Opening Ralph Waldo Ellison's book, The “Invisible Man,” reveals the shocking story of an anonymous African American and his lifelong struggle to find a place in the world. Recognizing the truth in this fiction leads to a bifurcation in its reality; One path asserting that the narrator's isolation is a product of his own actions, the other pointing to society's discriminatory views as the perpetrated force encroaching on his freedom. Constantly revolving around his own self-destruction, the narrator often settles in various places that are not very strategic for a man of African-American origin. To further address the issue of the narrator's invisibility, it is important not only to analyze what he sees in himself, but more importantly whether the reflection (or lack of reflection for that matter) he sees is equal to that seen by society. The reality that exists is that the narrator demonstrates problematic levels of naivety and gullibility. These failings of ignorance, however, come from a chivalrous attempt to be colorblind in a world based on inequality. Unfortunately, despite the line of black and white warnings drawn by his grandfather, the narrator continues to operate on a lost cause, leaving him as lost as the cause itself. With this level of functioning, the narrator finds himself continually moving back and forth between situations of instability, ultimately leading him to his self-discovery of failure, and with this self-discovery, of his reasoning for claim invisibility. The society in question refuses to reciprocate the equality envisioned by the narrator and, without any intention of conforming, continually uses this man for its own advantage. It's not just this exploitation, b...... middle of paper ...... but a true definition of identity and his own real identity, he is still as naive and gullible as he was at the beginning. He is “the same human individual, [seen] [differently] only in appearance” (Griffon 161). Each person he had met had a unique perception of him and while that was not how he wanted to be perceived, it was his own actions that had initially led them to that belief. Yes, he still has a unique identity within him, but it is just as real as the identity others around him carry, but is only relevant through the existence of a belief. Identity is a tool that only concerns those who use it. If man functions outside of society, then identity becomes useless and illogical. Yet while the Narrator chooses to live as a part of society, he is still solely responsible for creating the path that serves to define him negatively..