Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison (1952)
“The most-tested novel on the AP Literature exam — a Black man's journey from the South to Harlem reveals that in America, the greatest act of power is making a person invisible.”
At a Glance
An unnamed Black narrator moves from the Jim Crow South to Harlem, seeking recognition and identity, only to find that every institution — white society, the Black college, the Brotherhood — wants to use him, not see him. After Harlem erupts in a race riot, he descends underground, raging and illuminated, to find his voice.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Invisible Man won the National Book Award in 1953. In a 1965 Book Week poll of critics, it was voted the most important American novel published since WWII. It appears on the AP Literature exam more than any other novel — 29 times as of this writing. It reshaped American literary culture's understanding of whose story counted as a universal American story.
Diction Profile
Highly variable — ranges from sermonic grandeur to street vernacular to Marxist abstraction to surrealist fragmentation. Ellison is one of the most stylistically protean novelists in American literature.
Extremely high