Searching For The Lost Self

Invisible Man is the first novel of the American black writer Ralph Ellison. Upon its publication, Ellison was immediately recognized as a major American author, and the novel was acclaimed not only as the best in the history of African-American writing but also as an important contribution to modern American literature. It is considered to be the epic of black people.This novel describes black life and history under racial discrimination, taps into the inmost recesses of the black mind and analyzes the black mind under the impact of American white culture. It reveals the conflicts between man and society, man and western civilization, and the conflicts between men. The theme of this novel is profound and complicated. It is mainly concerned with the American black's search for self and the value of self-existence after World War Two, which indicates a widespread and profound social significance. This thesis intends to analyze the protagonist一an Afro-American young man' s miserable and absurd experiences, that is, from the protagonist' s self-loss through self-quest to self-knowledge. It aims to explore the Afro-American's self-quest after World War Two. In capitalist society, the knowledge of a man about himself and the meaning of existence are distorted by religious beliefs and moral values. As a result, a man usually gets lost and feels lonely, depressed, confused and helpless while confronting the cruel reality of society. In such a society, the existence of an individual, especially a black man, is ignored, and humanity and individuality are destroyed in capitalist society with the rapid development of material civilization and the corruption of people's spiritual worlds.In this novel, Ellison also discusses the psychological and cultural reasons that caused the invisibility of American blacks. In addition, as for...