Invisible Man - Identity Essay submitted by Doug Lee "Who the hell am I?" (Ellison 386) This question puzzled the invisible man, the unidentified, anonymous narrator of Ralph Ellison's acclaimed novel Invisible Man. Throughout the story, the narrator embarks on a mental and physical journey to seek what the narrator believes is "true identity," a belief quite mistaken, for he, although unaware of it, had already been inhabiting true identities all along. The narrator's life is …
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showed last 75 words of 3406 total
…alone and lets himself be killed the narrator decides to, "shake of his old skin" and go back into society.(580). He realizes that the people or institutions (Dr. Bledsoe and the Brotherhood) he reveres are as flawed as the system they are fighting. He grows to understand what the brotherhood and what Bledsoe could never understand, that individuality does not exclude being part of a group. Ultimately, he learned to be an individual for himself.