoning behind identity.
Bibliography
Bloom, Allan (1988). The Closing Of The American Mind. (First Touchstone
Ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. Ellison, Ralph (1994). Invisible Man.
(Library Ed.). New York: Random House, Inc. Griffon, John Howard (1996). Black
Like Me. (35th Anniversary Ed.). New York: Penguin Books USA Inc.