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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—Dreamers & Sleepwalkers:
Alongside the metaphor of invisibility that gives the novel its name, the narrator also uses sleep as a metaphor for describing those individuals, often white, who ignore him, rendering him “invisible.” He alternatively describes these people, metaphorically, as being asleep, as dreaming, or as sleepwalking. In the prologue, for example, he elaborates upon these various “sleep” metaphors:
Most of the time (although I do not choose as I once did to deny the violence of my days by ignoring it) I am not so overtly violent. I remember that I am invisible and walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers. I learned in time though that it is possible to carry on a fight against them without their realizing it.
Despite occasionally engaging in violence, the narrator claims that he is nonviolent “most of the time.” Rather than getting into fights with those who ignore him, he states that he tries to “remember” his invisibility, and to “walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones.” Here, Ellison uses the metaphor of sleep to suggest that the narrator is often careful not to come to the attention of those who are inclined to ignore him, as “it is best not to awaken them.” Those whom he identifies as “sleepwalkers” are “dangerous” because they often react with violence to his presence when they become aware of it. Alongside the metaphor of invisibility, these metaphors of sleep and dreaming are central to the novel.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Grave:
In describing the “hole” in which he lives after being chased by members of various political factions in New York, the narrator uses both simile and metaphor:
Now don’t jump to the conclusion that because I call my home a “hole” it is damp and cold like a grave; there are cold holes and warm holes. Mine is a warm hole. And remember, a bear retires to his hole for the winter and lives until spring; then he comes strolling out like the Easter chick breaking from its shell. I say all this to assure you that it is incorrect to assume that, because I’m invisible and live in a hole, I am dead. I am neither dead nor in a state of suspended animation.
The small apartment he has carved out for himself in the basement of an all-white building in New York City is not, he claims in a simile, “cold like a grave.” He insists that he is not “dead nor in a state of suspended animation” while living in this subterranean lair. Instead, he uses the metaphor of hibernation. Just as “a bear retires to his hole for the winter and lives until spring,” he feels that he is hibernating in his new abode until the right moment, “like the Easter chick breaking from its shell.” One implication of the narrator’s figurative language is that he intends, like a hibernating animal, to only remain in his burrow temporarily.
Explanation and Analysis—Invisibility :
The title of Invisible Man is drawn from the metaphor of invisibility explored at various points in the novel. Reflecting upon his status as a Black man in America, whose interactions with others are structured by racialized stereotypes and inequalities, the narrator comes to feel that he is practically invisible, unseen by others. In the prologue, he expands upon this metaphor:
Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a biochemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then too, you’re constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision.
First, he notes that he does not mean that he has literally become invisible due to some “biochemical accident” that has afflicted his skin. Rather, he suggests that his own invisibility stems from a “peculiar disposition of the eyes” of those he interacts with. In other words, his invisibility is produced by the vision of others who refuse to acknowledge him as an individual. He clarifies, again, that he is not referring to the “physical eyes” of others, but rather, the “inner eyes” that filter everything that a person perceives. Though this state of invisibility can be “wearing on the nerves,” he does acknowledge that invisibility can sometimes be “advantageous.” Ellison explores this metaphor of invisibility throughout the novel.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Horatio Alger:
In a deeply ironic passage that is dense with allusions and metaphors, the narrator describes a sermon at the college chapel, which is attended by the school’s wealthy white donors:
Here upon this stage the black rite of Horatio Alger was performed to God’s own acting script, with millionaires come down to portray themselves; not merely acting out the myth of their goodness, and wealth and success and power and benevolence and authority in cardboard masks, but themselves, these virtues concretely! Not the wafer and the wine, but the flesh and the blood, vibrant and alive, and vibrant even when stooped, ancient and withered. (And who, in face of this, would not believe? Could even doubt?)
Fearing that he will be expelled after he is admonished by the college president, Dr. Bledsoe, the narrator attends the sermon with a great feeling of anxiety. As he watches the musical performances arranged by the college and observes the behavior of the rich trustees, he begins to feel that he is observing a play in which the millionaires “come down to portray themselves.” Through this theatrical metaphor, the narrator implies that this sermon is an artificial ritual designed to flatter the donors. Additionally, he alludes to Horatio Alger, a popular 19th-century author whose works often featured “rags to riches” stories of young boys and men who work hard and gain prosperity. He also alludes to the Roman Catholic concept of transubstantiation, in which bread and wine is understood to be literally transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. His allusion to transubstantiation is ironic, as these wealthy donors are by no means capable of performing otherworldly miracles.
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Win the Game:
After the narrator inadvertently exposes Mr. Norton, a wealthy white trustee of the college, to danger and injury, he meets with the college president, Dr. Bledsoe, who is infuriated by what he considers to be poor judgment by the narrator. When Bledsoe threatens him with expulsion, the narrator retorts that Bledsoe promised Norton that he would not punish the narrator. Bledsoe, however, laughs off this threat. In his cynical response, he compares his own life, metaphorically, to a game:
“I don’t even insist that it was worth it, but now I’m here and I mean to stay—after you win the game, you take the prize and you keep it, protect it; there’s nothing else to do.” He shrugged. “A man gets old winning his place, son. So you go ahead, go tell your story; match your truth against my truth, because what I’ve said is truth, the broader truth. Test it, try it out … When I started out I was a young fellow …”
Though he acknowledges that he has some doubts about the choices he has made in his life, Bledsoe nevertheless insists that he “[means] to stay” in his position as president of the college. “After you win the game,” he claims, “you take the prize and you keep it, protect it” as “there’s nothing else to do.” Here, he compares his life, in a metaphor, to a game that can be won or lost. His worldview is somewhat cynical, then, as he is not motivated by any genuine ideals, but rather a desire to "win." Further, he notes that those who “win the game” are able to enjoy more comforts and privileges as they get older. This game metaphor reflects the president’s pragmatic and non-idealistic worldview.
