DShannon
AP English
Themes of Invisible Man
March 6, 2008

There are many important themes throughout Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man. Perhaps the most important theme of the novel is the suppression of all things related to African Americans by whites. This is obviously an important message to the reader from Ellison and is even echoed in the novel's title. Throughout the novel there are countless reference to this phenomenon which Ellison uses to clue the reader in to his plight.
One of the many ways that Ellison chooses to convey his theme to the reader is through the battle royal which takes place at the beginning of the novel. This portion of the novel portrays a despicable activity in the southern town that the protagonist is raised in. This serves to portray to the reader that whites take advantage of blacks and effectively use them for entertainment. This shows the domination that whites assert over blacks. The fact that this occurance was a school sponsored event shows how prevalent this attitude towards blacks was in the United States even decades after the civil war.
Another of the ways that Ellison chooses to express his theme of the domination of blacks in society by whites is the explosion that the protagonist endures while working at the paint factory. When the machinery that the protagonist is working with explodes, the room and himself are covered in white paint in what is symbolically an attempt for the company with a white owner to white-was the world.
The themes of Ellison's work are very accessible to readers. The themes in this novel are understandably important to Ellison and therefore are very well defined in the novel. Because of the accessibility of these themes, it is easy for the reader to grasp Ellison's meaning and come away from the work having learned something from the experience.