Invisible Man

I recently finished reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. What are my thoughts? Well my first feeling was that I didn't like it. It left a bitter taste in my mouth; the subject was a distasteful one and the sentence structure - by the end - was as if Ellison were grasping randomly at whatever words he could get a solid hold of to build his statements. And I sat, having closed the book, reminiscing on all this and I released that this was just the point, and I found it - in a way - beautiful and romantic. Now this is truly a silly way to describe a book that is so full of chaos and the harshness of racism. But for that brave narrator to become what he was, an Invisible Man, it was mystical. Something like a nightmare. And somehow to me the chaos and the invisible man's peace with it is romantic.

But the rub is this: Ought we be at peace with it?

What so unsettled me is that I don't think we should be so eager to disregard the terrible things of life. And it is true that our great narrater by the end has decided to do just that. But this is hypocritical, because in writing the book he is showing that he does care, and he says again and again how it should not be this way. But then he goes on to tell us that he is at peace with the way of the world that he is found his role and it is to be invisible. He says he has not given up, that he intends to go back into the world, but we all say that "someday I'll go out and do that" but not today. We cannot know that he ever did leave his brilliant hole of defeat. And I find it repulsive that he can be happy within it.

But did he not try all else? And what good was it? I'll say that if actions against evil do anything they will always do good to your soul. That at the least, you've tried. Let us not be content to sit on the sidelines or to relish our captivity. Let us always fight against the chains that bind us. When we grow tired let it turn to motivation and let us be determined. Yes, let us be determined against all opposition and passively furious against the injustices; let us go brave into battle and let us love passionately. And do not forget the enemy. For it is not any man but the evil that lives within all, so that one man is constantly battling the evil within himself and not his brother. Let us never be peaceful against it. No, I do not want peace, I want to forever rage against the dying of goodness.