Black & Invisible Is it possible for a man to be invisible? Did African Americans experience racial torment even after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment? In the novel The Invisible Man, the narrator guides readers through what it feels like[2] to be invisible from the world around him[3] and the racial experiences he faced as a black man in the 1940s and 1950s. In Ralph Ellison's "Prologue" and "Battle Royal", excerpts from The Invisible Man Ellison[4] help create a clear understanding of how he experienced racism and racial cruelty, what it means to be invisible at the figuratively and how being invisible affected him. Say no. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay In the chapter "Battle Royal", the narrator experiences racial cruelty and constructs a vivid picture through the words of his experiences to help readers understand exactly what he was going through.[5] Before the Battle Royal fight, the narrator is blindfolded. While waiting, he hears white men shouting racial slurs and threats at him and the other black men around him, such as "I want to tackle that red-headed nigger [and] tear him limb from limb" and " let me take on these blacks.” sons of bitches” (Ellison 17). The narrator faces this cruelty again after the fight when he and the other men receive money and riches on an electric carpet. Before he is signaled to collect the money, he hears a white man make another racist comment, hearing "those niggers look like they're about to pray"; then, after receiving the agreement, the narrator jumps towards the first gold coins he sees and suddenly "A hot and violent force tore [his] body, [making him] tremble like a wet rat, [to his great surprise] the carpet was electrified” (Ellison 21). The white men sternly insisted that they get the money back, shouting “pick it up, fucking pick it up” before trying to force them and push them onto the carpet (Ellison 21). White men continued to behave this way for a long time before they decided to stop. Eventually, several years later, the narrator falls victim to becoming figuratively invisible and explains how this happens to readers in the "Prologue" by generating a comprehensible concept. He describes to readers that he is not physically invisible, but that people refuse to acknowledge his existence "only [by seeing his] surroundings, themselves, or the figment of their imagination" (Ellison 3). The narrator talks about how this can be an advantage when you want to “passively fight against [the sleepwalkers] (men) without them realizing it” and how he “has been fighting with Monopolated Light & Power for some time now using their services and paying them nothing at all, and they don't know it” (Ellison 4-5). He also explains how being invisible also has drawbacks because of how "[it] is often rather annoying", and how it too often causes a man to "question and doubt of its real existence” ( Ellison 3-4). The narrator explains that since he became invisible, he feels alive and believes that life otherwise is death. As the end point of the "Prologue", the narrator goes through a situation where his invisibility actually causes him to break down and almost kill a man. He explains how "he began to push people away" due to the resentment produced by the doubt of your existence that comes with being invisible; therefore,.