Narrative Technique of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"

 

Invisible Man can be seen as a Bildungsroman (novel of education), similar to Voltaire’s Candide, which captures the personal growth and development of the protagonist. The novel focuses on the life of the Invisible Man as a young man and his experiences from adulthood through maturity. The narrator is older now as he reflects on his life story backwards.

The novel is framed by a Prologue and an Epilogue. The story opens in the present, switches to flashback, and then returns to the present, but a step forward from the Prologue. Writing down the story has helped the hero to make up his mind about things. Leonard J. Deutsch attributes the complexity of the novel in part to this juxtaposition of perspectives of the “I” of the naïve boy and the “I” of the older, wiser narrator.



Warren French has described the formal organization of the narrative as “a series of nested boxes that an individual, trapped in the constricting center, seeks to escape.” Several critics cite the use of varied literary styles, from the naturalism of the events at the college campus, to the expressionism, or subjective emotions, of the hero’s time with the Brotherhood, to the surrealism that characterizes the riot at the end of the novel. Comedy and irony are used to good effect in both the episode with Jim Trueblood and the scene at the Golden Day. Ellison also drew on the knowledge of African-American folklore he acquired in his days with the Federal Writers Project, and the influence of that tradition, particularly jazz and the blues, is inextricably woven into the thought and speech of the characters. The Reverend Homer Barbee’s address, for example, is alive with gospel rhythms: “But she knew, she knew!............She knew the fire that burned without consuming!”



The novel appropriates different genres and techniques. It employs elements of the picaresque novel in the form of loose adventures the narrator encounters in his journey from the South to the North. Things happen to the narrator on the road, and sometimes in an unexpected manner. The Invisible Man tries hard to secure his lodging and sustenance once he is stranded in New York in the manner of a picaro.

In addition, elements of the psychological novel in the form of flashbacks, dreams, hallucinations, and stream of consciousness narration are also there. More importantly, the novel can be studied as an existential one, for it deals directly with questions of individual existence, identity formation, and the meaning of life for a black man confronted with racism and cultural stereotypes. In a paramount existential scene in a factory hospital, the Invisible Man twice asks himself: “Who am I?”


Read more about the novel:

Plot Outline/ Summary

Major Characters

Brother Jack

Themes

The Battle Royal Scene

The Golden Day Episode

The Liberty Paints Episode

As a Bildungsroman

Existential Vision

The Prologue and the Epilogue

Parody

Symbolism

Metaphor

Satire

Irony

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