Identity and Invisibility in The Invisible Man You don't have to be racist to impose "invisibility" on another person. Ignoring someone or acting as if we haven't seen them, because it makes us feel uncomfortable, is like pretending he or she doesn't exist. “Invisibility” is what the main character of Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man called him when others didn't recognize him or him as a person. The narrator describes his invisibility. saying, “I am invisible…simply because people refuse to see me.” Throughout the prologue, the narrator compares his invisibility to things like "the disembodied heads you sometimes see in circus shows." "neither dead nor in a state of suspended animation", but rather is "in a state of hibernation". (Ellison 6) This invisibility is something the narrator has come to accept and even embrace, saying he “did not become alive.” until [he] discovered [his] invisibility." (Ellison 7) However, as we read in the story, it is evident that the invisibility experienced by the narrator goes far beyond mere white people unwilling to recognize him for who he is. is.During searching for his true identity, the narrator often meets different people, each of whom sees him differently "Who the hell am I?" is the question that torments him when he realizes that no one, not even him, understands who he really is. At some points in his life he is given identities, even though he is still trying to find himself While in the Brotherhood, he was given a "new identity" that was "written on a slip of paper". He was told to “start thinking of [himself] by that name…so that even…middle of the paper… Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971. 45-63. Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man. New York: The Modern Library, 1994. Holland, Laurence B. "Ellison in Black and White: Confession, Violence, and Rhetoric in 'Invisible Man'." Studies in the African American Novel since 1945. Ed. A. Robert Lee London: Vision Press, 1980. Klein, Marcus. "After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century." Pub., 1964. 71-146. Langman, F.H. "Reconsidering Invisible Man." The Critical Review 18 (1976) 114-27. Lieber, Todd M. "Ralph Ellison and the Metaphor of Invisibility in the Black Literary Tradition." Quarterly, March 1972: 86-100. Major, American Poetry Review, November/December. 17. Morris, Wright. "The World Below"..1952: 5.