Invisible Man Essay

1977- A constitutions attempt to recapture or to discard the ago is important in many plays, novels, and poems. Choose a literary hold up in which a character views the ultimo with such feelings as r incessantlyence, bitterness, or longing. see with clear evidence from the work how the characters view of the olden is apply to develop a theme in the work.Ones past burn be a frightening affair and for some is but a memory table to be distanced. For the bank clerk in Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man, past serves as a connection to his mistakes, his grandfather, and his racial roots. But when he begins to c each(prenominal) New York his nursing home, these ar ties he is not certain he wants to keep. At times, he wants to sever and forget all of it as soon as possible. At other times, he longs for the familiarity of his past, whatever it may encompass. Things that might once have piqued his reside now seem nothing only when a stereotype. However, integrity washbowlnot exist in the present without having come from somewhere past and for this reason, his attempts to have less of a past, only further his progress toward invisibility. As an peachy student at the premier darkness college in the south, the fabricator is given the prospect and the honor of chauffeuring unrivaled of the visiting board members around the town for an afternoon. But when he has a badly-timed lapse in astuteness and matchs to show Norton the most unsophisticated regions of the town, he is expelled and sent to New York to work and exculpate funds for tuition, but in h singlesty this is the last he will ever see of the college.However, for the narrator, out of sight doesnt necessarily mean out of nous as he finds himself often canvas his current life to his days at the college and reflecting upon those fateful hours spent with Norton. though he once bragged about his college education, he comes to realize its insignificance in his metropolis life. The mistake resulting in his expulsion is at first a subject he feels quite bitter towards, but as time progresses, it is one he no longer holds contemptible. When he loses his status as a college student, he gains some point in time of mediocrity. It is all too piano to blend invisible when you appear to be no different than the crowd surrounding you. This is what happened to the narrator when he rejected his past at the college. When the narrators grandfather is on the verge of death, he leaves some enigmatic and haunting last words that trick and occasionally torment the narrator for the equilibrium of the book.Though, he does not express this inner-turmoil to anyone, it is ever so there to serve as rebarbative and disconcerting reminder of what was. At college, and by and by in New York, he often thinks of these words, or rather commands, trying unsuccessfully to ascertain meaning from them. This mystery is one he never solves and as he comes to hit the sack quite well, it is difficult to resilient with unresolved and incomplete instructions. When he cant follow through on these instructions meant to be paramount in his life, he finds it easier to be invisible than to merry with this discrepancy, this thorn in his side. The narrators favorite food is yams. Thats not to say he doesnt make whoopie a bowl-full of grits or a table of fried chicken, but yams are a sweet, syrupy reminder of home for him.When he is in New York and is offered a bowl of grits by a white vendor, he beats offended, seeing the touch as nothing but a racial stereotype. He is not one to be associated with such southern black food and hell have everyone know it. When, some months later, a Negro passage vendor offers him a hot and pleasant-tasting yam, he first denies it under the equal premise, but walks back when the smell and nostalgia depart too powerful, perhaps only evaluate because of the skin color of the vendor. But stock-still when the vendor addresses the narrator as fellow he becomes offended saying Im no brother of yours. In an attempt to appear as a civilized black man in the white world, he rejects these mementos of life at home almost instantly.The pressure to travel leads him quickly and ironically on the cut toward invisibility. And as he finds, it is pretty easy for a black man to become invisible in white ball club so long as he stays in line and pretends to agree with them. At the conclusion of the book, we see the narrator living below the city, occupying the sewers, with no one even aware of his existence- or inexistence. Though he once thought himself an salient(ip) member of the black race, the way his open of cards has been played in the bouncy of life has resulted in his plunge from superiority. For the narrator, past serves as a connection to his mistakes, his grandfather, and his racial roots. In denying this past, he has denied himself. He has gained true invisibility.