Letter About Invisible Man

Dear future student,
     You have been given a choice. When faced with the challenge of selecting a book to read with little or no background information, it can prove to be a tedious task. Do not worry, however, for I am here to lighten your load, and hopefully assist you in picking the ideal novel for you. Having read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, I am able to catalogue its attractive features and illustrate what you can expect to gain from reading this particular book.
     For one, this is a picaresque novel. Much like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which Huck and Jim skate from scene to scene as they float down the river, the narrator of Invisible Man will hop in and out of situations that are seemingly unrelated. Whether he is taking college benefactors on tours, running into mentally unstable veterans, encountering near-death experiences in a paint factory, or joining the cause of the powerful and dubious Brotherhood, your attention will be steadily held. What I liked about this style of writing even more than its power to keep me wondering what would happen next, though, was the way that although each episode may seem disparate, they are all extremely interconnected; each one coalesces to reinforce Ellison's message and bring the novel full circle.
     Another enjoyable aspect of this novel is its protagonist. The nameless narrator of Invisible Man may not be able to bring sufficient panache to the table, nor does he wow the reader with grand displays of derring-do, but nonetheless, his endeavors are eye-opening and very relatable. Always aiming to please and naively seeking truth, the narrator's persona and desperate search for identity is one that many high school students can identify with. I myself found a strange affinity for the narrator. In the end, I admired the way he was able to come to terms with his invisibility, and I felt especially connected to his existentialist view of the world when he said, "...only now I better understand my relation to it, and it to me."
     Finally, this novel has the potential to make a prodigious impact on your views. While effectively making a comment on society, Invisible Man is no the typical activist novel. The narrator's invisibility is something that you may be able to relate to personally, but it can also correlate to events happening in our world today. For example, the union employees in Wisconsin who are protesting right now, are fighting for more than just their collective bargaining rights; they are fighting to remain visible and to keep their strings from being pulled. Ellison proves that there is not just a single cause, but numerous movements with massively divergent methods of achieving their goals. Mr. Norton sees equality differently from the Brotherhood who sees it differently from someone like Ras. The narrator opened my eyes to the fact that there are people who not only think differently from me, but also have completely contrasting views of the world.
     Despite the aspects I found particularly engaging, there is still a plethora of other brilliant features packed into Invisible Man, and I regret not being able to list everything for you. It is a worth-while read, very apropos to the topic of what we as human seek and sacrafice, that I assume you are studying. Ellison showed me that people are made to be invisible everyday, and it is how one copes with that invisibility that defines that person and their relationship to the world; I hope you will give him the chance to show you too.
     Good Luck,
              Audrey T.