Ellison's The Invisible Man example essay topic
One of the first people he meets is Brother Tarp, a veteran worker in the Harlem district, who gives the narrator the chain link he broke nineteen years ago, while freeing himself from being imprisoned. Brother Tarp's imprisonment was for standing up to a white man. Therefore, he was sent to jail. Imprisonment made brother Tarp similar to invisible because, he lost part of his identity. However, he regained it by escaping the prison and giving himself a new name.
The chain plays an interesting part in the entire play. The chain symbolizes the narrator's experience in college, where he was restricted to living up to Dr. Bredsoe's rules. He feels that he too is trying to be an individual free of others people's control. The chain functions as a link in several ways, between the two men, between the past and the present, as a symbol of oppression, and eventually as a weapon for the Invisible Man as he uses it to fight in a street riot. It reminds the narrator of his grandfather, a man repressed by the system who went through his entire life trying to obey but at the same time hating all the men in power. At the end of the novel, the narrator continues to fight for his community.
He feels betrayed and now he wants to destroy "The Brotherhood". His plan does not work out. He tells the people of Harlem to go on a riot. He falls down though, he gets into isolation. While in isolation he decides that he wants to go back to the society.
He grows to understand what the brotherhood and what Mr. Bedloe (mentor) could never understood, that individuality doesn't exclude being part of a group. He learned to be an individual for himself. I personally, enjoyed reading "The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison. The book I read was nonfiction, it was published in, copyright date. What this story was about was a Black man trying to fit in a white crowd.
He thought that he could not do it therefore; he joins The Brotherhood, which later on betrayed him. At the end, he realizes that he was wrong and then he goes back to the society. I have learned that being an individual for yourself is good but being an individual from the crowd is not going to play a good role in your life. You always have to struggle in lifetime in order to be a successful man in this world..