Essay submitted by Doug Lee
             "Who the hell am I?" (Ellison 386) This question puzzled the invisible man, the
             unidentified, anonymous narrator of Ralph Ellison's acclaimed novel Invisible Man.
             Throughout the story, the narrator embarks on a mental and physical journey to seek
             what the narrator believes is "true identity," a belief quite mistaken, for he, although
             unaware of it, had already been inhabiting true identities all along.
             The narrator's life is filled with constant eruptions of mental traumas. The biggest
             psychological burden he has is his identity, or rather his misidentity. He feels "wearing
             on the nerves" (Ellison 3) for people to see him as what they like to believe he is and
             not see him as what he really is. Throughout his life, he takes on several different
             identities and none, he thinks, adequately represents his true self, until his final one, as
             The narrator thinks the many identities he possesses does not reflect himself, but he
             fails to recognize that identity is simply a mirror that reflects the surrounding and the
             person who looks into it. It is only in this reflection of the immediate surrounding can
             the viewers relate the narrator's identity to. The viewers see only the part of the
             narrator that is apparently connected to the viewer's own world. The part obscured is
             unknown and therefore insignificant. Lucius Brockway, an old operator of the paint
             factory, saw the narrator only as an existence threatening his job, despite that the
             narrator is sent there to merely assist him. Brockway repeatedly question the narrator
             of his purpose there and his mechanical credentials but never even bother to inquire his
             name. Because to the old fellow, who the narrator is as a person is uninterested. What
             he is as an object, and what that object's relationship is to Lucius Brockway's engine
             room is important. The narr...