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Essay / Invisible Man - 998
In Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison creates and portrays Dr. Bledsoe, several members of the Brotherhood, and Mr. Norton as not what they appear to be, but, selfish, wearing a "mask ”, racist jackals taught by the cunning slave owners of years ago. These characters are only a reflection of slavery and the old slave master. They are blind and invisible men, without real identity, without integrity, and they are not autonomous. They are a mere existence in the minstrel tradition, the minstrel stereotype that veiled the humanity of slaves. The “mask” and the stereotype of the minstrel are symbols of the time of slavery. The "mask" was worn by slaves as a means of surviving and protecting themselves from the unpleasant and morbid reality of the miserable world of slavery, such as the slave Jim, in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The minstrel stereotype was used to suppress the slave owner's awareness of his moral identification with his own savage acts of inhumanity toward another human being, and with the human ambiguities hidden behind the "mask." The “mask” is worn by men who have not learned what it means to be a man. In Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison presents Dr. Bledsoe as the president of a prestigious black university funded by rich and powerful Caucasian men whom he hates with a passion. “…white people don't control this school…they support it, but I control it…The only ones I claim to please are the big white people, and even those I control more than they control me” (Ellison 142). He earned their utmost trust and allegiance by being deceptive, using deceptive tactics, and he is a hypocrite. Under the disguise and facade of pretense and hypocrisy, it seems he has taken the college to painful heights, a middle of paper ......fe, understanding human nature and himself, and his quest for his true identity and autonomy. This is what he is talking about: “…a circular view of life…the end is at the beginning” (Ellison 6). Like Invisible Man, Mark Twain's Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was also constantly confronted with the element of surprise which led to confusion, helplessness and despair. In Invisible Man, the "mask" is worn by individuals who choose to maintain a facade to obscure the true self, the dark side, their inhumane behavior, hatred, deception and hypocrisy. The “mask” is worn because of historical events that occurred many years before, their historical consequences, “…the end is at the beginning.” “We wear the mask that smiles and lies. It hides our cheeks and protects our eyes, this debt we pay to human cunning; no, that they only see us, while we wear the mask. ~Paul Dunbar