The purpose of this discussion is to look at the reasons why Invisible Man has been banned and is currently banned in certain places around the world. There are very important sociocultural contexts for the banning of books (Callahan 23-27). Ellison’s landmark work has been put on the list of TIME’s 100 best English language novels of the twentieth century multiple times, as well as making it onto numerous lists of books that “everyone should read before [they] die,” although its presence on these lists is not as impressive as its constant inclusion onto lists published by the New York Times or TIME (Mitgang). Regardless, this work has been a landmark work for the United States and the world as a whole, and it had immense influence on the overall nature of Black American politicized literature in the twentieth century.
Ellison’s Invisible Man begins with the author explaining his invisibility explicitly to the reader. He tells the reader exactly how he is invisible to the general public, and describes his invisibility as being a function of his skin color (Ellison 2-4). He also gives a general background: he tells the reader about his history growing up in the American south, and his experiences as a young Black man in the South during this time period (Ellison 5).
Throughout the first part of the text, the reader begins to get a better understanding of the anger that roils under the calm exterior of the first-person narrator (Ellison 4-25). The narrative begins to pick up as the narrator hears a sermon, and he begins to be drawn into the euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City; he begins to participate extensively in the Black communities and sees them torn apart by outside influences (Ellis 56-60). During this time, the narrator meets many people, almost all of whom treat him as a lesser being because of his skin color and his background (Ellis 42-91).
During this time, he also experiences how cruel the predominately white world can be, and meets women like Sybil, who wants to use him for her own ends. When he goes to see Sybil, he gets caught up in the riot that is occurring in Harlem, and helps the rioters set fire to one of the buildings (Ellison 279). When he is running from the scene, he falls down a manhole; the police do not bother retrieving him, instead choosing to cover him up. They leave him underground and there he stays for a number of years, until he feels that he is strong enough and independent enough in his individuality to emerge and tell his story in the text (Ellison 304).
In some distinct ways, the story of the “invisible man” draws parallels to Ellison’s own life. Ellison was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1913, and, while he was not born in the Deep South, he experienced many of the issues and struggles that were described in the text (D’Addario; Sundquist 12). Ellison is an interesting figure in American literary history because he lived through the Jim Crow laws of the American South, but he also lived through the disassembling of these laws and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, which guarantees all citizens equal rights under the law regardless of race (Sundquist 12-13). This is immensely important in his development as a writer: he lived through numerous times of great change in the United States.
His literary evolution can be traced throughout his social and critical works, but many agree that his best and most influential work is Invisible Man (Mitgang). He was a highly educated individual, and received a degree from an all-Black university in Alabama, which is sometimes thought to be where he got the idea for the creation of the novel Invisible Man. His move to New York also likely informed his creation of the story contained in the text. During his time at Tuskegee University and his time in Harlem, Ellison met many of the great Black thinkers of his day, including people like Booker T. Washington, Richard Wright, and Romare Bearden (Mitgang). All of these people were incredibly important in informing his experiences and helped him create such an important, politicized text.
Books are banned around the world for many reasons, but one of the most common reasons that books are banned around the world is because of an undesirable political message (Boyer 11-16). There is no doubt that when Ellison published his work, it was released into a sociopolitical climate that was tense at best: published in 1952 at the height of the “Red Scare” in American politics, it featured issues like the development of strong, Black, Marxist communities and the support of unionization, two things that the government of the United States feared greatly (Karolides, Bald and Sova 327-399).
The political message of Invisible Man might have been scary during the 1950s, and it is easy to see how a less enlightened group of people might fear the message of the text (Foerstel 46-58). However, this begs the question of how and why books like Invisible Man, which tell a very important story regarding the realities of American history, can be banned over and over again in certain places in the United States today (D’Addario). Indeed, in recent years, Invisible Man has been banned in North Carolina once again, after being re-added to the reading lists in the 1980s and 1990s (D’Addario).
Liberal communities tend to ban books less frequently, and communities with higher levels of integration between people of different types, races, ethnicities, ages, and so on also tend to ban books less frequently (Smith 1-3). When books are challenged, they are not usually challenged or banned because communities want to stifle knowledge or growth in children; instead, books are challenged or banned often with the end goal of protecting children from influence that is negative or disturbing (Smith). Unfortunately, banning books often has the opposite effect for communities, particularly when those books deal with issues of race and politics in a difficult or challenging way.
Ellison’s book has been banned for numerous reasons. In the beginning of the campaign against this text, the reasons were heavily racist: many people feared a book with a strong Black protagonist who got involved in numerous political organizations and had a roiling undercurrent of anger and disillusionment with the status quo (Callahan 43-44). However, over time, the reasons why this book has been banned have changed. The political undercurrent and fear of Communism has largely faded into history in America, but the difficulties of race relations continue on to this day. Issues of race continue to be problematic for communities around the United States, and this has led to the banning of Invisible Man in many conservative communities.
Fear is nearly always the reason for banning any book, and Ellison’s work is no exception. When reading the text, the anger that the narrator feels is palpable; there is a sense that he is experiencing a feeling of impotence, and he attempts to lash out against those who are responsible for his impotence by enacting violence against the institutional powers that be (Callahan 32). The problem with banning Ellison’s book is that it has immense redeeming literary value: the text tells the story of a generation of Americans who were failed by their government in the years following World War I and II, and how those Americans fought to become recognized fully by their nation. The political undercurrent of anger in this text is both necessary and important for today’s youth to understand, and it is essential to look at these issues to underscore the issues that remain in American society today.
Works Cited
Boyer, Paul S. Purity in print: Book censorship in America from the gilded age to the computer age. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
Callahan, John F., ed. Ralph Ellison's Invisible man: a casebook. Oxford University Press, 2004.
D'Addario, Daniel. "Ralph Ellison’S Race Classic “Invisible Man” Banned In North Carolina". Salon. N. p., 2017. Web. 1 Jan. 2017. http://www.salon.com/2013/09/19/ralph_ellisons_race_classic_invisible_man_banned_in_north_carolina/
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible man. Vintage, 2010.
Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the USA: A reference guide to book censorship in schools and public libraries. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002.
Karolides, Nicholas J., Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova. 100 banned books: Censorship histories of world literature. Checkmark Books, 1999.
Mitgang, Herbert. ”’Invisible Man,' As Vivid Today As In 1952". Nytimes.com. N. p., 2017. Web. 1 Jan. 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/20/specials/ellison-vivid.html
Rogers, Donald J. Banned!: Book Censorship in the Schools. Julian Messner, 1988.
Smith, Maggie Mason. "Banned & Challenged Book Display." (2014).
Sundquist, Eric J., ed. Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Scholastic, 2009.
