Realizing Invisibilty
...that he is invisible. Throughout the novel, he spends a great amount of time and effort trying to figure out his identity and find a way to make himself visible in society. One of the narrator's main attempts brings him to join an organization known as the Brotherhood, where he is able to utilize his talent for public speaking as an advocate for the Brotherhood and all that they stand for. But even this is not enough to satisfy the narrator's need for an identity. It is not until the very end, however, that he is able to realize his own identity by confronting himself and ultimately committing suicide. The narrator's suicide is not a physical death, rather it is a psychological death of who he is in his own mind. The only way for the narrator to fully realize who and what he is, is to kill the person that he does not believe that he is. The most likely victim for this murder therefore must be the one who seems to be the most unlikely candidate.
There is a definite connection that can be found between the narrator and another character within the novel by the name of Ras the Exhorter. He is an outspoken Black Nationalist; an eccentric and powerful speaker. Ras is also the Brotherhood's greatest opponent. At first glance, Ras the Exhorter appears to be a character of great depth who has a strong sense of who he is and what his roots are. From the narrator's initial meeting with Ras, he is pitted against him, a sworn enemy through the ways and teachings of the Brotherhood. But are these beliefs still valid to the narrator, even without the bias notions that result from his association with the Brotherhood? There comes a time within the novel that the narrator discovers he still has no identity, even under the title of a Brother. The narrator's hopes of achieving individuality are soon destroyed when he realizes that he was only being used as a pawn in...
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