Colors and Turning Away

Continuing with the reading of Invisible Man, the reader begins to notice the importance of colors. It is clear that the novel has the theme of racism in it but Ellison uses the colors to show the distinction of the colors through the eyes of the narrator. In class we discussed how color is a social construct and and in this novel, the author uses color to highlight the importance of how things are described. A house is not just a house it is a “white house” and windows are not windows they are “black windows”. Ellison doesn’t use all the colors of the rainbow in these descriptions but uses those that go with the racial differences of the time like brown, white, or black, to name a few.

Directly linked to the idea of color is how the narrator uses a lot of imagery. Descriptions aren’t simple but seem to absorb every detail that surrounds the narrator. It also seems as if the surroundings go with the feelings of the narrator. For example when leaving the Golden Day the description of the gray concrete has a metaphor which is that it is like “the weary tones of a distant bugle blown upon still midnight air” (pg 98). Despite that the late afternoon sounds seemingly pleasant; this metaphor highlights how the narrator is fearful of the consequences of his actions by using such a drastic metaphor to explain something so simple.

The reader notices that in the novel white and black is used to show something that the narrator makes seem opposite or impossible, in other words a pun. For example when discussing the future of the narrator, Dr. Bledsoe doesn’t have a positive response to what the narrator says. The narrator then describes the situation as though he had said that white is black. The reaction of Bledsoe could be that idea of not dealing with the topic and letting it linger in the air.