The Invisible man

            
             "Who the hell am I?" (Ellison 386) This question puzzled the invisible man, the unidentified, anonymous narrator of Ralph Ellison's acclaimed novel Invisible Man. Even though, the narrator embarks on a mental and physical journey to seek what the narrator believes is "true identity," a belief quite mistaken, for he, although unaware of it, had the power to his identity in hand all along, because of the society not recognizing him, the Brotherhood using him as a "machine", and "[walking] into a life that appears suddenly mysterious & frightening" (Griffon 9), he finally realizes his true identity as the invisible man. .
             The biggest psychological burden he has is his identity, or rather his misidentity. He feels "wearing on the nerves" (Ellison 3) for people to see him as what they like to believe he is and not see him as what he really is. Throughout his life, he takes on several different identities and none, he thinks, adequately represents his true self, until his final one, as an invisible man. The narrator thinks the many identities he possesses do not reflect him, but he fails to recognize that identity is simply a mirror that reflects the surrounding and the person who looks into it. It is only in this reflection of the immediate surrounding that the viewers can relate the narrator's identity to. The viewers see only the part of the narrator that is apparently connected to the viewer's own world. The part obscured is unknown and therefore insignificant. Lucius Brockway, an old operator of the paint factory, saw the narrator only as an existence threatening his job, despite that the narrator is sent there to merely assist him. Brockway repeatedly questions the narrator of his purpose there and his mechanical credentials but never even bothers to inquire his name. Because to the old fellow, who the narrator is as a person is uninteresting. What he is as an object, and what that object's relationship is to Lucius Brockway's engine room is important.