Lili's Blog :)

Throughout Invisible Man,  Ellison hides many metaphors that relate to the narrators life. From the reoccurring theme of running to the coin bank at Marry's, but one particularly interesting one was the doll that pops up before the climax of the book. He stumbles upon Clifton (who he doesn't notice till later) advertising and selling racist puppet dolls. Like everyone else, the narrator finds himself sucked into the doll fascinated with how it moves, he doesn't even realize Clifton is the one selling the dolls nor does he get upset that they're racist dolls. The police eventually come and everyone runs away and the narrator grabs a doll off the ground later putting it into his brief case (another reoccurring metaphor). Upon picking it up he finally realizes how the doll was able to move, it had tiny black strings which Clifton were using to move it in such a way.  This scene essentially creates a puppet on a string metaphor. In many ways, the Narrator is the puppet on t...

Ellison's Invisible Man, women are portrayed as either crazy, helpless, motherly figures, or sexual objects. They are all represented in a surface level 2D way, much like they in Wrights Native Son . We never really get to learn each women's story or see them have any character development. In fact, the women are always used as plot twisters, or extra add ons, or even just to set back the narrator, rather than becoming major parts of the story.  For now I'll touch on the Dancer and True Bloods daughter and wife which are the most minor female characters in the novel. The Dancer at the very beginning of the novel was placed into the situation just for entertainment and to throw off the narrator. There was only that brief moment of eye-contact between the two of them where the narrator somehow thinks he can relate to her situation because she looked terrified at what was going on. After that, we hear or see nothing of her again. Next in the story comes True Blood's daught...