The Man Who Claims to be Invisible

There are many things about Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison that surprised me.  The style and tone of the author greatly differ from what I was expecting upon beginning the book.  Initially, I thought the book would be like a slave narrative or something along those lines.  Also, I predicted the protagonist as being someone with a poor-education, strong ambition, and in general a family man.  Another prediction I had going into the book was that the action would unfold slowly and gradually, with the author building up to every event to make each as profound as possible.  If the first three chapters are any indication as to how the rest of the novel will proceed, it seems as though my predictions were quite a ways off.  The novel opens towards the ending and then enters a flashback to the narrator's past.  We learn that although the narrator is a well-educated college student, something monumental occurred that caused him to stray from this path and become the man we meet in the first few pages of the prologue.  This man appears to be unstable, aggressive, and apparently obsessed with light. The college boy on the other hand could be described very differently-humble to white folks, condescending of his peers, and possessing a potentially great future. By providing the audience with these two contrasts early on in the novel, Ellison sparks our interest as to how this great change occurred.  The plot itself is much different from what I expected as well.  Ellison vidily describes scenes of violence with imagery to have a greater effect on the audience.  Examples of this can be found on pages 4-5 when he attacks the blond man, on pages 23-25 during the boxing scene and on pages 27-28 with the electric rug.  A key element to the plot so far is the advice that the narrator's grandfather gives him. "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open" (Ellison 16).  This quote is extremely important to the significance of the work, and I predict that the narrator's transition from the college boy into the peculiar man will occur once he understands this advice.