Invisible Man
Narrative Techniques: These are the various ways the author used in narrating the story in the novel; to pass across the information about the story. These are some of the techniques used in INVISIBLE MAN.
First-Person Point-of-View– This is a technique whereby one of the characters is used in narrating the story of a novel. In Invisible Man, the narrator is the invisible man in the narrative and it is through his point-of-view that we know what happens from the beginning to the end.
Flashbacks– This is the sudden recall of what has gone in the past in a narrative. This technique is used throughout the novel.
The narrator is in the hole and he tries to explain his invisibility and how he resorts to living in the whole, hence he narrates the events that lead to the circumstances making use of flashbacks.
Irony– The reactions of the people to Jim Trueblood after the dastardly acts with his daughter and wife is ironic. He impregnates his daughter Matty Lou and his wife Kate at the same time.
As a result of this, the blacks condemn and discard him, while the whites embrace him, give him things and he then lives fine. Another instance of irony is how the narrator later interprets how he was expelled from the college.
He says instead of kicking him into the darkness, they have made him understand American society better. They have opened a way to have a part in making the big decision.
The encounter of the narrator Tod Clifton with Ras the Exhorter is ironic. The trio is black fighting on the street because of white men. Ras says this. “Three black men fighting in the street because of the white enslavers?”
Conflict– The narrator is expelled from the college by Dr. Bledsoe and he moves to New York with the hope of getting something tangible to do with the letters given to him by Dr. Bledsoe, he is again in a conflicting situation when he discovers that the letters are not recommendation letters, but the content blocks his aspirations of becoming somebody in life.
He afterward takes a job at Liberty Paints where he conflicts with Lucius Brockway who thinks he has come to take his job. The resulting event there nearly takes his life. He is also invited to join the Brotherhood after he presents an inspiring speech.
He faces the conflicts of his life with the members of the Brotherhood because his ideologies are different from their own. Outside the Brotherhood, he is also in conflict with a self-acclaimed black nationalist, Ras the Exhorter who tags him a traitor and instigates the crowd to hang him.
Biblical Allusion– This is used in the novel where Reverend Homer A. Barber presents his speech where he goes down memory lane on the history of the college as regards to Dr. Bledsoe whom he compares his emergence with the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
He also likens the liberation of the blacks in the college to the Biblical Moses who liberated the Israelites from Pharaoh and his people. “Like that great pilot of ancient times who led his people safe and unharmed across the bottom of the blood-red sea.” He tries to explain how Dr. Bledsoe liberates the black.
Symbolism– The narrator, after he fails to secure his desired job, secures a job at Liberty Paints which is known for its Optic White Paint color. To arrive at this pure white color, ten black drops of toner are added to each bucket.
This symbolizes the necessity of the black’s contribution to white America. There cannot be meaningful development without the contribution of the black.
Reverend Barber who gives an impressive speech praising the founders of the school and the institution is later discovered to be a blind man.
This symbolizes the situation is not as he presents it. For example, he refers to Dr. Bledsoe as a conscientious leader which is far from reality.
The narrator’s discovery that Clifton controls the Sambo doll with a thin black string that is invisible to the audience symbolizes how the narrator has been manipulated and used all his life, especially by the Brotherhood.
Suspense– An anonymous letter is addressed to the narrator warning him not to go too fast so that he will not be cut down. The writer of this letter is not known until the tail end of the novel when the narrator is in the hole that he wants to burn the papers with him to supply him light.
He compares the handwriting of the letter with the one on the sheet of paper where Jack writes his Brotherhood’s name; he discovers that they are the same. It is then revealed that Brother Jack is the author of the letter.
The author deliberately suspends the revelation of this till the end of the novel to sustain the interest of the readers to the end.
Sarcasm– This is an expression ironically worded to ridicule a person. This is used after the burial of Tod Clifton when the narrator is giving the reports of the burial to Brother Jack and Tobin Tobitt.
He tells them how the people troop out in their numbers to the burial. He says the people are with them but doesn’t know how far. Tobitt then sarcastically refers to the narrator as “the great tactician” when he asks,” is that all the great tactician has to tell us?”
The narrator explains further that he tried to reach the committee but all to no avail, he says, “So we went ahead on my personal responsibility. “This is where Brother Jack takes up also sarcastically calls the narrator “The great tactician of personal responsibility.”
He is also referred to sarcastically as “an extraordinary tactician, a Napoleon of strategy and personal responsibility.” They also refer to him as “one who has an appreciation for subtleties of expression.”
Dream– The author also makes use of dreams as a technique. When the narrator is in the hole, he dreams of seeing Dr. Bledsoe, Mr. Norton, Ras, the school superintendent, and those whose identities are not clear to him.
These are the people that have wronged him in one way or the other. They all hold him down holding knives. This reveals what awaits him if he leaves the hole and goes up there