Invisible Man is a novel written by African American author Ralph Ellison and published in 1952. An example of 20th-century realism, the novel combines psychological and social storylines to examine how racism affects its unnamed protagonist and his ability to rise above all obstacles to craft his own sense of self, considering themes like Race in 20th-Century America, the Journey Toward Self-Understanding and Adult Identity, and Alienation from a Sense of Place Through Involuntary Resettlement.

A classic work of American literature, Invisible Man won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, and Ellison was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1985 for his contributions to American literature. In addition to his fiction, he wrote essays and was a professor, teaching at several prestigious American universities including Yale University, Bard College, New York University, the University of Chicago, and Rutgers University. He also received medals from two US presidents as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and various international honors.

This guide refers to the 1980 Random House edition.

Content Warning: This study guide and source text depict racism and racial violence.

Plot Summary

Invisible Man’s protagonist is a young Black man whose name is never given in the text. He grows up in the Jim Crow South and is driven to achieve professional success even in a segregated world that subjects him to racial stereotypes and discrimination.

As a graduating high school senior, he is invited to give a graduation speech at a reception attended by prominent white men in his hometown. However, he quickly learns the event is an excuse to force young Black men to entertain white people by boxing blindfolded and afterward scrambling on an electrified carpet for fake money. At the end of the night, he’s given a briefcase with notification inside that he has been admitted to a Black college.

Several years later, the protagonist angers the college’s president by taking an esteemed white founder to impoverished areas surrounding the college rather than presenting a more “sanitized” view of the area. The president punishes him by sending him to New York City, ostensibly just for the summer so he can learn to interact with white people in a professional way. The president gives him sealed letters that he claims are recommendations to prominent white men.

Upon arriving in New York, the protagonist discovers the letters actually tell the white men that the protagonist has been expelled and not to give him work, stranding him in the city without any savings.

Desperate to earn money, the protagonist works one day in a paint factory, where an explosion injures him. He’s treated in the factory hospital and involuntarily undergoes a lobotomy-like procedure before being released and told he’ll be “compensated” for his trouble.

The protagonist finds another job as a community activist and orator with an organization called the Brotherhood of Man. The Brotherhood works under what seems to be a strict code of ethics that appeals to the protagonist, and he enjoys this work for a while, becoming familiar with other activists in Harlem, where he’s based.

After a few months of growing contention between the Brotherhood and the protagonist, he’s sent out of Harlem for a while. Upon his return, he finds that the Brotherhood has abandoned its work, leaving the people it assisted desperate and without resources. Enraged by the Brotherhood’s actions and the unjust death of a fellow activist, the protagonist stages a funeral that raises an outcry against white authorities from the Harlem community.

Race riots erupt, and the protagonist realizes the Brotherhood intends to make him a scapegoat for the unrest. Having been repeatedly disappointed by the people and groups who once had his respect, he finally resolves to determine his own sense of self rather than letting it be dictated to him.

During the riots, he falls down a manhole and uses it as a chance to stage a “disappearance.” His absence lets him spend some years living a quiet life in Harlem before he reemerges, ready to rejoin the effort of social causes.