| Invisible Man, which took Ralph Ellison seven years'hard efforts, was published in 1952. Since its publication, it has been announced as one of the most important and influential Afro-American novels and won numerous awards. The reason for this novel's success should go back through its theme and social context. In this novel, Ellison places the racial problem in the multicultural society and mainly aims to search for the answer to the question"who am I".The predominant theme of this novel is the protagonist Invisible Man's quest for his black cultural identity. In the black and white"cultural hybridity"of the racist American society after the Civil War, especially during the mid and the second half of the 20th century, the white culture is still the mainstream, while the black is dominated and marginalized by the white culture because of the white people's cultural hegemony. As one of the minority cultures, the black culture is also in the danger of being assimilated. The black Americans are taken as a whole and abstract community with a certain stereotype, instead of as complex individuals.In this novel, Ellison discusses the psychological and cultural reasons that cause the invisibility of American blacks. He also interprets the basic reason that caused the invisibility of American blacks. The author imputes the invisible situation of black people to their miserable history as slaves and abandonment of their own cultural value. In addition, as for the loss of black individuality and cultural-identity, Ellison comes to a belief that the way for American blacks to get self-emancipation and self-development neither lies in negro nationalism nor assimilationism, but in construction of a multi-national society, in which every nation has its own feature and can have chances of full development. To Ellison, one cannot obtain one's true identity and true freedom if one denies his or her race's history and culture.Considering the fact that African American people take a large proportion of the American population and face similar conditions like the narrator, this novel—with its successful model for them to consult, or even follow—holds obvious practical significance to American society.This thesis aims at the important theme of the novel—the Afro-American's quest for cultural identity in the multicultural American society. My study structurally falls into four chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion.The introduction is a brief assessment of Ralph Ellison and his novel Invisible Man, a survey of various criticisms on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, a general introduction to cultural identity and the aim of this thesis.Chapter I discusses the formation of Ellison's literary views and presents his unique perspective on culture, especially black culture, by analyzing the background of Ellison's life and literary creation. Ellison deems that to accept one's cultural traditions is a must and the ultimate method on the blacks'way to self-identification. Ellison's racial cultural views have marking significance for contemporary American society. Ellison's frequently expressed opinion that African-American culture's assimilation by the dominant culture of the United States is established under the influences of his life experiences and literary creation.Chapter II contains an analysis of loss of cultural identity of the Afro-Americans. The most outstanding theme of the novel is the loss of identity in the novel. The narrator loses his identity in the process of suffering racial discrimination, especially spiritual discrimination. Identity here refers to individual identity as well as cultural identity. The American black, as the product of American specific history and culture, is a minority as well as an outsider in the American society. This chapter tries to analyze causes of the loss of cultural identity of the blacks in the aspects of the black group and the white.Chapter III mainly presents the Invisible Man's disillusion by analyzing his psychological puzzlement and dilemma. Ellison once states in an interview that in Invisible Man the narrator's development is one through blackness to light; that is, from ignorance to enlightenment, or to be exactly, from invisibility to visibility. At the beginning, the protagonist feels ashamed of his own race and race's history and culture, trying to conceal his true identity. After he suffers a series of disillusionments and betrayals, he begins to remove his illusions about the reality. Chapter IV focuses on Invisible Man's striving for the culture identity in the multicultural society. Black cultural identity is composed by thousands of American blacks, and for the American black, they can only find their identities in the black culture. Only through finding their own roots, their cultural tradition, can the American blacks get the power that can compare with the white, thus achieving their spiritual rebirth and finding their authentic identities. The knowledge that Invisible Man obtains from his experiences enables him to achieve a true personal identity—he becomes at last a mature, introspective man who is really aware of himself. During this process, the acceptance of his native black culture and traditions offers him pivotal power to reestablish his own cultural identity.The conclusion concludes that Ellison has reached far beyond the"race question"and has written a fable of the predicament of modern man. The thesis has examined the whole process of how the narrator searches for his own cultural identity in the white-dominated society. The nameless narrator in the novel represents the intellectual awakening blacks that have strong self-awareness. Black people begin to realize that the true freedom is the spiritual freedom and they can only get their freedom in their own culture.All in all, from this"invisible man", we have seen the epitome of American society, we have seen the life and history of the Afro-Americans and we have felt the great pain in African-American people's mind. Invisible Man will continue its appeal with strong vitality and social significance.
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