Ellison's
writing could be called autobiographical. His writings are about his life
experiences. His first novel The Invisible Man was thought to be about him
because there were so many similarities between the main character and himself.
The
central theme of Ralph Ellison's writing is the search for identity, a search
that he sees as central to American literature and the American experience.
He
has said that "the nature of our society is such that we are prevented
from knowing who we are," and in Invisible Man this struggle toward
self-definition is applied to individuals, groups, and the society as a whole.
The particular genius of Invisible Man is Ellison's ability to interweave these
individual, communal, and national quests into a single, complex vision.
In
this sense, the book is part of the literary tradition of initiation tales,
stories of young men or women who confront the larger world beyond the security
of home and attempt to define themselves in these new terms.
The
novel surveys the history of African-American experience and alludes directly
or indirectly to historical figures who serve as contradictory models for
Ellison's protagonist. Some of the novel's effect is surely lost for readers
who do not recognize the parallels drawn between Booker T. Washington and the
Founder, between Marcus Garvey and Ras the Destroyer, or between Frederick
Douglass and the narrator's grandfather
Ellison
does not restrict himself to the concerns of African-Americans because he
believes that African-American culture is an inextricable part of American
culture. Thus, Invisible Man shows how the struggles of the narrator as an
individual and as a representative of an ethnic minority are paralleled by the
struggle of the nation to define and redefine itself.
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