Abstract

Invisible Man, a novel truly revealing the dark side of American society, is the first long work and also the only one of Ralph Ellison, an outstanding American black novelist of the 20th century. This thesis begins with a brief introduction to the author and this novel, and then analyzes the conflict images—invisibility and visibility, black and white, chains and liberty and their profound meanings. By means of various conflict images, Ellison demonstrated the prevailing racialism in the American society.

Key words: Invisible Man, conflict images, racialism

摘要

《看不见的人》，一部真实反映美国社会阴暗面的小说，是美国二十世纪杰出黑人小说家拉尔夫•埃里森的第一部也是唯一的一部长篇著作。本文从简要介绍作者生平和小说入手，进而从看得见与看不见、黑与白以及链锁与自由三方面来具体论述了作品中出现的矛盾意象及其深层涵义。通过各种矛盾意象，埃里森深刻揭露了美国社会盛行的种族歧视现象。

关键词：《看不见的人》; 矛盾意象; 种族歧视

1. Introduction
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) was born in 1914, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison’s parents were Southern blacks who moved to Oklahoma City for a better life. When he was three, his beloved father died in a freak accident. His mother supported herself and her son by cleaning other people’s houses. She also supported her son’s interest in music and writing. She would bring old music recordings and magazines home from the houses where she worked. Ralph liked jazz, and played trumpet in his high school band. He dreamed of writing serious music.
In 1933, Ellison entered the Tuskegee Institute on a scholarship to study music. While he was studying music primarily in his classes, he spent a lot of time in the library, reading up on modernist classics. He specifically cited reading The Waste Land as a major awakening moment for him. His famous work Invisible Man involves many subtle and touching descriptions of Blues, and we can find that his great achievement in literature owes much to his deep understanding of music. Due to the financial problem, he was forced to drop out of school and moved to Harlem, New York city, where he developed his knowledge and interest in the African American literature.