1. Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

2. Author Biographical Information
born in Oklahoma and trained as a musician at Tuskegee Institute from to 1936.
a visit to New York and a meeting with Richard Wright led to his first attempts at fiction.
Invisible Man won the National Book Award and the Russwurm Award.
taught at many colleges including Bard College, the University of Chicago, and New York University where he was Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities from through 1980.
died in 1994.

3. Historical Context Complete novel published in 1952
Passage of “Jim Crow” laws by southern states
Great Migration
Booker T. Washington (education=equality)
W.E.B. Dubois (openly fight for rights/career)
Marcus Garvey (“Back to Africa” movement)
Existentialism (sought to define the meaning of individual existence in a seemingly meaningless universe)

4. Genre
Bildungsroman: individual’s growth and development within the context of a defined social order. Example: Great Expectations, To Kill a Mockingbird
Picaresque: satirical account of a rogue’s progress through society. Example: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Existentialist novel: philosophical system concerned with free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Example: Speak, As I Lay Dying, Heart of Darkness, Crime and Punishment
African-American fiction
Social protest

5. Author’s Style
Jazz-inspired writing, almost lyrical due to sound devices
“Open” style
Narrator:
(p.9)
“And beneath the swiftness of the hot tempo there was a slower tempo and a cave and I entered it and looked around and heard an old woman singing a spiritual…”
Diction: conversational; moderate vocabulary
Syntax: Stream-of-consciousness (run-ons)

6. Author’s Style Jim Trueblood: Narrator:
(p.52) “We ain’t doing so bad, suh. ’Fore they heard ’bout what happen to us out here I couldn’t git no help from nobody.”
Diction: dialect; illiterate
Syntax: short and simple sentences
Narrator:
(p. 111) “Here upon this stage the black rite of Horatio Alger was performed to God’s own acting script, with millionaires come down to portray themselves…”
Diction: formal; elevated vocabulary
Syntax: correct and elegant

7. Author’s Style
Surrealistic—tends to deal with the world of dreams and unconsciousness (Harlem riots)
Naturalistic—faithful to small details of outward reality or nature (College)

8. Setting 1930’s A Black college in the South
New York City, especially Harlem

9. Literary Devices Motifs Symbols: blindness Invisibility dreams
violence
oratory
music
power
family
Symbols:
black Sambo doll
the coin bank
Liberty Paint
the Brotherhood
briefcase
the road to asylum

10. Possible themes
Identity
Duplicity
Invisibility
Blindness
Racism
Power

12. Chapter One: The Smoker
"(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue“
Lyrics by Andy RazafPerformed by Louis Armstrong
Cold empty bed...springs hurt my headFeels like ole Ned...wished I was deadWhat did I do...to be so black and blue
Even the mouse...ran from my houseThey laugh at you...and all that you doWhat did I do...to be so black and blue
I'm white...inside...but, that don't help my caseThat's life...can't hide...what is in my face
How would it end...ain't got a friendMy only sin...is in my skinWhat did I do...to be so black and blue(instrumental break)
How would it end...I ain't got a friendMy only sin...is in my skinWhat did I do...to be so black and blue