The book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison provides a broad perspective over which a number of issues can be understood. The exposition of the story can be drawn from the point of view of the narrator who provides an in-depth analysis of major chronological events. The speaker aids the audience’s understanding of the psychological growth and moral well-being of his personal development. The nameless narrator tells his life story effectively making it easier to establish the appropriate cognitive progress of the individual. In general, the speaker transforms from a naïve African-American young man, growing up in a South still very much bound up in the racial absurdity of the Jim Crow era, in which the Constitution said that all men were free but the concerted efforts of the white establishment meant that African-Americans basically had none of their guaranteed rights and now lacked basic economic security guarantees, making life precarious from one day to the next, into an aware artist who knows the difficulties that his cultural community faces from white, institutional racism, and is prepared to protest it to the very best of his ability. This text analyzes the ways in which the terms bildungsroman, dealing with the narrator’s formative years, and kunstlerroman, his growth to maturity, are at work within the novel, Invisible Man.
The novel transitions from one story to another with the narrator's laying emphasis on the different issues that affected his life and transformed him into the person he is in his hole. The now grown and complex narrator speaks out in a sequential order about his experiences and, as he says in the epilogue, “tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth” (Ellison 573). The narrator of the story feels invisible from the world attributable to the racial tendencies intrinsic in the society. The narrator is conflicted to a greater extent, because he is feeling the urge to follow a specific career path to find his identity amidst an abundance of challenges and imperative, life-changing decisions. He feels as though the people have turned a blind eye on the African-American stereotypical propensities that affect the serenity of other individuals. For instance, the narrator of the story engages in a soul-searching mission because there is limited assistance that comes from humanity during that time. The narrator’s search for himself presents the audience with an opportunity to understand the essence of his bildungsroman. Despite the challenges, his individual development becomes inevitable due to the experiences in his life that presented new opportunities. The narrator helps the assessment of his personal development through the search of identity. Through human progress, it becomes possible to assess art development.
It is important here to notice the distinction between artistic training and art development. When one receives artistic training, one receives instruction that is specific to the act of creating the art. So if one is going to become a painter, one takes instruction in the process of putting the paint to the canvas. If one is going to become a novelist, one gains instruction from others in such topics as devising a plot outline and rendering characters realistic, in addition to the trial and error process of writing itself. Art development here refers to the growth of a vision within the artist, a sense of inspiration that will guide what the artist creates. This can obviously change as time goes by and the artist moves from the emulation of mentors to the expression of his or her own art. If one looks at the works of such artists as Pablo Picasso, who move through different periods in their lifetime, there can be times when the inspiration shifts, grows and changes. In any event, the art development referred to here has more to do with the development of an inspirational vision than with the amalgamation of technical skill. After all, there are a lot more people who have taken art classes than there are people who consider themselves artists, for better or for worse.
In Michel Fabre’s The Narrator/Narratee Relationship in Invisible Man, he clarified the point of view, “the protagonist (alias the nameless hero, the Invisible Man, or Jack the Bear) is also the narrator. More specifically, the narrator is an older, wiser avatar of the protagonist” (536). Bildungsroman in the narrator begins with the outset of the story when he presents himself as a naïve and inexperienced boy. During his young age, there is an element of respect to those in authority. Throughout the development of the main character, there is a form of disillusionment that characterizes the nameless man. The immaculate teenager thinks that people have a good demeanor, even though, such perceptions have no basis. Innocence is one of the biggest problems throughout the narrator’s life. There are important events that surface with significant connotations attached to them, but the intense innocence affects his ability to discern the necessity of such occasions.
During the setting of this novel, African-Americans were still trying to discover who they are and where they fit into society without slavery. The narrator did not know who he was as a person; he always did what he was told of him. As a young boy, the narrator was intelligent and obedient, a model student. He gave a graduation speech asserting humility as the key to black men's progress. The speech was such an achievement that he was invited to deliver it to the white leaders of the town. When he finished the speech, the men gave him a scholarship to the "state college for Negroes" (32). From the first chapter, the narrator’s life is spiraling out of his control. He went to high school because he had to, he gave a speech because he was asked to, and he went to college because he was given an opportunity. What did this man do for himself? He went into hiding and lived his invisible life to the best extent. He could not be who he wanted at the same time he was doing what everyone else wanted. “The Battle Royal illustrates the frustration and pain which Blacks must accept under the conditions of overt racism in the South” (Hansen 44).
