“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison deals with a wide range of issues African Americans face in the early 1900s. The novel presents us with a character who is invisible because of his race. The issues presented in the novel of racism that the characters face, gives us a very real look into a lot of the social conflict African Americans were forced to deal with at this time. Rather than viewing it as a race novel, however, it has been called to be an accurate representation of American life at this time. It displays many of the issues that were (and sadly, still are) going on in America that, as a country we prefer to suppress.
When researching this novel, I found an article written by D. Quentin Miller, who is a professor and chair of English at Suffolk University. The article is called ‘Invisible Man’: Why Ralph Ellison’s Classic Novel Still Matters and in the article he explains how he finds the novel to be representative of a very important piece of American culture, even today. He begins the article by quoting Ezra Pound, stating that he defined literature as “news that stays news.” Miller explains in this article that the reason he believes the novel stays so relevant, even in our culture today, is because “Invisible Man” is not a novel about a single idea, but about many of them.
Miller also explains how the importance of the very honest and raw look the novel presents us with in the view of racism is important to our American culture today. It doesn’t gloss over the unfair and unjust treatment African Americans dealt with in the 1900s, as we sometimes do when teaching our History.
I found a second, similarly named, article called Ellison’s Invisible Man, Always Relevant references an article in The New Yorker that “applies Invisible Man to the Trayvon Martin shooting and to Barack Obama’s confusion as a young man”. Both of these articles show parallels between what the characters in this novel are experiencing, and what we see going on in the world today. This novel has gone on to continue to express African American and racism issues that have always been present in America.
http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2014/02/28/ralph-waldo-ellison-d-quentin-miller
Thanks for pointing to these two articles on Invisible Man’s continued relevance. I’m intrigued in particular by the parallels of Obama’s coming-of-age and that of Ellison’s protagonist. In posts like this, it is sometimes more useful to go into detail on one interesting connection rather than point more broadly to two pieces related to the novels’ continued relevance. That said, I appreciate the references!