The Invisible Man의 Identity 探究 : Ralph Ellison의 Invisible Man을 中心으로 = The invisible man's searching for identity in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The aim of this study is to pursue the search for identity problems as manifested in invisible Man written by Ralph Ellison, one of the major black writers. In this study I took up Ralph Ellision as the subject of this pursuit because he is one of the first black writers who began to reflect on black people`s self-images and have devoted himself to the searching for black people`s identity.
The unifying theme of Invisible Man is the search for identity on the part of an unnamed black protagonist. We also can say that this novel is a record of that agony, and of the discovery of the realities that must be faced before a genuine identity can be achived.
The hero of this novel, in the course of a journey from the South to North, assumes a variety of poses, most of which he believes in at the time to fit the white man`s definition of a Negro. But each of these roles fails him and a kind of chaosensues, for no one of them takes into account the fluidity and complexity of his individual being. He only maintains that he has been an invisible man. Above all, it is necessary to recognize the proposition that the individual`s sense of his own existence depends on confirmation of his being by others. However, the hero`s own way of feeling, of seeing, and of expressing his sense of reality is never recognized and confirmed others. On the other hand, their perception of him never squares with his self-concept. They use him only to confirm their own selected fictions. They refuse to see and recognize him as a man. In addition, his society not only treats him as an alien, but seems to deny his existence by simply ignoring him. Consequently at the end of the novel, he
has become an invisible man who undergoes an increasingly intense succession of disillusioning experiences.
In order to make him visible to everyone as well as to himself, the hero takes to the cellar and hibernates. He is preparing himself for "a more overt action." The hero comes to no true resolution of his dilemman except the realization that his humanity is invisible to most persons. Negroes as well as white, and that the must discover for himself what he thinks, feels and is. The hero intends to ascend to the surface soon to have another experience at the world. The novel then proceeds to record the hero`s various initiation rites into invisibility wherein the white man accords him several identies-none of them human. While running and dodging in the outside world, the hero may be evolving and discovering and defining his true features in his inner world. The hero`s most important affirmation may be, not of any pattern in the outside world, but of the patterning power of his own mind. In these sense his life is a jouney into self-recognition. He recognizes first that he is invisible-and second, that he is a man.
Consequently, he begins to create a new myth which comes from his journey to omniscient invisibility. He drives himself towards establishing a true self which knows that man can become free only when he discovers his real identity. It seems that the novel suggests us some new insights into the human predicament in a technological society and some new facets of the human possibility of rediscovery of self. Ralph Ellison, who was influenced by T.S. Eliot is deeply concerned with loss of self. He firmly believes that at the present the urgent problem of mankind is to recover the lost self and return to humanity-return to visibility from invisibility, -as the title of his novel, Invisible Man suggests. To him, the best way for the negroes to retain their identity is to accept their inborn fate with passive resistance. Therefore in his novel, Invisible Man, the ordinary man is represented as human being in general who searchs for the fundamental integrity in him. It seems that Ellison`s good achievements as a
writer come from his excellent idea of the mission of a novelist, recreating "man is the creator of his own reality".

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 序 論
• Ⅱ. Identity를 위한 儀式
• Ⅲ. 挫折과 不可視에 대한 認識
• Ⅳ. Brother로서의 Identity
• Ⅴ. Rinehart로서의 Identity
• Ⅵ. 不可視로 부터의 可視로서의 再生
• Ⅶ. 結 論