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  • Essay / Postcolonialism in Invisible Man

    Postcolonialism deals with the lasting impact of colonization, or simply the consequences of colonialism. Colonialism is the modification of everything about the colonized, for example their values, norms, culture and system, in the form of the colonizers. The ideology of the “civilizing mission” and the sense of superiority of the colonizers in their way of life and in their system were the reason for this change. The colonizers viewed and viewed the natives as inferior and “savages,” or “niggers,” and their ways of life and system were devoid of any value. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay They used the power of colonial oppression and force to impose their ideals on the natives. Invisible Man explicitly represents various aspects of colonial oppression by symbolizing racism as an obstacle to individual identity. “All my life I was looking for something and everywhere I turned someone was trying to tell me what it was (258). » This quote from the narrator of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man reveals the problematics of postcolonial identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural identity and issues such as double consciousness and hybridity. Throughout the story, the narrator struggles to arrive at a conception of his own identity, but he finds his efforts complicated by the fact that he is a black man living in a racist American society. Through the postcolonial lens, we understand that a character's self-image is damaged and that they are felt as foreign or alien by dominant cultures. Ellison's portrait of the narrator shows a character who has difficulty accepting the servile role that has been imposed on him by dominant society. The narrator depicts a feeling of invisibility, in the sense that the world is full of blind people who cannot and will not see its true nature. When the grandfather says, "I have been a traitor since birth, a spy in the enemy's country," the narrator is haunted by his grandparents' history of slavery. (258). When he accomplishes something in white male society, he doesn't know how to feel. He feels like he doesn't fit into his African American community due to the subservient role that has been imposed on him, but at the same time, it is clear that he is not part of mainstream society either. With this move, Ellison shows what many African Americans felt during his time: they did not know whether to accept the damaged self-image imposed on them and live a peaceful life, or to fight for freedom. 'equality. Due to the narrator's sense of being lost, he accepts what he believes to be his best option, namely his place in the dominant culture. Throughout the story, the narrator is an example of someone described and treated with discrimination and racial prejudice. At the beginning of the story, the narrator says that he was told that he took after his grandfather; it is this sameness that brings him to a place where he can confront racism, exploitation, and abuse to define his individuality. When he receives a scholarship to a black university, it is another form of dominant group that identifies him and qualifies him as “other” or an outsider. This basically means that even though he should go to college, he is not good enough to go to a white college because the scholarship was intended for the state college for Negroes. Ironically, it is scholarship that opens the narrator's eyes to the racial injustices he has suffered. Without this scholarship, he would not have understood that his grandfather.