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,*,单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,Invisible Man,Achievement,In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Invisible Man nineteenth on its list of the,100 best English-language novels of the 20th century,. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005,.,1953 - National Book Award,Plot introduction,Invisible Man is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, an unnamed African American man who considers himself socially invisible. The narrator may be,conscious,of his audience, writing as a way to make himself visible to mainstream culture.,Ralph Ellison,Invisible mans statue,Major themes,The novel addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African-Americans in the early,20,century, including,black nationalism, the relationship between,black identity,and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of,individuality and personal identity.,作者写这篇小说，与其说是在为生活在社会底层的黑人鸣不平，不如说是借黑人的逆境来有力地揭示“人”的命运。这一作品既深刻地揭示了黑人的内心世界，也表现了西方世界人们追求“自我”而又不可得的普遍痛苦。,The narrator,The nameless protagonist of the novel. The narrator is the “invisible man” of the title. A black man in 1930s America, the narrator considers himself invisible because people never see his true self beneath the roles that stereotype and racial prejudice compel him to play. Though the narrator is intelligent, deeply introspective, and highly gifted with language, the experiences that he relates demonstrate that he was naive in his youth.,As the novel progresses, the narrators illusions are gradually destroyed through his experiences as a student at college, as a worker at the Liberty Paints plant, and as a member of a political organization known as the Brotherhood. Shedding his blindness, he struggles to arrive at a conception of his identity that honors his complexity as an individual without sacrificing social responsibility.,Plot Overview,The narrator begins telling his story with the claim that he is an “invisible man.” His invisibility, he says, is not a physical conditionhe is not literally invisiblebut is rather the result of the refusal of others to see him. He says that because of his invisibility, he has been hiding from the world, living underground and stealing electricity from the,Monopolated,Light & Power Company. He burns 1,369 light bulbs simultaneously and listens to Louis Armstrongs “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” on a phonograph. He says that he has gone underground in order to write the story of his life and invisibility.,As a young man, in the late 1920s or early 1930s, the narrator lived in the South. Because he is a gifted public speaker, he is invited to give a speech to a group of important white men in his town. The men reward him with a briefcase containing a scholarship to a prestigious black college, but only after humiliating him by forcing him to fight in a “battle royal” in which he is pitted against other young black men, all blindfolded, in a boxing ring. After the battle royal, the white men force the youths to scramble over an electrified rug in order to snatch at fake gold coins. The narrator has a dream that night in which he imagines that his scholarship is actually a piece of paper reading “To Whom It May Concern . . . Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.”,Three years later, the narrator is a student at the college. He is asked to drive a wealthy white trustee of the college. Mr. Norton talks incessantly about his daughter, then shows an undue interest in the narrative of Jim,Trueblood, a poor, uneducated black man who impregnated his own daughter. After hearing this story, Norton needs a drink, and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day, a saloon and brothel that normally serves black men. A fight breaks out among a group of mentally imbalanced black veterans at the bar, and Norton passes out during the chaos. He is tended by one of the veterans, who claims to be a doctor and who taunts both Norton and the narrator for their blindness regarding race relations.,Back at the college, the narrator listens to a long, impassioned sermon. After the sermon, the college president, Dr. Bledsoe, who has learned of the narrators misadventures with Norton at the old slave quarters and the Golden Day. He rebukes the narrator, saying that he should have shown the white man an idealized version of black life. He expels the narrator, giving him seven letters of recommendation, addressed to the colleges white trustees in New York City, and sends him there in search of a job.,However, the letters of recommendation are of no help. At last, the narrator goes to the office of one of his letters addressees, a trustee named Mr. Emerson. There he meets Emersons son, who opens the letter and tells the narrator that he has been betrayed: the letters from Bledsoe actually portray the narrator as dishonorable and unreliable. The young Emerson helps the narrator to get a low-paying job at the Liberty Paints plant, whose trademark color is “Optic White.” The narrator briefly serves as an assistant to,Lucius,Brockway, the black man who makes this white paint, but Brockway suspects him of joining in union activities and turns on him. The two men fight, neglecting the paint-making; consequently, one of the unattended tanks explodes, and the narrator is knocked unconscious.,The narrator wakes in the paint factorys hospital, having temporarily lost his memory and ability to speak. The white doctors seize upon the arrival of their unidentified black patient as an opportunity to conduct electric shock experiments. After the narrator recovers his memory and leaves the hospital, he collapses on the street. Some black community members take him to the home of Mary, a kind woman who lets him live with her for free in Harlem and nurtures his sense of black heritage. One day, the narrator witnesses the eviction of an elderly black couple from their Harlem apartment. Standing before the crowd of people gathered before the apartment, he gives an impassioned speech against the eviction. Brother Jack overhears his speech and offers him a position as a spokesman for the Brotherhood, a political organization that allegedly works to help the socially oppressed.,After a short time, many other black members have left the group, as much of the Harlem community feels that the Brotherhood has betrayed their interests. The Brotherhood sends the narrator back to Brother,Hambro,to learn about the organizations new strategies in Harlem.,The narrator leaves feeling furious and anxious to gain revenge on Jack and the Brotherhood. He cynically declares that people are merely tools and that the larger interests of the Brotherhood are more important than any individual. Recalling advice given to him by his grandfather, the narrator determines to undermine the Brotherhood by seeming to go along with them completely. He decides to flatter and seduce a woman close to one of the party leaders in order to obtain secret information about the group.,But the woman he chooses, Sybil, knows nothing about the Brotherhood and attempts to use the narrator to fulfill her fantasy of being raped by a black man. While still with Sybil in his apartment, the narrator receives a call asking him to come to Harlem quickly. The narrator hears the sound of breaking glass, and the line goes dead. The narrator becomes involved in setting fire to a tenement building. Running from the scene of the crime, he encounters,Ras, dressed as an African chieftain.,Ras,calls for the narrator to be lynched. The narrator flees, only to encounter two policemen, who suspect that his briefcase contains loot from the riots. In his attempt to evade them, the narrator falls down a manhole. The police mock him and draw the cover over the manhole.,The narrator says that he has stayed underground ever since; the end of his story is also the beginning. He states that he finally has realized that he must honor his individual complexity and remain true to his own identity without sacrificing his responsibility to the community. He says that he finally feels ready to emerge from underground,
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