The Narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is confronted with a wide variety of experiences that challenge his understanding of his identity, both as an individual and as a member of his race at large. Many of these experiences are marked by the Narrator collecting objects as he grows and navigates the complicated world around him, and the culmination of these objects illustrates the Narrator’s developing identity as his world view changes. Two objects in particular, his Brotherhood identification and his dark sunglasses, are evidence to the Narrator’s relationship with identity changing as the reality of his life circumstances become more clear.
By the time the Narrator begins his work with the Brotherhood, his identity has already been challenged on multiple fronts- from his school expulsion to the personality altering tests performed on him in the hospital. Although the objects that the Narrator collects during the beginning of the book are significant, his Brotherhood identification paper shows his first direct confrontation of identity as brought about by an object. On the night that he receives his Brotherhood ID, Jack tells the Narrator that he should forget his past in order to succeed in his new role. Though the Narrator confesses that he has little trust in Jack, he quickly transitions to blindly following his requests. “But how far could I trust them, and in what way were they different from the trustees? Whatever, I was committed” (Ellison, 316). This abandonment of the Narrator’s morals shows his enthusiasm towards taking on an identity that was chosen for him. Even though he doesn’t trust the Brotherhood, the promise of a simply definable identity was too attractive to turn down. Though the Narrator’s attachment to his new ID is alarming from the reader’s perspective, his reliance on this untrue yet stable self concept is understandable when considering how many times he has been robbed of an identity in the past. As an object, the Brotherhood ID paper is a perfect example of the Narrator’s early belief that identity should be concrete and definable.
In the chapters that follow, a series of upsetting experiences cause the Narrator to embrace a new relationship with his own identity, which is shown by his purchase of the dark sunglasses. At this point, the Narrator has seen the best and worst of the Brotherhood and is losing his loyalty to both their ideology and leadership. He purchases the glasses as a disguise, but when countless strangers from all walks of life mistake him for Rinehart, who has multiple personalities himself, the Narrator realizes how unconstrained identity actually is. “It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it ... I must have been crazy and blind. The world in which we lived was without boundaries” (Ellison, 498). At a point in time when he no longer trusts the identity he was given, this helps the Narrator realize that identity is much more fluid than he ever thought before, and this gives him the momentum he needs to break from his life as a tool for the Brotherhood. As an object that the Narrator always carries with him, the glasses stand as a symbol for his shift from thinking about identity as static to flexible.
However, it should be noted that neither the Brotherhood identification nor the dark sunglasses are left unaltered as the book comes to a close. As with many of his ideas in Invisible Man, Ellison makes these symbols more nuanced and powerful by changing their physical state. For example, in the last chapter when the Narrator burns everything in his briefcase, the Brotherhood identification paper causes profuse anger and pain in the Narrator when it is burned, showing that his stable Brotherhood identity is still somewhat a part of him. On the other hand, the Narrator finds that his sunglasses are smashed when he almost thoughtlessly joins the Harlem riots, showing that his fluid approach to self identity is not fully reliable either. With both of these symbols and many of the other objects in Invisible Man, Ellison shows how much the influence of the outside world can change one’s view of themselves. In addition, with the perspective that Ellison exposed in this book, I personally have been able to recognize a new weight to some of the meaningful objects in my life, and am excited by the opportunity to explore other gaps in my own identity which I may be seeing unclearly.
By the time the Narrator begins his work with the Brotherhood, his identity has already been challenged on multiple fronts- from his school expulsion to the personality altering tests performed on him in the hospital. Although the objects that the Narrator collects during the beginning of the book are significant, his Brotherhood identification paper shows his first direct confrontation of identity as brought about by an object. On the night that he receives his Brotherhood ID, Jack tells the Narrator that he should forget his past in order to succeed in his new role. Though the Narrator confesses that he has little trust in Jack, he quickly transitions to blindly following his requests. “But how far could I trust them, and in what way were they different from the trustees? Whatever, I was committed” (Ellison, 316). This abandonment of the Narrator’s morals shows his enthusiasm towards taking on an identity that was chosen for him. Even though he doesn’t trust the Brotherhood, the promise of a simply definable identity was too attractive to turn down. Though the Narrator’s attachment to his new ID is alarming from the reader’s perspective, his reliance on this untrue yet stable self concept is understandable when considering how many times he has been robbed of an identity in the past. As an object, the Brotherhood ID paper is a perfect example of the Narrator’s early belief that identity should be concrete and definable.
In the chapters that follow, a series of upsetting experiences cause the Narrator to embrace a new relationship with his own identity, which is shown by his purchase of the dark sunglasses. At this point, the Narrator has seen the best and worst of the Brotherhood and is losing his loyalty to both their ideology and leadership. He purchases the glasses as a disguise, but when countless strangers from all walks of life mistake him for Rinehart, who has multiple personalities himself, the Narrator realizes how unconstrained identity actually is. “It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it ... I must have been crazy and blind. The world in which we lived was without boundaries” (Ellison, 498). At a point in time when he no longer trusts the identity he was given, this helps the Narrator realize that identity is much more fluid than he ever thought before, and this gives him the momentum he needs to break from his life as a tool for the Brotherhood. As an object that the Narrator always carries with him, the glasses stand as a symbol for his shift from thinking about identity as static to flexible.
However, it should be noted that neither the Brotherhood identification nor the dark sunglasses are left unaltered as the book comes to a close. As with many of his ideas in Invisible Man, Ellison makes these symbols more nuanced and powerful by changing their physical state. For example, in the last chapter when the Narrator burns everything in his briefcase, the Brotherhood identification paper causes profuse anger and pain in the Narrator when it is burned, showing that his stable Brotherhood identity is still somewhat a part of him. On the other hand, the Narrator finds that his sunglasses are smashed when he almost thoughtlessly joins the Harlem riots, showing that his fluid approach to self identity is not fully reliable either. With both of these symbols and many of the other objects in Invisible Man, Ellison shows how much the influence of the outside world can change one’s view of themselves. In addition, with the perspective that Ellison exposed in this book, I personally have been able to recognize a new weight to some of the meaningful objects in my life, and am excited by the opportunity to explore other gaps in my own identity which I may be seeing unclearly.
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