Related Themes:
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Like Inscrutable Fish:
After being the victim of sabotage by the paranoid and hostile factory foreman Lucius Brockway, the narrator wakes up in a hazy state in a bizarre hospital-like environment, where he observes medical personnel hovering above him through a glass surface. In his description of this surreal scene, he uses a series of similes and metaphors related to water.
Faces hovered above me like inscrutable fish peering myopically through a glass aquarium wall. I saw them suspended motionless above me, then two floating off, first their heads, then the tips of their finlike fingers, moving dreamily from the top of the case. A thoroughly mysterious coming and going, like the surging of torpid tides. I watched the two make furious movements with their mouths. I didn’t understand. They tried again, the meaning still escaping me [...]
In a simile, he notes that “faces hovered above [him] like inscrutable fish [...] through a glass aquarium wall.” The doctors have placed him in a glass box in order to observe him, and so he witnesses the scene, in a daze, as if through water. Unable to see the full bodies of the doctors, he describes them as being “suspended” above him as a series of disembodied and “floating” heads and “finlike” fingers. In another simile, he describes their “coming and going” as being “mysterious [...] like the surging of torpid tides.” These various aquatic similes and metaphors contribute to the surreal, dream-like atmosphere of the scene.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Emotion-Freezing Ice:
After being fired from the Liberty Paints factory after just one day of work and becoming disillusioned with his life in New York City, the narrator uses a series of metaphors related to heat and ice in order to express his volatile feelings at this point in the novel:
Somewhere beneath the load of the emotion-freezing ice which my life had conditioned my brain to produce, a spot of black anger glowed and threw off a hot red light of such intensity that had Lord Kelvin known of its existence, he would have had to revise his measurements. A remote explosion had occurred somewhere [...] and it had caused the ice cap to melt and shift the slightest bit. But that bit, that fraction, was irrevocable. Coming to New York had perhaps been an unconscious attempt to keep the old freezing unit going, but it hadn’t worked [...]
Here, he acknowledges the “emotion-freezing ice” which he has been “conditioned” by his upbringing to produce, a metaphorical ice which has prevented him from feeling or expressing anger about the events of his life. Now, however, he feels that a “spot of black anger” is throwing off a “hot red light” that has begun to melt the “ice cap,” and he can finally confront his feeling of outrage. Moving to New York, he now feels, had been “an unconscious attempt to keep the old freezing unit going,” but ultimately, it “hasn’t worked” and he now finds himself deeply angry about how others have treated him.
Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—World Within a World:
At first, the narrator feels personally satisfied with his work as an organizer for the Brotherhood, as he both believes in their mission and is pleased by his successes. In his description of his early days working with the Brotherhood, the narrator uses a series of metaphors, hyperboles, and allusions:
The Brotherhood was a world within a world and I was determined to discover all its secrets and to advance as far as I could. I saw no limits, it was the one organization in the whole country in which I could reach the very top and I meant to get there. Even if it meant climbing a mountain of words. For now I had begun to believe [...] that there was a magic in spoken words. Sometimes I sat watching the watery play of light upon Douglass’ portrait, thinking how magical it was that he had talked his way from slavery to a government ministry [...]
He metaphorically describes the Brotherhood, with its various chapters, secret clubs, and internal leadership, as a “world within a world,” hyperbolically suggesting that the organization constitutes its own “world” hidden within the wider world. Highly idealistic at this point in the novel, he claims that he “saw no limits” and felt that he “could reach the very top” of the organization, “even if it meant climbing a mountain of words.” These various metaphors related to mountain-climbing further develop the sense that the Brotherhood is its own “world” in some way, one which can be explored like any land or territory. In another instance of hyperbole, he claims that he started to believe that “spoken words” are magical. Alluding to American statesman, orator, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, he exaggeratedly claims that Douglass “talked his way” out of slavery. His feverish, excited speech here reflects his excitement about the Brotherhood prior to his later disillusionment.
Related Themes:
Chapter 25
Explanation and Analysis—Wrong But Justified:
After finding himself in a dangerous position, trapped in the midst of a riot between the police and the homicidal Ras the Destroyer, the narrator escapes and overhears a group of men joking about Ras’s eccentric behavior. Reflecting on recent events, the narrator uses a series of paradoxes and a metaphor:
They were laughing outside the hedge and leaving and I lay in a cramp, wanting to laugh and yet knowing that Ras was not funny, or not only funny, but dangerous as well, wrong but justified, crazy and yet coldly sane … Why did they make it seem funny, only funny? I thought. And yet knowing that it was. It was funny and dangerous and sad. Jack had seen it, or had stumbled upon it and used it to prepare a sacrifice. And I had been used as a tool.
In his emotionally confused state, he finds himself “wanting to laugh” while simultaneously feeling that “Ras was not funny.” In a series of short paradoxes, the narrator describes Ras as “funny” yet “dangerous,” “wrong” yet “justified,” both “crazy” and “coldly sane.” At this point in the novel, the narrator feels that his society is so absurd and paradoxical that only a “crazy” person such as Ras has a true understanding of how things really are. He then reflects upon Brother Jack, another figure competing for power in New York. In a metaphor, the narrator describes Jack’s behavior as “[preparing] a sacrifice,” suggesting that Jack is willing to exploit the violence and suffering in Harlem in order to accrue more power. These dark reflections anticipate the narrator’s later retreat from society.
