How can personal freedom be reconciled with the need to respect the interests of society? Should we celebrate individuality or its sacrifice? Or rather, should the individual be subject to the masses, or should the masses be subject to the individual? (Allen 144). A myriad of authors have attempted to answer these questions for different purposes. In A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Burgess and Kesey reach similar conclusions by employing crazy characters to discuss the negative influences of society on the individual; in both stories, the characters must endure psychotropic treatments from morally ambiguous scientists in order to better “fit in” with society. The authors both idealize misfits who are not tarnished by their corrupt peers. Ralph Ellison echoes these sentiments in his work The Invisible Man, in which he advocates individual freedom and personal responsibility rather than submission to authority. Her point of view is best illustrated by an analysis of existentialist philosophy as she recounts absurdism in her novel. The narrator of Invisible Man struggles to find his place in society until he learns to accept the intrinsic absurdities of life and embrace the freedom that comes with this realization. Ellison explains that, in light of the innate absurdity and pointlessness of life, people must strive for individuality. Just before the narrator listens to Reverend Barbee's sermon, he observes: "And I also remember how we confronted those others, those who had placed me there in this Eden... who passed on their words to us through blood, violence, ridicule and condescension with drawling smiles, and who exhorted and threatened, intimidated with innocent words and ...... middle of paper ......s, a critical study ,. Chicago: H. Regnery, 1952.Print.Ellison, Ralph. The invisible man. London: Penguin, 1965. Print. “Existentialism {Philosophy Index}. » Philosophy Index. Internet. September 15, 2011."Existentialism and the Absurd {Philosophy Index}." Philosophy Index. Internet. September 15, 2011. .Frost, SE Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers: A Survey of Their Basic Ideas.New York: Anchor, 1989. Print.Russell, Bertrand. Wisdom of the West; a historical study of Western philosophy in its social and political context. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959. Print. Wilcox, Eliot John. “The Absurd in the Briar Patch: The Invisible Man and Ellison’s Existentialism.” April 2010. Web. September 18. 2011. .