The Battle For Humanity

What does it mean to be human according to Invisible Man?

There’s a good chance that at some point in your life, probably when you were a young, imaginative eight-year-old, that you wished you could be invisible.  Just think of all the hilarious pranks you could play an unsuspecting teachers and parents, as well as escape from chores and homework, all in a day’s work.  Of course, this invisibility would come and go on command.  You wouldn’t want to be stuck in a world of invisibility all the time.

Just as you may have wished for invisibility as a child, there’s a good chance you’ve also felt invisible at some point in your life.  Whether it was at a party where you hardly knew anyone, a crowded sporting event or concert, or perhaps even a casual lunch with old friends you felt had changed too much to see the “real you,” almost everyone has felt overlooked and even unwanted by some aspect of society.

But if to be human is to desire and pursue community, as Oedipus Rex suggests, then how do the invisible people fit into our society?  Does the invisible man, the narrator of Ellison’s novel, choose humanity when he chooses to live apart from a discriminatory society, or does he suffer amidst the human condition?  And, if a society is discriminatory, essentially degrading and not promoting community, is humanity even a part of that society at all?

I would argue that based upon Invisible Man, the narrator sees the discriminatory society as a hindrance against true community.  At first, he sees the Brotherhood as the instrument to promote this true community because their communist ideals promote absolute equality: equality of opportunity and equality of condition.  However, when the Brotherhood does not live by the values they claim to promote, the narrator chooses to live apart from society.  Does this mean, like Oedipus, our narrator does not choose to temper the human condition with humanity?

There is, however, a fundamental difference between Oedipus’s situation and the invisible man’s.  Oedipus removed himself from society because of internal guilt; he felt that no one could ever forgive him or see him the same way after what he had unknowingly done.  The invisible man, on the other hand, left a society that he felt was not only damaging to the idea of community itself, but also to his personal identity.

Identity is a critical piece of what it means to be human, and when the invisible man is given identities (first his college-boy identity and next his Brotherhood identity) instead of discovering or creating them himself, he is little more than a shadow of a human.  Basically, the narrator is stagnant throughout most of the book.  He has one constant identity, which is an identity of formlessness, which he allows to be filled by false identities given to him by society.  An animal is stagnant, keeping the same eating, sleeping and behavioral characteristic throughout its life because of instincts.  An inanimate object is stagnant, not changing form or function throughout its existence.  But, a human is a dynamic object, whose identity shifts and changes through experience and age.  I would argue, that according to Invisible Man, to be human means to constantly search for identity, not allow an identity to be given to you or to allow one identity to consume you.  Humans are meant to change and grow, and with that comes a constant search for identity and meaning.  It’s a lifelong process, as our narrator seems to realize near the end of the book.

Humanity is also defined through perseverance and a certain acceptance.  In Invisible Man, humanity is similar to identity, perhaps even synonymous to identity, because both require constant change.  Humanity is not a one-time choice.  You, similar to the narrator, do not wake up one day and say: I think I’ll choose humanity for the rest of my life.  It’s a constant battle to be human, especially in the face of a human condition that promotes war, violence, discrimination, hate and misunderstanding.

“…humanity it won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.”

Humanity is more like a battle than a single choice, according to Invisible Man; it’s a collection of choices made each and every day to ultimately promote a more human lifestyle.  To possess humanity, one must work every day, like Shelley’s definition suggests, to “overcome vice with virtue.”  If humanity was a one-time choice, the human condition would not comprise of the negative qualities is has.  Because humanity is a constant battle, because humans are not perfect but desire the qualities of perfection, a conflict between humanity and the human condition seems as though it will always exist.  Our choice, like the invisible man’s choice, is whether or not to fight that battle for humanity every day.