The speaker missed numerous opportunities to be who he wanted to be because of his failure to understand the importance attached to the events. He is extensively blind to the realities of life that force him endure difficult moments. The narrator is beaten because of men who are bullies and racists, yet is open to receiving a scholarship from them, although they degraded him to a mere subject for their own entertainment. The stories of the young adolescent are indicative of a person who is less experienced and oblivious to the realities of life. Ideally, the bildungsroman of the narrator at a young age is disfigured by controversial decisions because of his inability to correctly discern the importance of the various life stages. When he was a teenager, he did not realize the consequence of his decisions on his future identity and human development.
As the speaker grows older, he becomes more enlightened and reflects on the past events. When he joins the brotherhood, it is evident that some cognitive development has taken place though he is still concerned by past events that, “has been defined and directed by authority figures within the dominant society” (Hansen 43). However, as an adult the invisible man is more free-thinking and takes his past experiences into consideration for the future decisions he makes. Throughout the different stages of life, the narrator develops in a number of dimensions. As a teenager, the invisible man is inexperienced and innocent, but as he advances in age he displays immense progress in terms of cognitive ability and morality.
The main character’s artistic development is exposed through the growth of the invisible man. The narrator emerges as an intelligent individual who is ready to redefine himself despite the various limitations enforced on African-Americans at his time. The search for an identity compels the invisible man to defy the norms and challenges that are present in the society and to wade his way through various social environments. Joining the brotherhood becomes a key stepping stone for the narrator, as he begins to recognize the various dimensions of his limitations based on the inherent circumstances. Racism is the main challenge that is manifested in the society’s discourse, but he manages to conform and become an impeccable individual. The Kuntslerroman is signified in part by the improved rationality of the narrator. The invisible man manages to deal with the challenging moments of life to become a person with an immense intellectual background. This is not to say that there are not some absurdist elements to the development of the narrator. After all, if you consider such moments in the story as the fight in the paint factory, the subsequent application of electric shock experiments to the narrator simply because the doctors have the ability to do so, and the police simply mocking the narrator near the story’s end by sliding the manhole cover into place over him, you have elements of callous behavior that fall along the lines of what happens to the main character in 1984 (particularly the confinement and the electric shock torture) without the ideological intention that the torturers have to inculcate ideas within the main character. Instead, the cruelty simply happens because the people in power have the means to commit it and know that there will never be any consequences for the things that they do. This awareness of the cruelty of the elite does not push the narrator toward irrationality or insanity, though, as it might others. Instead, it pushes him toward a chilling awareness of the reality of life for African-Americans at the time when Baldwin was writing, so he is ready to emerge as an artist, as an activist, to make as much of a difference as he can.
Conclusion
Invisible Man is a classic expression of the experiences of a black man through different stages of life in a racist society. The bildungsroman and kunstlerroman are manifested throughout the storyline and can be viewed from the narrator’s navigation through various crucial events in his life. While the narrator begins as a person with limited knowledge about different issues in life, he manages to redefine himself as a rational being at an advanced stage of life. The maturity, or the coming of age, which the bildungsroman represents, comes from the fact that, at the story’s end, the narrator has learned that he has to do two things which, at first, might seem mutually exclusive: remain true to his own personal identity while also honoring his responsibility to the African-American community. He had been hiding underground ever since he fell down a manhole while running from the police in the middle of a riot in Harlem. At the end of the novel, he indicates that he feels ready to emerge from the underground and return to society. One could look at this falling down the manhole as a return to the womb, and the emergence from the underground as a sort of rebirth. Indeed, one could view the entire series of events since he left home, went to university, and ended up in Harlem as a complete reset of his identity even more shaping than his own initial birth. He is now ready to emerge as a true individual, rather than simply that constructed amalgamation of the ideas of his parents and mentors. In the case of the development of the artist, the narrator is clearly ready to express his ideas, in whatever form they may appear. The completion of the story reflects this process on one level, as the writer has produced art, letting the narrator claim the writing vicariously. In order to emerge as an artist, one must have an inspiration that fuels the creation of the art. Given what has happened to the narrator over the course of the story, the inspiration is there and is sufficient to produce meaningful art.
Works Cited
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, 1995. Print.
Fabre, Michel. "The Narrator/Narratee Relationship in Invisible Man." Callaloo No. 25.
Recent Essays from Europe: A Special Issue (1985): 535-43. JSTOR. Web.
Hansen, J. T. "A Holistic Approach to Invisible Man." Melus 6.1 (1979): 41. Print.
