I remember reading somewhere that one of the best ways to learn about oneself is through writing. While grasping for words we reconsider and elucidate our beliefs and feelings, questions form in our minds and sometimes we find their answers. In "Portrait of an Invisible Man- I see not only a captivating portrayal of a person but also Paul Auster's attempt to reevaluate his relationship with his father, to realize his influence on him and depict Sam Auster's character before his father's "entire life will vanish along with him."" .
The unexpected death of the author's father urges him to look back at the late man's life and the part he played in his own life. The image he delineates is a negative one, summing up all the frustration caused by the father to the son, a portrait of an aloof, solitary and impassive man who is negligent about his family, home, clothes and has "no hunger for sensual pleasures, no thirst for intellectual pleasures."" What appears in the limelight is the writer's subtle feeling of pain and disappointment, for which he blames "the invisible man- who never had time and patience for him, but whose attention and approval he desperately craved. Auster reveals his father's lack of interest in him and the other members of his family in a series of happenings - the circumstances around the author's birth, the interrupted football game, his clichés and lack of affection, his behavior towards his daughter and his indifferent reaction when first seeing his newborn grandson. The stories about the game with the tennis ball in the street and the father's narrative about South America only serve to contrast and emphasize his general aloofness.
Presenting Paul Auster as a cold-hearted, selfish man, the author senses he is "moving around in circles- .In the middle of the essay, Auster digresses to admit that he feels he is not fulfilling his aim in writing about his father because the pain is still there, that's why in order to understand him better, the son decides he must delve into "the darkness,"" his family's obscure history.