Significance of the Prologue and the Epilogue of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"
The Prologue
The novel opens with a prologue in which the reader quickly learns that
all the major action of the novel has already ended. As the narrator says at
the end of the last chapter, “The end was in the beginning” (571). The entire novel
is told in flashback. The Invisible Man is living underground “in a border
area” (5) as a result of the events he relates in the novel.
The prologue introduces one of the most important themes of the novel:
that of light and shadow, or blindness and clear vision. As the reader learns
in the prologue, the Invisible Man is living in a “hole in the basement” (7) where
he is illegally obtaining electric power to light 1,369 light bulbs.
This image of the Invisible Man in an underground hole flooded with
light refers, in part, to Plato’s Cave, the allegory Socrates tells his young
student in Book VII of The Republic. In light of this parallel, the prologue makes
it clear that Invisible Man is an “education” novel. It is a book about
how the main character came to understand the world—to emerge from his cave—and
see things clearly. In this cave, unlike Plato’s, the Invisible Man sees no
shadow because there is too much light to cast any shadow. In fact, Ellison has
reversed the role of the cave: The Invisible Man goes to the cave as part of
his enlightenment about the world. He escapes to the cave, not from it.
The theme of invisibility and vision appears throughout the novel.
Ellison’s protagonist feels happier now that he knows that he is invisible.
However, he still occasionally gets angry about his invisibility. He recalls
nearly killing a white man who bumped into him and called him a racial epithet,
until he realized that the white man did not see him, but only a stereotype, a
projection of his own imagination. This is why the Invisible Man is invisible.
No one truly sees him for what and who he is.
Epilogue
The Invisible Man realizes he cannot return to the world of conformist
affirmation. He has affirmed mistaken beliefs; he was loved by his friends, but
he was dishonest to himself. Since the Invisible Man has discovered that to live
in the world of illusion and conformity was to live “in everyone’s way but
[his] own” (573), he gives it up. He retreats to his cellar.
He is still trying to figure out the meaning of his grandfather’s
deathbed proclamations and decides that perhaps he meant “we [African
Americans] were to affirm the principle on which the country was built and not
the men” (574). Or perhaps the grandfather meant “we had to take the
responsibility for all of it, for the men as well as the principle” (574).
The Invisible Man considers that he has gone through both phases: being
for the country and then being against it. The Invisible Man’s world is now
“one of infinite possibilities” (576). The Invisible Man’s new outlook enables him
to “better understand [his] relation to [the world] and it to me” (576).
Finally, the Invisible Man affirms the principle of diversity, of America as a
country “woven of many strands” (577). This portion of the epilogue sounds very
contemporary, very much in the spirit of today’s multiculturalism.
The Invisible Man then recalls that he had recently seen Mr. Norton in
the subway. He appeared lost. He asked the Invisible Man how to get to Centre
Street, but Mr. Norton seems to be asking, literally, how to get to the middle
of the road. Mr. Norton doesn’t remember the Invisible Man. The Invisible Man
brings up the Golden Day and asks him if he is ashamed. Mr. Norton becomes
angry and a little alarmed, thinking the Invisible Man is crazy.
The Invisible Man asks himself why he has written down all that has
happened to him. But he feels he must tell at least a few people. The writing
seems to have activated a need to return to the world, to return to action. He
declares his hibernation over and plans to leave the cave, admitting “that even
an invisible man has a socially responsible role to play” (581).
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