“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison

Is “Double-consciousness” Still Relevant Today?

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” W.E.B. Dubois The Souls of Black folks

A Black man leaves the south while still in high school during the late nineteen-thirties. Before living out his life in Harlem, he spends three years in college. Now, if this were a country in which racial division, unequal access to opportunity, and class division did not exist, a man such as this would have led a successful and productive life. However, this was not the case for the narrator and central figure in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. There was no opportunity to realize his full potential and set him on a path to living a productive and satisfying lifestyle. The central figure’s search for acceptance was fraught with personal discontent and callous treatment. He experiences seen and unseen forces of overt and covert degradation during his adult life.

Ellison writes captivating prose in heart-wrenching detail with unflinching honesty. His main characters (who remained nameless throughout the novel), ethereal, surreal, and pragmatic experiences during his life in Harlem, New York was not…