LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:5 May 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Visibility of Racism in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

Nidhiya Annie Jacob, M.A, M.Phil.
Mythreyi. V, Graduate student, B.A. English


Abstract

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of the skin, but by the content of their character”. Has his dream gotten fulfillment? Has his vision been accomplished? Yes, partly it has been accomplished. Racism still exists in the minds of some whites and is still visible in their actions. The Invisible Man is the nameless protagonist who is the victim of racism in the novel Invisible Man written by Ralph Ellison. The novel reveals the cruelty of racism which prevailed in American society.

The novel Invisible Man is the story which represents the life of a black-skinned person. The narrator is constantly trying to be someone else, other than himself because others refused to see him as he is. This creates a complete loss of his identity and thus he becomes a human being without soul. This paper explores the visibility of racism in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The main aim is to throw light on invisibility, inequality on the basis of skin colour and the hurdles faced by a black-skinned person in the society.

Keywords: Invisible Man, inequality, racism and stereotypical mindset, invisibility, Ralph Ellison

Racism in USA

Racism was a major issue in the United States and it was largely spread from the southern states, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with a large number of slaves from Africa being brought in slave ships, to be purchased and put to work on plantations owned by rich southern landowners. The African slaves were the most miserable and unlucky of communities affected by racist feelings. They were ill-treated by landowning whites and they suffered from inequality on the basis of skin colour. Racism is a discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Here the narrator gives an introduction about the central theme of the novel from the very first sentence, describing himself as an ‘invisible man’ who has a body and who takes physical space, but still invisible to others because they ‘refuse to see him’.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Nidhiya Annie Jacob, M.A, M.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Yuvakshetra College
Palakkad
Kerala
India
nidhiyajacob@gmail.com

Mythreyi. V. Graduate Student, B.A. English
Yuvakshetra Institute of Management Studies
Palakkad
Kerala
India
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