Resumo de Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

This novel, narrated by an unnamed protagonist, is about the education of this intelligent, sensitive, race-conscious young black man from the southern United States in the pre-Civil Rights era 20th century. Early in the book is an event marking his high school graduation in a racially prejudiced small town, one which is often presented as a short story, namely the battle royal. This blind-folded boxing match between several of the boys at once, a free-for-all, as it were, is held for the entertainment of the wealthier men of the community, with the boys allegedly to be paid for their suffering. It is significant that the narrator eventually discovers that he is able to see slightly through his blindfold as the other boys stumble blindly, pummeling and shoving, while the men cry out for more violence, drunkenly displaying their bloodthirsty natures. Later the boys are duped on the payment issue, and given more sadistic treatment on an electrified carpet covered with what appear to be gold coins. Nonetheless, the narrator does get to deliver his speech, bloody mouth and all, and is given his scholarship to attend a Negro college.
His fortunes do not improve at college, although he has the best of intentions, and cannot be said to use poor judgment. Entrusted to chauffeur the wealthy white Mr. Norton, a large contributor to the college, the narrator is ordered by Norton to go to certain areas of town, the inhabitants of which prove to be quite shocking and ultimately nearly fatal to old Norton, who evidently has a weak constitution, perhaps a heart condition. In any event, the young narrator lands in serious trouble with the school administration, for following the instructions of this white benefactor, who at one point felt the need of a drink, and insisted on being taken to a tavern, where he met a deranged black man, and an assortment of unsavory characters who engaged in violent behavior. For having allowed Norton to see these less attractive elements of local Negro society, the dean and idol of the young man, Dr. Bledsoe, summarily expels him. He learns eventually that Dr. Bledsoe is not only a scraping, bowing tool of the white man, but as ruthless as white men in his methods for getting and keeping power and wealth. The former student is used, abused, and lied to by these people just as he had been at the high school graduation party by the crass, stupid small-town white men, and it is Bledsoe?s passive-aggressive way to conceal his intentions, so that the young man does not realize he has been betrayed by his mentor until he arrives in New York and presents a man with what he thinks is a referral for a job which will enable him to eventually earn the money to return to school.
He ends up finding employment at a paint factory, where he is soon injured, and oddly, lands in a hospital where they perform a strange experiment which is extremely unpleasant and leaves him disoriented and confused as to time, place, and identity. When he meets a white man who turns out to be a leader of the local branch of what is evidently the Communist Party, they take him on as a fiery speaker to be groomed as an inner city leader of the black community. He eventually learns that even in an organization of such supposedly advanced social thought and attitudes, he is treated as a mere tool, to be used as his betters see fit; and his betters, it turns out, do not understand the black community, nor do they really have its best interests in mind, but rather an agenda for which the black community is supposed to serve some allegedly higher, white man?s purpose.
His association with them ends as it began, during an episode of inner city unrest, and as he flees a variety of pursuers, he goes underground, literally, where, much like Dostoevski?s famous narrator, he reflects and stews in his own juices, analyzing the almost total failure of white people and some activist organizations to comprehend the essence of the race problem in America. Thisis where he is when he introduces himself at the start of the book, living in a sealed-off portion of a whites-only apartment building, located in a neighborhood which lies in a border area between white and Negro sections of town.
As to the question that has hovered over him all his life, whether to ingratiate oneself to the white man, he now avows that he is going to shake off his old skin and come out of hibernation.
The language of the narration set in the cellar is in some ways suggestive of English translations of NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, and the author?s intention to draw this parallel must be held in mind. The fact that the narration begins and ends with a cellar, which was in fact the underground referred to by Dostoevski, makes this quite clear. One might also note similarities to THE POSSESSED, which involves efforts to recruit the main character in a misguided proto-communist group, and Dostoevski?s own unfortunate early experiences with political activism. INVISIBLE MAN is one of the great works of 20th century American literature.
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