Black and White

As for the presence of white and black in Invisible Man by Ellison, the author seems to reverse the meanings readers typically associate with each color, particularly because he is explicitly referring to race. The way the narrator uses each word directly reflects his emotions toward each race at different points throughout his journey. In this manner, the meanings of black as disgraceful and animalistic and white as civilized and superior become ambiguous as his interpretation of them changes. In the scene where the invisible man has his face forced just inches away from the face of a drunken and passed out Mr.Norton he states, “He was like a formless white death, suddenly appeared before me, a death which had been there all the time and which had now revealed itself in the madness of the Golden Day”(86). There seems to be a paradoxical use of white in this quote as both the truth of the situation and also its façade. Having never been so close to a white man the invisible man uses “white death” to characterize the always imminent danger the white man posed towards him as seeming innocent and of pure intent at most times but from up close and under deeper inspection, their complex of superiority could never allow for a safe interaction to form. Just as life and death can never exist in compromise without one reigning over the other, the white death represents all white men reigning with a tight leash to the still naïve, instinctual protagonist who senses the truth and illusions enough only to be able to pull away from them.